[Schrodinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The quote doesn't indicate that it wouldn't swing the election. The quote indicates that the researcher's interest was blatantly political, which in turn suggests a political bias to the study.

If I had become convinced that a hidden massacre was going on, my second concern would be notifying the UN or world press in an attempt to stop it. Swaying an election in which both participants had a nearly identical policy to how to further manage Iraq? Low on my priority list.

The researchers never call these fatalities a "hidden massacre." That is your label, and, interestingly enough, your perception of the study results. The publication of the research findings in the highly prestigous British medical journal, Lancet, is surely one way of attempting to draw attention to the situation by the UN and the world press. Perhaps, the report was met with too many responses such as your own?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

100,000 in a country of 24,000,000 is 1 in 240. Who would kill that many, and how? Indiscriminate bombing has definitely happened -- mistakes were made -- just not THAT many.

Actually the CIA Factbook gives Iraq's 2004 population as over 25,000,000. Are you saying those civilians deaths were carried out on purpose?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That number of deaths would have been noticed before this guy made his excursion. Iraq is a violent place, sure, but is functioning as a society to the point where it can notice such things. Even the insurgency is sophisticated enough to notice and promote such things. They feed their own media, and once in a while ours, with their own propaganda. Civilian tragedy makes every news feed in the world. It would have been noticed.

I'm sure the Iraqi's noticed it, but that was just propaganda, right? The US military refuses to do civilian body counts, so they were REFUSING to notice it. Obviously, civilian tragedy in this instance gets ignored, since the most reputable study of it in Iraq to date was pretty much ignored in the media at the time it came out. So far as I know, The Chronicle of Education is the only outfit that has pointed this omission out.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And by the way, who risks their life to that level to bring back statistics? Doesn't the bare fact that he made the trip make you suspicious of his numbers?

This same man risked his life tallying the dead in the civil conflict in Rwanda where his estimates were widely accepted by the UN and the rest of the world. He is an expert in his field. Geologists and seismologists risk their lives and have even been killed studying volcanic activity. No one questions their research, as a result, however.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And hey, on that point... isn't it ironic that his cover was blown multiple times as this blue-eyed westerner goes around collecting information, through what is apparently an unheard-of level of violence, and yet -- through the chaos of 1 in 240 killed -- he makes it out of the country somehow unscathed without protection from anyone but his translators? The mere fact that his head is not separate from his body is evidence contrary to his so-called "findings".

I'm not sure where you get your "multiple times." He kept an extremely low profile and hired Iraqi citizens to do the actual surveys. Perhaps his survival has something to do with his authenticity as a world renowned social scientist?