tw: It is unbelievable, the disjointedness of your posts. Be it the fact that english may not be your first language, your thought processes carry more emotion than is necessary, or any of a host of mental ticks...your thoughts are rambling, disjointed, and serve to slash your credibility. Which is a shame, because you have made good points in the past, fogged by the rest of whatever paragraph they were in.
Shrodinger's Cat: You're relying too much on a single study. The Lancet, although peer reviewed and respected, is not infallible. One single study by one statistician, whatever his methods, does not constitute an entire ironstrong moral argument toward the idea that 100,000 civilians have been killed. The Iraqis don't live in huts and caves; they are documented citizens and records will eventually show how many have gone missing and been killed. As a scientist, you should respect the ideal of holding each and every study up to the light before you form a solid opinion.
Undertoad: Every single thing you have said in this thread, should be taken with a grain of salt. You, along with everyone else here, have offered no cites to any of your statistics (2:1 injured to killed, 1/3 combatants, etc). These are random, random numbers. Everything you've typed appears to be primarily motivated by "feeling" and logic, with no thought to the fact that conventional logic can't possibly apply to a situation where you speculate on a country your government is currently at war with. Like it or not, every statistic you are exposed to has a political bend, everything on the news is calculated. Regardless of what you believe, this sphere of influence DOES affect your conclusions. This is not conspiracy theory jargon, this is the nature of modern journalism and society.
How can you be sure that 100,000 bodies cannot be hidden quickly? Buried in mass graves, burnt, carried off? You also assumed that the study focused on deaths caused by Americans, which is false, unless I'm enormously mistaken. Included in that figure should obviously be civilian deaths as a RESULT of the war, including those caused by insurgents.
Now, personally I believe far less than 100,000 civilians have died. Hell, the researcher hired Iraqis...what stopped them from inflating the figures? How does HIS credibility extend to the Iraqi employees he hired to collect the numbers?
But, what is the point? This conversation breached the realm of debate long ago. I would wager both sides are ironfast in their convictions, regardless of what statistics appear (likely uncited
) in the rest of this thread.