Charting progress in Iraq

If you have not noticed, in El Universal in Mexico City, the newspaper reported today that 45 people have become ill with flu like symptoms over the last 2 weeks in Leon, Guanajuato; and doctors in the hospital there suspect these patients may be infected with bird flu, H5N1.
The symptoms are severe, with some patients severely ill.
So if all hell breaks out in Mexico, with a bird flu pandemic,
people will not be as concerned about what happens in Iraq.

herman: short thread in the Mumps post. So far my only English source isn't very reliable so I'm waiting for more info.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6928
The report in English regarding the 45 patients with possible bird flu in Mexico is at the above website.

herman: This is the same WorldNetDaily report which is not the Spanish report in El Universal (which I have now read). The English report omits some things and adds a lot of political material. The current issue of El Uinversal doesn't seem to have more info. So this is the same Moonie paper harangue.

Revere,
The report from El Universal, dated September 24, says:

"The director of the general regional hospital, Ernesto Castillo, said he did not know the cause, but it could be an avian virus, that is to say, transmitted by birds, similar to botulism."
Of course this is my translation from the Spanish. I hope we can obtain more information on this situation, since it has the potential to be a very dangerous development; if doctor Castillo is correct; and it is determined that this is an avian virus that is infecting these people.

Umm, yes, I would want to wait for a better source than the WND, myself. I've been calling it the "Wingnut Daily" for several years now. WND pieces tend to make the articles in "Pravda", circa 1948, look like good solid reporting.

herman: Yes, I read that. But anyone can say "maybe it's bird flu" and there is so much in this article that is not very accurate one wonders if people have been quoted accurately or if the ones quoted know what they are talking about. So I usually wait and see. I notice the Front Page of Flu Wiki is also expressing skepticism. Nothing much we can do but wait for more info, although what often happens is that there is no follow up.

http://www.correo-gto.com.mx/notas.asp?id=41977
A report for the newspaper Correo, the daily news of Guanajuato, Mexico; says 9 more people have been infected, bringing the total to 63. Blood samples were taken from all 63 patients, which were then sent to Mexico City. The results will be known on October 11th.
Tests on the patients at the local hospital are so far negative for various diseases, including influenza and dengue.
The article says the local doctors think it is a virus that is causing this. The symptoms include high fever,extreme headaches, severe stomach and joint pains, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, eye pain, and weakness.
But none of the articles say tests have been specifically run for bird flu. Do they know how to test for bird flu?
How many more people are going to become infected?
If this is bird flu, as the local director of the regional hospital, Dr. Ernesto Castillo, believes it is,why is he not testing for it?
Is this the way a bird flu epidemic could begin, with the doctors not doing the tests for it, as more and more people become ill? Should Guanajuato be sealed off and quarantined? What good would it do?

herman: I didn't read it that the local director thought it was bird flu. I read it he said, "maybe it's bird flu." But if they tested for influenza, then that rules out bird flu, which is influenza A. This sounds like a severe acute illness, more like a foodborne or waterborne disease, perhaps Shigella (bacillary dysentery) or an enteric virus. We might never know, as over half such outbreaks never identify the agent. We'll just have to wait and see. Yes, bird flu could start like this, but this doesn't sound like it is turning out to be bird flu.

Herman,

If you will allow a little advice from an old flu hand: read the daily news threads in the Flu Wiki forum. If you let your adrenal glands take over everytime you read about a suspicious infectious disease, you will be a wreck by the time a pandemic appears. The Wiki regulars take a long view of the news and are experienced at reading between the lines.

It is a good thing that you are interested and paying attention, but here is a good article to read about adjustment reactions, which are a normal and predictable response to encountering a new threat.

There is a lot of useful information here in Floblogia and the reveres have a helpful list of links on the left sidebar of this blog.

can we have a graphics of the amount of WMD's detected
and destroyed, please ?

And why is Nov.2002 - June 2004 excluded ?

Anon-Ask the Syrians, Norkos and Iranians about the warheads they were fitting with the WMD'S they got from Saddam that are now aiming into Israel and N. Iraq at our troops. Lets see, 600 warheads at about 50 lbs of product each. That means they only have to fit out another 2300 warheads to take care of the VX liquid. Wont need it though, one pinprick worth of this stuff entering your mouth or eyes and you'll last only a few minutes.

Did I mention the dirty bomb materials the Israelis bombed after scotching up enough for the UN Security council? They wont be back into that area again for a while. A long while.

Hey Revere, nice graph. ONLY problem I see with it is that its missing the 600,000 that you asserted that the US forces killed or as the Lancet put it.... Excess deaths.

I guess if he isnt wearing a uniform you have to call him civilian. What this DOES tell me is that the ISF is taking way too many casualites and not enought civilians are dying as a result of their efforts. Time for them to armor up and go get them.

anon, Randy: If you notice the source of the graph, you will find it is from the US Department of Defense. By policy, they don't count up the collateral damage. As someone there siad, you post with the data you have from DoD, not the data you'd like. As for the WMDs you say are here, there and everywhere according to authoritative sources, we knew the same thing before we went into Iraq. Except we didn't. Meanwhile I don't think you have commented on the trends in the DoD chart. Instead we get the usual, "watch the birdie" response while the real slgiht of hand goes on elsewhere. As for the 600,000, I don't think you appreciate the demographics. In the US and other developed countries, death rates are about 1% of the population. In Iraq that would be a baseline of 300,000 per year. 600,000 over 3 years means 500,000 a year, or a death rate of 1.67%, not in the least out of line with many countries. The only problem is that the 600,000 are people that wouldn't have died without our actions. You make it sound as if the number is so outlandishly high, we would have bodies piled up in the streets. We do and it produces a result not at all out of line with what we sould expect in a country with a high death rate from whatever cause.

Revere-The graph was a watch the birdie on this side of the fence too. I see about 3000 and thats cheap in a war zone. Not that I think that civilian casualties are cheap. But define civilian a little better.

That 600,000 number is an opinion. If Saddam was there still I can only wonder how many he was killing a year? I also wonder how many would have gone if Iraq had gotten on the wagon a little more tightly with Assad, the Norkos and Iran? Not that Iraq would have cozied up too much with Iran, but all things are possible.

The ball is still in play Revere. You guys can assert that there were no WMD's all you want. The amount of time and money that would have had to have gone into NBC weaponry is far beyond the Syrians capability, so how come there were so many Iranians dead in the South of Syria? 600 plus missiles. Scuds and other funny ones. The plan? Gaggle the Israelis with missiles so that their Arrows and Patriots cant bring them all down. Send them all at once and if even five get thru, its over. When one of the morons in the Middle East pulls them out and starts mounting them to missiles I would say that its a moot point whether you are right or wrong, only that they are mounting them. We are there for stability if there is such a thing in the region. Always saying of course that we are killing civilians and not insurgents, terrorists and of course some civilians. Me, I would start taking out city blocks as a matter of course. An insurgent, Al Mahdi or terrorist runs into an area they will throw him out for fear of getting leveled. Now theres a count for you and real civilians get killed then rather than these ghosts we are seeing now. All too correct though for that.

Let one of those warheads get launched and watch what happens to the "civilian" death counts in the region. Again though Revere, where are the bodies. If anyone can appreciate collaterals, I can having been in the same situation. If we are bombing civilians where are the bodies. Just cause Obama and Hillary say it doesnt make it so. Those jerks from Amnesty Intl. are also to blame as the people who are already in the grave from Saddam get counted as part of our death count. "450,000 in the graveyards", gets turned into "US forces killed 450,000" and thats a load of crap.

I say it again, if we had killed 600,000 thats 1/40th of the population then we would be sitting at home by now sucking on fudgesicles and planning the next one. The North Vietnamese lost 1.1 million across 20 years that the French, US were in there. If we killed 600,000 in under 5 we are REALLY kicking their asses.

Maybe we should just go out and kill 600,000 in the hot spot areas. We could be home for Xmas....

Randy: The 600,000 (now more) is NOT an opinion. It may be right and it may be wrong, but it is based on the best data that exists. There are other numbers that are also based on data, like Iraq Body Count. But everyone agrees that the Lancet is based on the best methods and info so far. That doesn't make it right. It just makes it the best estimate we have and definitely NOT an "opinion."

But everyone agrees that the Lancet is based on the best methods and info so far.

Actually, the esteemed Michael Fumento takes issue with the Lancet article... Here So you know it has to be wrong...

Revere:

Unless I am totally misinterpreting their argument, it appears that those Harvard medicos Roberts and Garfield have not heard of Simpson's paradox.

Reference Harvard:

Sorry about that Harvard, it was Columbia.

bar: Hardly. Better to read the original, not lawyer Fumento's version. Their statistical consultant is in the National Academy and I know him. He's top notch and he knows what Simpson's Paradox is. In what way do you think they have fallen prey to it?

Revere-Best data that exists? Gimme a break dad....

GlobalSecurity.com
" By 1984 it was reported that some 300,000 Iranian soldiers and 250,000 Iraqi troops had been killed, or wounded."

That was in three years of slugfesting between Iran and Iraq. We saw those bodies on TV and regularly at that.

IBC-different numbers, Lancet highly inflated numbers, and on and on and on. The Iraqi Health ministry says no where near that. Dont start the sock puppet thing with that one.

Bottom line is that I DONT SEE THE BODIES!!!!!! It would take months if not years to bury that many people singly and we arent doing it in mass graves either. Why? Because we are killing en masse.

If we were or had we would be out!!!!!

Then there is the count of "civilians". Here is how that works.

Iraqi with gun in his hands that has been shot dead.....

1. DoD - Terrorist KIA
2. Lancet - 20 civilians killed, including women and children
3. CNN -200 civilians killed, including women, children and they were taking shelter from the firefight inside a school.
4. IBC - Not sure if he was an Iranian or Iraqi
5. Iranian News-Freedom Fighter, took 20 Americans with him as he strapped a charge on his chest. Took out one of the ministry buildings.
6. Al Mahdi Army-Killed 200 Americans, 100 Iraqi policemen as he blew up a 500 pound bomb in the middle of a marketplace to ensure his place in Heaven. Of course he is a martyr of the cause.

Lets see the pictures of the bodies Revere. The place is lousy with journalists and if we were whacking them at that rate it it would be like 150 per day for the last four years. In fact if we were killing them in the streets there would be gun camera footage and so far I have only seen a few films of people like Zarqawi going up in a poof. No collaterals.

I still say we should be allowed to run out and find 150 bad guys a day and just execute them. After a while I think they would decide not to fight any longer.

FYI-The Israelis are preparing plans for a tactical strike against Damascus and Teheran if we dont do it. Everyone have a nice day and remember to say "CHEESE" when that great big flash in the sky goes off. Remember that the US was killing them off at 600,000 plus per year and if it were the case it would take them to negative population growth in under five years. Guess that age 69 WHO life expectancy must have dropped in the last five years to zero.

Randy: You don't read what I'm saying and what the Lancet says. These are excess deaths, from all sources, including crime, disease, etc., etc. The issue here is the same as it is in court: But-for the invasion, they wouldn't have died. The methods used are the best scientific methods available under these circumstances. You have been telling us since day one that this strike or that strike or that bombing or this bombing is imminent. But it doesn't happen. And if it does, it will be just as disastrous as the Iraq invasion or more so. Everyone connected with plumping for this war has been wrong but we are supposed to keep believing them. Their record has been abysmal but when someone comes along and uses accepted scientific survey methods, suddenly it's all hooey. Let's remember who has the track record here.

so, is there some official statistics of deaths and births
in Iraq ? I'd like to see the chart 1970-2007

Revere: Apologies, my comment was not based on any certainty, just a feeling.

That extreme Fallujah value in the 2004 data is disconcerting. Makes me think there was a missing group or sorting variable.

I have read the 2007 lancet paper, and must say that considering the difficulties of obtaining data, it looks credible. However to find that asymmetric grouping I would need to evaluate the raw data from both papers, especially the discarded 2004 Fallujah data, which might give a hint of the unsorted groups that I suspect might exist.

Excess deaths are based up on previous years under a madman who was hellbent on retaining power at the expense of the Iraqi people. The Lancet used a lot of incoherent numbers and were taken issue with immediately by the people doing the counting. The reason? No bodies.

The point being was that if we were there the reason there were 600,000 "excess deaths" had to be the US and that is crap. I doubt that we caused a body count of more than 100,000. 65,000 of that went during the open war. Thats a verifiable number. Excess deaths? In a war zone? Thats like applying a peacetime criteria to Nagasaki. Excess deaths? If you were in Nagasaki or were Japanese you could say that that those were excess. On this side of the Pacific though we we would have called them necessary.

Sounds also like the Lancet is losing its objectivity as well. Excess against what? Previous years under Saddam? How about studying excess rapes caused by the boys?

The original assertion was Revere that the US had caused 600,000+ deaths and that is a load of it. I am sorry. We are not responsible if some yo-yo takes someone out and executes him in his backyard. The Iraqi's are supposed to be policing their own. If they dont we arent responsible. Its a war zone or a defense zone now, take your pick.

FWIW I understand your position. Iraq IMO should have just been destroyed and left to its own internal squabbles. I think we need to get out of the nation building business and just start smoking our enemies down to their building foundations. Same in Iran. We should just go in, knock out their nuke capablities, flame Teheran and just leave. Let them clean up the mess. Two or three generations later they will either decide to play nice or their threatening rant will cause the next one.

It is exactly what we should have done in Vietnam. Leveled Hanoi and just left. War over in a week. Cant fight a war with no infrastructure....

Scorched earth produces no grass. Cheery Sunday thoughts. Robert E. Lee said that there is no such thing as a holding action in a war. Fight and destroy as much and as many as you can. Be humane if possible. If not, inflict as much on them as possible.

Randy: LOL. If Saddam was causing a lot of death, then the excess would be less. Why can't you accept the obvious: things have gotten really, really bad in Iraq since the invasion and a lot of people have died as a result. Maybe you think that it was worth it in the long run, but you don't live there. What was incoherent about the Lancet numbers? How about a scientific critique instead of a rant?

I find it very funny that Randy starts off his irrational ravings by calling Saddam Hussein a "madman", but then goes on to advocate mass murder. Must be the narcissism of small differences.

Lancet by their own admission said that their numbers were estimated. So lets see we will just go and estimate that there are 660,000 or hey go call Micheal Moore... He'll know. Or Barack "We are bombing civilians" Obama, or is that Obombme. Then everyone just up and ponied because it was the Lancet. Thats crap.

It was to move an agenda in my opinion and that is just more of the same old, same old.

Wonder when Hell they were during Saddam Revere. I didnt see them whacking his regime, Clinton or Ethiopians over the head because there was a war underway in whatever countries there were. This is pure bullshit.

Very lefty bent on the part of Lancet nowadays... It doesnt go unnoticed.

Tyler with all due respect. IMO we have been PC'd for the last 50 years about how to fight wars. There is a large group in the military that advocates the submission rather than the destruction of ones enemies. This is where we get into the sock puppet regimes that we have done so many times in the past. Only three have survived (Germany, Korea, Japan). The others though due to commitment havent. Vietnam, Iran, Panama come to mind and to lesser degrees other countries.

In some we havent done enough, some too much. The theory being that if we prop them up they survive. Didnt work too well for the Russians in Cuba either.

So as I was leaving there was a new mind set that didnt say the other was wrong, only that the costs for the US for war after war after war were too high to press a land battle that cost us kids that we didnt and definitely dont have now. Our seed corn goes off to war and fails to germinate kind of thing. It never comes back. .

Hence the bring out the toys and smash the enemy down to the most basic level of destruction. Kill your enemies and they dont kill you kind of thing. If we had leveled Hanoi in a Dresden type of raid, the Russians might have come into the war true enough, but I doubt it. They wouldnt back Castro up to maintain that little fiefdom, they likely wouldnt have Vietnam. But that is conjecture and we always have to deal with whats in front of us.

Iran, North Korea and Syria are actively engage in the fitting of Sarin and my absolute all time favorite VX into warheads and missiles. You DONT put the stuff on to the tube unless you plan to use them. That is first and foremost in every WMD program. Why? Because as with the Syrian disaster, the stuff has a tendency to expand, leak and well the outcome for your scientists aint so good. Its one of the reasons we got rid of our stuff out in the deep blue sea a long time ago, most of it anyway. It was leaking in the repositories in places like Pine Bluff AR.

So the question is, do we destroy places and people to keep them from doing the unthinkable? Do WE do the unthinkable to prevent them from doing the unthinkable? I can tell you that if one missile is launched from Syria into Israel with a WMD, Damascus and Teheran will be gone within 7 and 23 minutes after it hits.

Want to talk about murder? Or is that defense?.... The line is so blurred now. Fastest way to delineate them from now on is to declare war rather than resolution. Then there is no question unless your name is Clinton.

Uh-scuse me. But this sounds like another attack on one of our embassies.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298753,00.html

Supposedly it was a mix of Mark 3A2's and incendiaries. Now I guess he was just going in to apply for a passport.

Randy: Wouldn't be surprised. We are inviting it.

Revere: looks like Wiley reads your blog.

Well Randy, it looks like your post is predicated on paranoia and the alleviation of the difficulties you perceive with the violent projection of state power. Once again, narcissism of small differences. You don't want to coexist with the rest of the world, you want the U.S. to behave like a lunatic in perpetual fear of death.

It is exactly what we should have done in Vietnam. Leveled Hanoi and just left. War over in a week. Cant fight a war with no infrastructure....

No, what we *should* have done was not get into that war in the first place. Then either the Soviet Union would have contributed resources to keep the communistic government standing, and would have collapsed that much faster, or it wouldn't have - and we'd have the same result with Vietnam becoming capitalist and friendly towards us much sooner, without the decade of war slowing their development down.

My God, you just don't learn, do you?

I am surprised that there is support for someone to walk into an embassy with a load of grenades... inviting it? An attack on an head of state or embassy in an undeclared war could generate a declared one. Seems I heard of something called WWI.

Gee Tyler, seems that even under the great one Clinton we had the first WTC attack, and a shit load of our embassies dropped onto the ground. He never fired a shot in anger, just to divert attention. Hmmm....Coexistence demanded by a threat of terrorism? No thanks.

Paranoia is a term applied when someone is delusional or has a fear to the point of irrationality. Let me be irrational for a moment or two. Lets see, we have had a Marine barracks dropped, a Army barracks dropped. Several embassies dropped and several hundred collaterals dropped in Kenya, three airliners dropped, a Pentagon attacked and people dropped and GWB was on the job for only 8 months when it happened. We had the WTC's dropped and several thousand collaterals and economic damage We have the head of a country that is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program, feeding nuke waste to a country that is placing it onto warheads aiming at Israel and our troops in Iraq. The second country is colluding with the Norkos to fit those same types of missiles with VX and Sarin and had an accident in doing so in the last two weeks. Just stop me if I am being irrational or delusional anywhere because I wouldnt want to be accused of "inviting" a pre-emptive attack to stop them. Its that paranoia thing with me.

I suppose that those actions are just to be ignored and is business as usual? Please, I must be irrational when I am really doing nothing more than reporting current events. Ho-hum...... lets just go invite them in and everything will be just fine.

I guess your defintion of paranoia has a much lower criteria than mine to be called dellusional. I dont live in fear, but I am fully aware of whats happening pretty much day by day, or I have a good idea of the events and what they ultimately mean. Since these types of things havent stopped, I think it would mean that we have to defend and in some cases go on the offense to prevent them. Prevent defense means that if I see someone fitting warheads that are very unstable with Sarin/VX/or nuke waste that I take them out before they have a chance to use them. Why? Well obviously so I can invite an attack on myself post of my pre-emptive one of course.

As for Vietnam. If you get into a war, go in to win. Duh! If we had gone into Iraq and laid pure unshirted hell on them for a month long bombing campaign we wouldnt be having this conversation. But with Iraq and Vietnam, everyone is trying to PC the outcome. Nation building. Give me a break. Break their ability to fight, and if necessary eliminate them completely. Martyr is a term used by alive people to describe dead people. If both are dead, are they fighters for the cause or martyrs? Neither, they are just dead and no one gets to apply terms.

Our enemies are going to be hit and constantly and we are going to have to fight more wars in the near future and they are going to be bigger. Casualities IMO have to approach that of WWII to achieve a successful outcome and that applies to the Muslims against us and us against them. You cant change people or their mindsets. That includes me. Here is my primary one. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Failing that. Take the sons of bitches off the planet!

Randy: The only people who support it are the ones who benefit from it: the neocons and their allies in the US gov't. The rest of us don't support it (it produces irrational and crazed reactions) but we expect it because Bush administration actions invite it and make it more likely. I can't be any plainer.

Uh-huh.... Half of those attacks happened on the great one Clintons watch and his response was to invade Kosovo.....

His inaction along with Carters emboldened them. If we had roared into Teheran with a couple of divisions when they did the hostages, things would have been a lot different now. Negotiating with terrorists. Notice how they gave them up on the eve of Reagans inaugaration?

Randy: The only people who support it are the ones who benefit from it: the neocons and their allies in the US gov't. The rest of us don't support it (it produces irrational and crazed reactions) but we expect it because Bush administration actions invite it and make it more likely. I can't be any plainer.