PJ Media

If the Iraqis were dying at a rate of 5.5/1000 per year and assuming that the size of the population remained constant, you can see that some in that population (at least 5.5) would live to be 182 years old and 11 to be 181 and 16.5 to 180 etc.

Half the population could expect to live beyond 91 years of age, I don’t think so.

What this means is that the figure is either invalid, if the age groups within the population are homogenous or that the population contains clumps of people at various ages.

If you look at the population of the US the baby boomers are entering their sixties and by the end of the decade the death rate from natural causes is going to jump dramatically, because the boomers which represent a very significant portion of the population are going to begin dying off.

Now if the Iraqi population contains 25 million people and the ages are distributed homogenously and the life expectancy is 75 years you would expect roughly 27,800 people per month to die of natural causes and 1,112,000 to die in a forty month period. So what the hell is Dr. Burnham talking about? To do a meaningful study you have to know the distribution of ages within the population exactly, or all bets are off.

The purpose of Dr. Burnham’s study was political. He wants the US to bring the troops home. If we do that before the Iraqi government is firmly in power is Dr. Burnham going to care about the resulting millions of deaths that are going to occur? This is the same thing that happened in Vietnam. The Democrats defunded the war and Nixon had no choice but to withdraw the troops. The blood of the millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians that were slaughtered as a result is on their hands. The sad thing is that they want to do it again, because it was their finest hour, very very sad.