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Pilger explains why you can’t separate Enron from the bloodshed in Afghanistan. national |
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news report
 Tuesday July 09, 2002 12:43 by Pilger on connections between Enron etc and war on terror
 Imagine someone writing the following in a mainstream U.S. publication: Guerrilla of the Week Editor's Pick, July 8, 2002 Some good news I’ve found here on my U.K. trip: GNN favourite John Pilger, author of the excellent “The New Rulers of the World,” is back in the major U.K. press, with a column in the Mirror. In this latest dispatch, Pilger explains why you can’t separate Enron from the bloodshed in Afghanistan. Imagine someone writing the following in a mainstream U.S. publication:
Gang is not an exaggeration. The word, in my dictionary, means "a group of people working together for criminal, disreputable ends". That describes accurately George W Bush and those who write his speeches and make his decisions and who, since their rise to power, have undermined the very basis of international law. In Afghanistan, their record is beyond question. The killing on Monday of some 40 guests at a wedding was not a "blunder" but the direct result of a policy of shoot and bomb first and find out later, as announced by George W Bush in the weeks following September 11. The capacity of the American military machine to smash impoverished countries was never in dispute - conditional, that is, on the absence of American ground troops and their substitution by "allied" forces, like the Royal Marines. (During the heyday of the British Empire, Indian and other colonial troops were used in a similar role, although the British, unlike the Americans, were also prepared to sacrifice their own soldiers). Since last October, Afghan leaders have reported American aircraft destroying villages "too small to be marked on any map" with "more than 300 people killed" in one night. In a family of 40, only a small boy and his grandmother survived, reported Richard Lloyd Parry of the Independent. Out of sight of the television cameras "at least 3,767 civilians were killed by US bombs between October 7 and December 10...an average of 62 innocent deaths a day", according to a study carried out at the University of New Hampshire in the US. This is now estimated to have passed 5,000 civilian deaths: almost double the number killed on September 11. There is no evidence that a single leader of al-Qaeda has been captured or, to anyone's knowledge, killed. Neither has the leader of the Taliban. The change in Afghanistan is minimal compared with the murderous feudalism that ruled during the 1990s, and before the Taliban came to power. FOR all the cosmetic changes in Kabul, the capital, women still dare not go unveiled. "The Taliban used to hang the victim's body in public for four days," quipped the new American-installed regime's Minister of Justice. "We will only hang the body for a short time, say fifteen minutes, after a public execution." Describing this as a "triumph of good over evil", as Bush has said, with an echo from Blair, is like lauding the superiority of the German war machine in 1940 as a vindication of Nazism. Not only the Marines but the British public ought to feel duped. Both Washington and Whitehall knew long ago al-Qaeda was finished in Afghanistan. Apart from the element of revenge, for home gratification, the Americans have set out to reassert the control of their favourite warlords: people responsible for thousands of deaths in their stricken country. In October, the US planned to install a regime dominated by members of the Pashtun tribe, who, they predicted, would desert the Taliban. But the split in the Taliban never happened and the Americans have since changed tack and tried to put together a "coalition" of Tajik and Uzbek warlords. The current "interim president", Hamid Karzai, although a Pashtun, has neither a tribal nor military powerbase. He is simply America's man. The presence of the Royal Marines, leading the so-called "International Security Assistance Force", is for reasons straight out of the nineteenth century. At the Americans' bidding, the Marines were meant to keep the favoured warlords from each other's throats until the region could be "stabilised" for American oil and other strategic interests. Potential vast energy sources in Central Asia have become critical for the deeply troubled US economy, and for the Bush administration, which is dominated by oil industry interests, notably the Bush family itself. An investigation by the Hong Kong-based Asia Times in January found that the US was frantically developing "a network of multiple Caspian pipelines". THE disgraced Enron Corporation, one of Bush's biggest campaign backers, conducted a feasibility study for a $2.5billion oil pipeline being built across the Caspian Sea. Top current and former American officials, including Vice President Cheney, "have all closed major deals directly and indirectly on behalf of the oil companies", says the Asia Times. If there was a map of American military bases established in the region to fight "the war on terrorism" what would be immediately striking is that it would follow almost exactly the route of the projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean. Blair and the voluble Geoffrey Hoon have, of course, offered none of this vital information to the British people, let alone to the British soldiers sent to play America's imperial game. Fortunately, the troops suffered only gastric flu. The Afghan people have not been as lucky. Any doubt about the systematic murderous way the US military has operated in Afghanistan is dispelled by a report in the American press in May of children gunned down in wheat fields and as they slept. For four hours, American helicopter gunships saturated the fields and a village with bullets and rockets before landing to disgorge US troops who shot survivors and detained other "suspects". In fact, the area was renowned for its opposition to the Taliban and the governor of Oruzgan province confirmed that those murdered "were ordinary people. There were no al-Qaeda or Taliban here." In recent months, the American rogue state has torn up the Kyoto treaty, which would decrease global warming and the probability of environmental disaster. It has threatened to use nuclear weapons in "pre-emptive strikes" (a threat echoed by Hoon). It has tried to sabotage the setting up of an international criminal court, understandably, because its generals and leading politicians might be summoned as defendants. It has further undermined the authority of the United Nations by allowing Israel to block a UN committee's investigation of the Israeli assault on the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin; and it has ordered the Palestinians to get rid of their elected leader in favour of an American stooge. It ignored the World Food Summit in Italy; and at summit conferences in Canada and Indonesia it has blocked genuine aid, such as clean water and electricity, to the most deprived people on earth. Proposals to increase American food subsidies by 80 per cent are designed to secure American domination of the world foodgrains market. ("When we get up from the breakfast table every morning," said the chief executive of the Cargill corporation, the world's biggest food company, "much of what we have eaten - cereals, bread, coffee, sugar and so on - has passed through the lands of my company." Cargill's goal is to double in size every five to seven years). There is a desperate edge to most of America's rogue actions. The Christian "free market" fundamentalists running Washington are worried. The US current account deficit is running at a record $34billion. Foreign purchases of the huge US debt are falling rapidly. The US stockmarket is heavily over-valued, and the dollar is uncertain. As one commentator has put it, the "Bush doctrine" looks like "one last attempt to order the world entirely around the requirements of US monopoly capital, before it can long hope to do so". IN other words this may well be the last throw of the dice before the US economy goes into serious decline - as yesterday's dramatic fall in the stock markets indicated. This means controlling the oil and fossil fuel riches in Central Asia. It means attacking Iraq, installing a replacement Saddam Hussein and taking over the world's second-largest source of oil. It means surrounding a new economic challenger, China, with bases, and intimidating the leaders of its principal economic rival, Europe, by undermining NATO, and setting off a trade war. I have just visited the United States, and it is clear many people there are worried. And many dare not say so. Their views are seldom reported in the American mainstream media, which is self-censored and controlled, perhaps as never before. Instead, the air is thick with the views of the likes of Charles Krauthammer, of the Washington Post. "Unilateralism is the key to our success," he wrote, in describing the world of the next fifty years: a world without protection from nuclear attack or environmental damage for the citizens of any country except the United States; a world where "democracy" means nothing if its benefits are at odds with American "interests"; a world in which to express dissent against these "interests" brands one a terrorist and justifies surveillance and repression. There is only one way such rogue power can be resisted. It is by speaking out and urgently. If our government won't, we must |
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Comments (32 of 32)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32I stopped reading after Pilger invoked the infamous New Hampshire study of Afghan casualties, which has been widely and convincingly discredited in several publications. Not only did the guy double count in several instances, but he also accepted Taliban claims of deaths at face value. Whatever you think of Bush, no one can claim with any credibility that the Taliban were a trustworthy lot.
Incidentally, I can imagine such an article appearing in a US magazine, because such articles regularly appear in US magazines. See The Nation or Harper's, not to mention just about every city weekly in the country. The US has a much more diverse media than persecution narcissists like Pilger are willing to admit.
Persecution Narcissist! Are you a doctor?
Yeah Magazine - not in a mass market tabloid though! This is from the mirror in uk.
First off, American tabloids are a different sort of animal to their British cousins - they are pure nonsense, which makes them even less worth reading. Secondly, you wouldn't see tripe like Pilger's axe-grinding in most mainstream US newspapers because they employ fact checkers. Dissent is too important to be left to liars.
Seán, in which esteemed publications has the "New Hampshire" study been widely and convincingly discredited? Do you deny that thousands of innocent civilians have been killed by the US in their imperial war in Afghanistan? Do you deny that the US (amongst others; Israel springs to mind) is flaunting international law (UN Charters, Kyoto, Bioterrorism Conventions, Chemical Weapon Conventions, etc.)?
If someone were to sit down and dream up a scenario that would alienate/destroy the maximum number of people possible (whilst enriching a "lucky" few) they would probably come up with something on the mild side of Twig's policies.
>>Seán, in which esteemed publications has the "New Hampshire" study been widely and convincingly discredited?
As this excerpt from an article in the National Post (Canada) by Matt Welch points out, one of Marc Herold's major sources was the Taliban. He also conducted his research by surveying online reports of casualties, making it impossible to verify his numbers and weed out double counting. AP and Reuters did their own counts on the ground and came up with smaller numbers.
"Herold's study turned out to be notable mostly for being so wildly off-base, yet so enduringly popular among anti-war circles. Within days of publication, an army of amateur online writers picked through Herold's math and discovered several instances of double-counting and heavy reliance on the Afghan Islamic Press, which got its data from the Taliban. Later, The Associated Press, Reuters and other organizations conducted their own inquiries into civilian deaths, arriving at numbers between 600 and 1,500."
(the URL to the original is dead, but you can get the whole piece at www.mattwelch.com)
For an idea of how credible the Taliban are as witnesses of civilian deaths, see the following from the LA Times (again, the link is dead, but this piece was excerpted in a blog I read):
"On Oct. 31 in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Taliban officials escorted selected journalists to what they said was a clinic destroyed by an American airstrike. The journalists reported that 10 to 15 civilians had died. The story received widespread circulation in the Arab world via the Afghan Islamic Press, a pro-Taliban agency.
The site actually was an Al Qaeda military post and a small clinic for Taliban wounded located next to a private home, according to an Afghan security guard who said he witnessed the bombing. Interviewed at the site, guard Abdul Salam said several Al Qaeda fighters and two or three civilians from the private home were among those killed.
Khalid Pushtoon, an official with the new Kandahar government, said when asked about the incident: "A clinic? That was no clinic. That place was full of Arabs," a reference to foreign Al Qaeda fighters."
I can also point you to a number of bloggers who eviscerate Herold's methodology. Just ask.
>>>Do you deny that thousands of innocent civilians have been killed by the US in their imperial war in Afghanistan?
On the basis of available credible evidence, I deny that as many have been killed as Pilger is claiming. You'd think he'd be happy that Herold overestimated - you know, that fewer people were killed in the fighting - but something tells me he wishes even more had died, since it bolsters his foregone conclusion that America is always worse than its enemies.
>>>Do you deny that the US (amongst others; Israel springs to mind) is flaunting international law (UN Charters, Kyoto, Bioterrorism Conventions, Chemical Weapon Conventions, etc.)?
Conventions aren't laws, neither are protocols. I'm not sure how the US is violating any UN charters - perhaps you could enlighten me. The US never ratified Kyoto, for one. But that's just changing the subject. (Arab countries are in violation of UN Declaration 181, which calls on them to recognise Israel's right to exist - are they on your list of bad guys, too?)
>>>>If someone were to sit down and dream up a scenario that would alienate/destroy the maximum number of people possible (whilst enriching a "lucky" few) they would probably come up with something on the mild side of Twig's policies.
I have no idea what you're talking about. But it seems you're suggesting that the Pilger scenario is plausible. The reason the US launched a huge military operation in Afghanistan is because the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks were based their with the support of the regime at the time. It's that simple. It seems to me that Pilger objects to the war for emotional reasons, but can't raise a moral objection to it that cuts any ice, so he concocts a conspiracy theory that makes it appear the war is being fought simply to make money (notwithstanding the huge financial cost of modern warfare). This gets buttressed with inflated civilian casualty claims to make it seem as if their is a moral equivalence between justifiable military retaliation and driving passenger jets into office buildings. It's dishonest.
See it all comes down to whom you believe doesn't it Sean? I've found Matt's theories on the death toll in Iraqi, dubious and at odds with UN facts particulary the WHO, and he seems to delight in finding bad quotes from Chomsky to discredit him (taking a comment made in the hours after September 11th as proof of his ignorance, when at the time the US were rating the deathtold in the towers at 10,000 plus) and his argument that it's UN not US sanctions ring hollow, the US fought long and hard and has been the primary force in the continuation and creation of those sanctions.
You discredit the Taliban as a source of information when concidently backing up US Government claims, this is the government which has considently lied about death toils, miltary targets and civilian "collateral damage" in every war. Bombing of civilian shelters (um Gulf War) carpet bombing of cambodia (Vietnam) and the imaginary anti aircraft fire (Last week).
>>>>>>On the basis of available credible evidence, I deny that as many have been killed as Pilger is claiming. You'd think he'd be happy that Herold overestimated - you know, that fewer people were killed in the fighting - but something tells me he wishes even more had died, since it bolsters his foregone conclusion that America is always worse than its enemies.
That is a comment worthy only of our contempt "Something tells me he wishes even more have died". Pliger has in his writing and reporting for over 30 years displayed a williness to risk his own life to investigate brutal oppression and state sponsored violence in Burma, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
>>>>Conventions aren't laws, neither are protocols. I'm not sure how the US is violating any UN charters - perhaps you could enlighten me. The US never ratified Kyoto, for one. But that's just changing the subject. (Arab countries are in violation of UN Declaration 181, which calls on them to recognise Israel's right to exist - are they on your list of bad guys, too?)
They're violating the declaration of human rights the Geneva convention and their own constitution in their behaviour in afganistan. Who's denying Israelis right to exist? You've got a fascinatingly antagnostic air about you mate, you'll sling enough mud till it sticks. The US never ratified Kyoto? Yes they did and George "lets fuck the envirnoment" Bush refused to recognise it.
>>>>I have no idea what you're talking about. But it seems you're suggesting that the Pilger scenario is plausible. The reason the US launched a huge military operation in Afghanistan is because the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks were based their with the support of the regime at the time.
And they're still there why??????????
>>>>It's that simple. It seems to me that Pilger objects to the war for emotional reasons, but can't raise a moral objection to it that cuts any ice, so he concocts a conspiracy theory that makes it appear the war is being fought simply to make money (notwithstanding the huge financial cost of modern warfare).
The cost of war is being felt by the taxpayer. The war is as always making money for the wealthy miltary industrial complex. The pipeling that will go through afganistan and the kickbacks from the arms industry will ensure the same people still make their blood money.
>>>>This gets buttressed with inflated civilian casualty claims to make it seem as if their is a moral equivalence between justifiable military retaliation and driving passenger jets into office buildings. It's dishonest.
Ah yes "justifiable" military retaliation. Y'know peppering a desert with DU ammunition. Bombing a country with cluster bombs which are the same colour as the aid packages you're dropping. It's about making a killing financially and morally, while justifying brutal and undemocratic assaults on our freedom.
Apologist....
KIM
Sean, you were asked for data and all you will say is "I read it in lots of blogs. Just ask and I'll point you to the blogs".
So, one more time Sean, where's the data? "I read it in a blog" is about as much use as "I heard it from a man in the pub".
You accuse Pilger of being unable to find a moral objection to the war. Are you so morally cauterised that you don't understand that the killing of innocent civilians is wrong?
The great thing about Herrold's work is that he follows the scientific method: he publishes his data and allows those that are skeptical of it to examine it all. On the other hand the Bush/Blair war alliance will only say that they are "minimising collateral damage" and deny that many people have been killed at all.
For those that are interested, here's the URL to the updated version of Herrold's statistics which includes the last wedding slaughterfest:
http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
Apparently, the only real casualties noted are those either connected to a western enterprise or organization, or those "independently verified" by western individuals and/or organizations. In other words, the high levels of civilian casualties are simply written off to 'enemy' propaganda and ignored.25
Naturally, skeptics will howl about how accurate data might be collected. I have relied upon official news agencies, major newspapers, reported first-hand accounts. Whenever possible, I have sought cross-corroboration [the idea being that if a couple major news agencies report the event, then it is more likely accurate]. I have avoided granting greater reliability to U.S. or British sources -- the ethnocentric bias. When greater detail was given about the specifics of a bombing attack, I lent it greater credibility
I have used figures reported by official news agencies [e.g. from Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Associated Press, to Afghan Islamic Press, etc.], from news reporters who visited the scene, from eyewitness and survivor reports, from distinguished NGOs [like RAWA and Emergency Italia ], from news stories published in reputable national newspapers. I have eschewed making judgements about the relative reliability of one nation's news agencies and reporters versus another's. My assumption is that reporters, news story editors, and national-level media outlets try to report as accurately as possible given the resources at their disposal.
the last three paragraphs in my post above are quotes from the Herrold paper to which I linked.
...can be found at and
I never said there were no civilian deaths; I said Herold overcounted and Pilger passed on the numbers as if there weren't any credible dispute about them.
I also never cited US government statistics. Nor did only cite blogs. I cited the National Post and the LA Times (as well as Reuters and AP - secondarily - both of which did original reporting on the ground, unlike Herold).
I'm not sure how the US is violating the Geneva Convention. I am sure they are not violating the US Constitution. Anyone care to cite either document and point out specific violations? And, no, bombing Cambodia 35 years ago is not an indictment of current action in Afghanistan.
...those links went straight to html. I'll try again:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forum/document_details.asp?CatID=98&DocID=1143
and
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-030402A
Um treatment of Prisoners?, right to a fair trial, etc etc etc.... They can present any kind of legal loophole they want, but morally they're fundamentally wrong.
Ah but the connection is there, for decades America has abused the laws and ethics it claims it holds dear.
Also I can't help noticing you've danced around the difficult and akward questions raised and focused on the trival ones.
Check out the two links above. I think they provide the answers. Can you tell me why Pilger has to rely on false moral equivalence based on arithmetic? Can you tell me why he has to cloak his objections to the war in story about gas pipelines that is spun from whole cloth? Is it because he can't win the moral argument, or is it because he is so morally unsophisticated that he really can see no difference between purposely killing as many civilians as possible (Sept. 11) and accidentally killing civilians while trying to kill the people who started the fight in the first place?
You haven't given me specific violations. Treatment of which prisoners? What treatment, exactly? I'm interested in having this discussion.
The prisoners in Camp X-ray were denied the geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners of war on the basis that they were criminals, not prisoners of war - as decided by the US government. Of course if you have the power to carry out these sorts of redefinitions, you will always be on the right side of the law, but the fact still remains that these prisoners are quite clearly prisoners of war, as understood by anybody who doesn't have their head in an ideological strait jacket.
It just goes to show that international law is a nonsense. Might is right, all else is just window-dressing.
Regarding the figures of civilian casualties, any estimate is bound to be inaccurate since in the vast majority of cases there were no reliable independant observers to report on figures. Since we KNOW that the US figures are not accurate, as they admit themselves that they manage information to their advantage in times of war, and it is highly unlikely that the Taliban figures are accurate for similar reasons, the type of guessing that is included in this report is unlikely to be accurate, but still more likely to be closer to the truth than the figures supplied by either of the regimes involved in the war. In the final analysis it doesn't really matter exactly how many people died as a direct result of the war. The important question is, to my mind, has there been a concrete improvement in the living standards of Afghanis since the war? The answer to this question is undoubtedly NO. How many people perished, or had their lives ruined as a result of the disruption of food supplies during the war? How much security do Afghanis have today? How intact is their infrastructure? How free are they?
To all of these questions, we'd have to say that the situation has certainly not improved markedly since the start of the war and in many cases it has become much worse.
Sean Healy wrote:
"I never said there were no civilian deaths; I said Herold overcounted and Pilger passed on the numbers as if there weren't any credible dispute about them."
That's a strong claim Sean. By claiming that Pilger overcounted you are saying that you know for sure how many people died in Afghanistan from the /discriminate/ US bombing. I'd like to see you prove that you know how many died. Given that the US has exercised unprecedented censorship over the information from Afghanistan I doubt that you'll be able to do much better than Herrold. He has done the best job possible in the circumstances to /estimate/ the number of deaths. He has stated his methodology and sources clearly. Now, where are yours? I look forward to seeing the clear proof of your strong claim that less than 3,500 people died. As a matter of interest how many people did die?
Sean Healy wrote:
"I also never cited US government statistics. Nor did only cite blogs. I cited the National Post and the LA Times (as well as Reuters and AP - secondarily - both of which did original reporting on the ground, unlike Herold)."
The problem is that the only source in your post was www.mattwelch.org. A cite includes a specific reference so that your skeptical readers can check up the source. You told us in your original post that there was an LA Times piece but didn't tell us which day, month, year, page or even century this piece occurred in. It seems to me that you are reprising exactly the methodological objections that you have to the Herrold paper and then some! I'm also interested that you adopt the argument that Taliban and Arab sources are non-credible and that US-based news agencies are credible. Herrold is more balanced and skeptical than that: he states that he uses both because he doesn't believe either of them. He admits that there's a bias, that there's noise in the data and as a result adopts a weighting procedure wherein cross-reported deaths are given higher weight than those from one source only. The arguments that you ape, on the other hand, insist that all Taliban claims must be disregarded.
"Jedburgh" provided two links. The first one at www.opendemocracy.net. This weak-minded piece of wailing includes the following arguments against Herrold:
1. Herrold doesn't automatically discount Islamic sources as untrustworthy.
QUOTE:As he puts it: “I have eschewed making judgments about the relative reliability of one nation’s news agencies and reporters versus another’s.” He assumes that if an editor of any newspaper or outlet considered an account to be accurate, then it is accurate.ENDQUOTE
2.Herrold's citations don't always bear out his contentions
QUOTE:Herold’s second failing is more serious – the misleading use of citations. He cites a web article by a Harvard researcher, claiming that it ‘confirmed that civilians had been killed in Jalalabad and elsewhere.’ But the cited web address turns up an op-ed piece that confirms nothing.ENDQUOTE
Point 1 can obviously be interpreted as a virtue rather than a failing. Why should we discount the claims of biased observers from one side and not from the other? Is the assumption that all Islamic and Arab newssources are inherently lying and untrustworthy? Are web-media less trustworthy than corporate print media? We were told for months that 10,000, no 20,000! people had died in the Twin Towers. This was reported by all the major news organisations as a matter of fact. It was not questioned. The current "real level" stands at something like 2,500.
Point 2 would be interesting if the opendemocracy article actually went so far as to provide citations itself! It is impossible for me to evaluate how accurate the article is if it doesn't tell me which and how many of Herrolds sources are inaccurate.
The piece ends with the claim that the "war" has provided a net benefit to the Afghan people, invoking the "oppressed women". It claims the destruction of Al Qaida as a positive "collateral effect". This completely ignores the reality which is that women are still oppressed in Afghanistan because the Northern Alliance have been boosted into power by the US. These are the people that raped, murdered and executed their countrymen in the '90s. It ignores the US role in the funding of "our terrorists"/mujaheddin which later turn into bad-guys.
Overall a poor piece, well below the open and honest presentation of evidence in Herrolds paper. I see no evidence hear to make me disbelieve Herrold.
The second link provided by Jedburgh at techcentral proposes the balanced idea that both the Pentagon and the Taliban lied to their respective advantages about the number of casualties. Fine. I believe that.
The piece then goes on to argue that we know this for a fact because Afghan journalists (no source given, just an assertion!) told Western journalists that the Taliban had instructed them to lie. But...but....if we admit that everyone's lying to their own advantage then wouldn't Afghan journalists that want to have lunch bought for them by their Western counterparts be eager to tell stories of the horror that was the Taliban? If we're going to be skeptical and cynical then there's no stopping!
Then the piece again attacks Herrold for not sticking only to the Western sources:
QUOTEAny estimate that relies on stories that gave credence to news releases from the Taliban's mouthpiece, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), is therefore irrevocably tainted with this propaganda. ENDQUOTE
Again, why shouldn't we take this as a piece of data and use it to obtain an estimate? If we follow the implied argument then all that we should take as firm data are the statements by the Pentagon.
Then the article provides some substantive evidence. It explicitly claims that Herrold
double and triple counted in two situations. This would inflate his number by 26. There is a nebulous claim of "other examples" completely unsupported and unreferenced so I discount that in the interests of accuracy (which I know you are very picky about Sean!)
QUOTE Double-counting. A cluster bomb incident in Shekar Qala, near Heart, killed 8 people plus one who later picked up an unexploded bomb. Herold seems to count this twice, on both Oct. 22 and Oct. 25. The deaths of Gul Ahmed, his wife, six children and his neighbor's two children seem to be counted three times each (twice on the same day). There are several other examples.ENDQUOTE
There is then a section of "confusion of status" inaccuracies which is itself highly confusing. It appears to argue that "mujaheddin" deaths can't be counted as civilian casualties. Given that a vast proportion of the countries males are weapon-bearing and could be called "mujaheddin" this is not clear. If they were not troop units engaged in direct conflict then an argument can be made that the were civilian. However, I'll let that pass and accept it for now.
Further problems with this section appear to be the discounting of deaths resulting from strikes on "legitimate" Taliban targets. Does this mean that if they are killed because they live near a Taliban office they are no longer civilians?
Finally the article takes another 1 civillian off the Herrold figure and again provides an unsupported and unreferenced claim to there being "many other examples". Sorry, that's not good enough for me, and I suspect it won't be to Sean Healy either.
So...what have we got from this article? 27 to be subtracted from the total if those objections pan out upon examination.
So Sean Healy, where's the widely available convincing documentation of the errors of the Herrold report? How many Afghans have died? How many people died in the Twin Towers?
The reference to oil pipelines is extremely apt. The oil company Unocal had members of the Taliban government over for discussions with a view to organising a pipeline through Afghanistan from the Caspian Sea area to the coast at Pakistan. This was a couple of years before 11 Sept 2001 (ie at a time when the Taliban conducting themselves just as they were in 2001).
To skip a load of other related information I would just point out that the current "president" of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is a previous employee of Unocal. Hmmmm.
Moving onto the question of numbers dead on either side, let us assume that there isn't a numbers competition going on here. How then should we judge the impact of the conflict that was never officially declared a war (funnily enough, just like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, etc., etc were never officially declared wars)? Perhaps the relative security of the American/Afghan people before and after the war might not be a bad indicator of how successful the conflict has been.
According to some senior US military source, the chances of another serious terrorist attack on the US are higher now than before they attacked Afghanistan. Of course labelling half the rest of the world (permit a bit of poetic licence - it's probably 99% if the truth were told) as an axis of evil probably doesn't help in the security stakes, if security is what you're after.
On the other hand who would say that the Afghani's feel more secure now? They have the thugs of the ex-Northern Alliance (United Front etc.) in power, a supposed liberating army raining 'accurate death by long range' upon them and soon they'll be subject to the vultures of the global 'development banks' (developing money from misery) aka WB, IMF and who knows, they may soon be able to join the only organisation that can truly lift them out of the depths of despair, the WTO ("it's the economy, stupid!").
Do you, Sean, believe in equality? 'Cause if you did you'd rail against the injustice inherent in this situation. Perhaps you might also explain why the freedom loving democracy, the US, was the target of the airline attack in the first place, an equally interesting question?
"Herrold doesn't automatically discount Islamic sources as untrustworthy."
Not exactly what the guy says. He criticizes Herold for utilizing an "‘Islamic E-Journal,’ whose motto is ‘Our Duty is to Deliver Only the Message’". The fact that it's Islamic doesn't seem to as problematic as it being Islamistic and not really committed to impartiality in the manner of, say, the Guardian.
Maybe he's wrong, but you should at least present his argument in an honest manner.
"But the cited web address turns up an op-ed piece that confirms nothing."
That would be Chien's article at http://www.zmag.org/civiliantoll.htm. Not really all that hard to deduce from Herold's own text. Perhaps the guy simply wanted to point out the troubles with Herold's text to get people to think for themselves, not do a point-by-point refutation (which would take up a lot more space)?
"We were told for months that 10,000, no 20,000! people had died in the Twin Towers"
I wasn't, but maybe we don't use the same news sources.
"If we follow the implied argument then all that we should take as firm data are the statements by the Pentagon"
Or, perhaps, we shouldn't trust the statements of Pentagon either? You're putting words in the guy's mouth here.
Frankly, I think instead of taking everything Herold's said that isn't explicitly contradicted on the Internet you might do better to contact the Human Rights Watch people, who have a study of their own on the matter, and try and expand your horizon a little -- or wait for their on-the-spot study. (Or try the Project on Defense Alternatives, who're also rather critical of Herold.) But perhaps it is important to you to be able to take Herold at face value?
John Pilger's article is equally valid regardless of whether the numbers he quotes from Herold's report are precisely accurate or not. It is perfectly acceptable to use a report that used reasonable, if not perfect, means to establish an approximate total of civilian casualities.
In fairness, we haven't a clue what is going on in Afghanistan. It is quite likely that many more innocent people than reported are being 'taken out'. If security forces can get away with stuff like that in Northern Ireland, surely they ain't going to be holding back too much when dealing with "rag-heads" in Afghanistan. Also a civilian here, a civilian there, isn't likely to make it into the news, especially when it must be next to impossible to determine who is a friend or who is a foe - even more so when you consider that some non-Taliban/al Queda are probably hostile to the occupying forces.
The justification for the occupying forces is the real crux of the matter.
Why not invade Saudi Arabia, home of 3/4's of the supposed terrorists (some of whom we know to be still alive or previously dead, yet their names remain as facts)?
Would Healy or Jedburgh care to respond to these points, or those made in my last contribution? Don't pretend you're not reading this!
"Don't pretend you're not reading this!"
Why in the world would I do that?
"surely they ain't going to be holding back too much when dealing with "rag-heads" in Afghanistan"
I think this is best answered with "In fairness, we haven't a clue what is going on in Afghanistan".
"Why not invade Saudi Arabia, home of 3/4's of the supposed terrorists"
Possibly, because they're so rich. Also possibly, because their government hasn't provided terrorist organisations with a safe haven for those organisations to organize training camps and to plan terrorist attacks, but that's just a guess.
"Perhaps the relative security of the American/Afghan people before and after the war might not be a bad indicator of how successful the conflict has been"
Perhaps. Also perhaps, that isn't all that easy to measure -- at leastnot in advance.
"According to some senior US military source"
So, you're one of those guys who trust senior US military sources?
"On the other hand who would say that the Afghani's feel more secure now"
Perhaps we could try to measure this by looking at Afghanistan death tolls during the last five years of the Taliban regime, and compare them to the first five years post-Taliban? Of course, this method doesn't appeal to the impatient among us.
"let us assume that there isn't a numbers competition going on here"
On the other hand, if we'd like to apply the internaltional law principles of distinction and proportionality, perhaps civilian losses numbers are interesting in deciding how well the US and allies have stuck to them?
Jedburgh my sdon you're more interested in nitpicking or attacking another persons arguments than engaging in an actual debate your last few posts have been quibbles and nitpicks on post and instead of actually honestly engaging in an argument you'd rather pick short soundbites and lash out at them. Which has been your tactic for day one, launch an attack ignore the response, and then go off at another minor flaw in someones debate and ignorance and avoid their answers.
It's contemptable
Wrote:
QUOTE
Not exactly what the guy says. He criticizes Herold for utilizing an "‘Islamic E-Journal,’ whose motto is ‘Our Duty is to Deliver Only the Message’". The fact that it's Islamic doesn't seem to as problematic as it being Islamistic and not really committed to impartiality in the manner of, say, the Guardian.
Maybe he's wrong, but you should at least present his argument in an honest manner.
ENDQUOTE
Well, Sean Jedburgh, I'm confused as to the difference between "Islamic" and "Islamistic".
You are now arguing that "Islamistic" (your coinage) news sources must be ignored. Why? Again, it's data. One can use it as a data point in the obtaining of an estimate.
You also appear to believe that The Grauniad hews to some sort of impartial, middle ground; they don't, they're Western soft-left, liberal democrats. They are not withoug their own biases.
Finally you accuse me of presenting the "techcentral" argument in a dishonest manner when I characterise their first point as being a criticism of Herrold's acceptance of all sources as data points. (I specifically synopsised their objection as: "Herrold doesn't automatically discount Islamic sources as untrustworthy"). I can only assume that either your (Jedburgh/Sean's) reading and/or comprehension is faulty. Let's take a look at the techcentral article together, shall we?:
QUOTE
The first is that he employs the principle of maximum credulity in evaluating his sources. As he puts it: “I have eschewed making judgments about the relative reliability of one nation’s news agencies and reporters versus another’s.” He assumes that if an editor of any newspaper or outlet considered an account to be accurate, then it is accurate.
This strange assumption leads Herold to treat reports in the (UK) Guardian as being on par with reports from The Frontier Post of Peshawar. He cites, for example, an eyewitness account of the bombing of a commercial truck reported in Albalagh . This, it turns out, is an ‘Islamic E-Journal,’ whose motto is ‘Our Duty is to Deliver Only the Message’ (the message of Mohammed). Among the texts featured on its web page of 10 January 2002 are an article entitled ‘Islam is the Solution,’ and an essay on ‘Religious Toleration’ defending the destruction of Buddhist temples by Islamic fundamentalists. Hardly an unimpeachable media source.
ENDQUOTE
So, again, Herrold's "crime" is to refuse to dismiss the Albalagh report solely on the grounds that it belongs to what Sean/Jedburgh would call an "Islamicist" perspective.
Oh, and Jedburgh? , would you mind answering the question as to how one estimates civilian deaths? Given that you provided the two links in support of "Sean", please consider all questions addressed to him as applying to you also!.
»I'm confused as to the difference between "Islamic" and "Islamistic"«
Well allow me to educate you then. Islamic = belonging to the Islamic faith -- as in "Iran is an Islamic country". Islamistic = an ideology which dicounts non-pro-Islamic ideologies and people -- as in "Our Duty is to Deliver _Only_ the Message". (Emphasis mine.) That motto casts some doubt on the e-journal's objectivity, wouldn't you say? Or wouldn't you?
"I specifically synopsised their objection"
In a dishonest manner, in my opinion. (Or perhaps an incompetent one.) The same problem occurs with your
»the piece again attacks Herrold for not sticking only to the Western sources: QUOTEAny estimate that relies on stories that gave credence to news releases from the Taliban's mouthpiece, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), is therefore irrevocably tainted with this propaganda.«
The quote provided doesn't demand that Herold stick to only Western sources, merely that he shouldn't trust AIP, which the author considers to be a Taliban mouthpiece. And you're criticizing my reading comprehension?
(Apparently, you have problems reading what Sean writes as well:
"I said Herold overcounted and Pilger passed on the numbers as if there weren't any credible dispute about them."
»That's a strong claim Sean. By claiming that Pilger overcounted«
That's not his claim in the text quoted -- he's claiming that Pilger passed on the Herold numbers as if they were gospel. Shouldn't one have the right to expect you to not misconstrue the position you're arguing against?)
»So, again, Herrold's "crime" is to refuse to dismiss the Albalagh report solely on the grounds that it belongs to what Sean/Jedburgh would call an "Islamicist" perspective.«
No, his problem is that he accepts too many sources without double-checking them against something other than similar sources or his own prejudices. Sorry.
»would you mind answering the question as to how one estimates civilian deaths?«
Certainly not; one sends in people to investigate media claims -- as Human Rights Watch are doing now. I refer you to their web site for further information on their current estimate (which is far lower than Herold's) and their new investigation, on-site in Afghanistan.
And since King Mob won't answer questions directed at him, preferring to spew out rather vague accusations instead, it's hard to take him seriously.
»You are now arguing that "Islamistic" (your coinage) news sources must be ignored.«
Actually, if you re-read what I wrote carefully, you'll find that I didn't argue that at all.
(At least, I hope you'll find that; otherwise you might consider getting somebody to help you.)
You're jumping around the argument like a kangaroo on benzedrine. I can see that you've become confused and are unable to deal with complex arguments involving quotation, so I'll simplify it for you.
Your championing and mouthing of the techcentral argument is nothing more than a call to discard (your amusing term) "Islamistic". You insist that a report from (what you define as) an "Islamistic" paper must be viewed as less trustworth than e.g. The Guardian.
This implies that you know that they are lying and that you know that someone that is dedicated to spreading the word of Allah is less trustworthy than some bearded twat with open-toed sandals living thousands of miles away in The Guardian offices, or some psy-ops spin-meister in CNN.
Herrold, unlike you, actually attempts to stick to the evidence available. He takes recorded observations and if more than one source makes the same observation then gives that higher weighting. Is this infallible? No. Does it give an estimate? Yes.
Again, where are the specific, point-by-point refutations of Herrold's numbers that you claim are widely available? All that you've done is bluster and point me to two stale web sites that only provide evidence for a reduction of 28 in Herrold's numbers.
Again, unlike you, Herrold provides sources. Where are the details of the HRW study? Is it complete yet? If not then what's the point of mentioning it?
You have signally failed to make the case that you set out to: that Herrold's numbers are "widely refuted".
I like your proposed methodolgy for finding out how many have died though: exactly how many investigators do you propose? How would you select them to have "no bias"? Will it be possible for them to distinguish between bodies that have been blown up by US bombs and Northern Alliance bombs? I look forward to futher details of your perfect methodolgy that will avoid charges of "estimate" from skeptics. I note that you will be in a much weaker position than Herrold, who only claims to provide an estimate!
(P.s. I take this opportunity to remind you again of the problems of obtaining an accurate number, as opposed to an estimate, with the example of the WTC death estimates as summarised in this piece from the Financial Times:
BEGINQUOTE
here were 266 passengers and crew on board the crashed jets and more than 100 killed at the Pentagon, but the death toll at the World Trade Center was estimated at up to 20,000. As the massive rescue operation began, it became clear the true death toll might never be known. It was later estimated at 4,500, although most of the victims' bodies would never be recovered.
ENDQUOTE
http://specials.ft.com/yir2001/FT3AE1J2CVC.html
»This implies that you know that they are lying and that you know that someone that is dedicated to spreading the word of Allah is less trustworthy than some bearded twat with open-toed sandals living thousands of miles away in The Guardian offices, or some psy-ops spin-meister in CNN«
Wrong. Make that someone that is dedicated only to spreading the word of Allah, and who isn't held in check by the controls present at a regular newspaper. As a mindreader, you make a good... well, nothing, really. And once again you show how little you care about accurate statements of your opponents' positions:
»a report from (what you define as) an "Islamistic" paper«
It isn't a paper. It's an e-journal. Or did you merely forget that?
»Again, where are the specific, point-by-point refutations of Herrold's numbers that you claim are widely available?«
I didn't. Is this discussion really that confusing to you?
»You have signally failed to make the case that you set out to«
I never set out to make a case. I provided you with some sources to broaden your horizon. (Now _there's_ an apparent exercise in futility.)
»I look forward to futher details of your perfect methodolgy«
Once again, this reading comprehension stuff -- I never said it was perfect. It's better than sitting on your butt, guessing at the reliability of various sources, though.
That's one problem with the Internet -- there are so many sources of information, of extremely variable quality, and the narrow-minded can focus on only the ones that support their specific worldview instead of going out to check empirical facts. (Case in point: The nutcase behind the odious "Find the Boeing" site, and the many sites using that as some kind of "evidence". Good grief.)
»exactly how many investigators do you propose?«
??? You seriously believe it matters substantially whether they are five, ten or twenty? Check out the HRW site. Ask them about their studies -- the one they did using similar sources to the Herold ones, except they also use a smidgeon more of criticism of the sources.
»I note that you will be in a much weaker position than Herrold, who only claims to provide an estimate!«
If it's only an estimate, why is it so important to you to take it for gospel? And again, I'm not the one doing the study.
»this piece from the Financial Time«
And you say I'm "jumping around the argument like a kangaroo on benzedrine"??
So for how many months was the death toll at the World Trade Center was estimated at up to 20,000? If you "were told for months that 10,000, no 20,000! people had died in the Twin Towers", maybe you should have bought a new newspaper instead of re-reading the old one?
(and let's stop pretending that there's Sean and Jedburgh!) you claimed that there were widely available disproofs of Herrold's numbers. You did this by posting the two laughable critiques. Both of them turn out to be worth less than the Herrold story because all they'll say (with the exception of the sourced disproof of 28 victims) is that Herrold shouldn't give the same weigh to "Islamistic" (ha ha ha!) sources as to Western propaganda.
You've not proved that, you keep on mewling about Human Rights Watch and don't provide a link to a HRW study. You haven't answered most questions (see list at bottom of this). You've taken on the impossible task of attacking an _estimate_ that clearly states its methodology.
My reason for continuing this is that I'm bored at work and you give me a good deal of innocent amusement. You have taken it upon yourself to argue against a strawman birthed from the febrile meat that you call a brain. This creature which sprang fully-demented from your head is a non-existent person that believes that Herrold's data is the gospel truth. I, on the other hand, being a reasonable person look upon it as a plausible rough estimate. My own personal predjudices incline me to believe that it's much higher.
You say:
BEGINQUOTE
That's one problem with the Internet -- there are so many sources of information, of extremely variable quality, and the narrow-minded can focus on only the ones that support their specific worldview instead of going out to check empirical facts. (Case in point: The nutcase behind the odious "Find the Boeing" site, and the many sites using that as some kind of "evidence". Good grief.)
ENDQUOTE
A perfect example of this would be your attempting to ignore the sourced data accumulated in support of the Herrold toll. I particularly admire your referencing of two of these "variable quality" sites which attack someone that provides data and fail to provide their own. Oh! the irony!
BEGINQUOTE
»exactly how many investigators do you propose?«
??? You seriously believe it matters substantially whether they are five, ten or twenty? Check out the HRW site. Ask them about their studies -- the one they did using similar sources to the Herold ones, except they also use a smidgeon more of criticism of the sources.
ENDQUOTE
The point, my child, is that it is NOT possible to obtain the precise bodycount that you insist upon. Your "empirical" evidence gathering would require a massive number of people and even then would require subjective interpretation of many pieces of data. Your naivete is touching. Yeah...let's just get up from our monitors and count the bodies: one, two, two and a quarter, three and a leg....
BEGINQUOTE
»I note that you will be in a much weaker position than Herrold, who only claims to provide an estimate!«
If it's only an estimate, why is it so important to you to take it for gospel? And again, I'm not the one doing the study.
ENDQUOTE
No dear, I take it as an _estimate_. I am interested in hearing a genuine critique of it: if you can provide data that shows that only one Afghan died (and that was by accident because the USAF mistook him for an Iraqi baby) then you'll have contributed something very valuable. However you've failed to do that despite your claim that there was widespread refutation of Herrold. So, you've claimed evidence that disproves Herrold and failed to produce it.
1.How many people have been killed in Afghanistan?
2.How do you know?
3.Is Herrold's number wrong?
4.How do you know?
5.Why are "e-journals" less reputable than "papers"?
6.Why should we accept the word of someone in a country that is contributing to the bombing and discount the word of someone in the country being bombed?
7.Why should we believe an agnostic more than an "Islamisticist" (hee hee!)
8.Where is the Human Rights Watch study that you claim proves something?
9.What does the HRW study prove?
10.Even if Herrold's numbers are wrong does that make Pilger's argument incorrect?
11.If yes to 10. then how many people have to have been killed for Pilger to be correct?
12.Do you ever get out? (I don't, but I get paid for wasting my time like this!).
»(and let's stop pretending that there's Sean and Jedburgh!)«
Erm... That's your brand of paranoia, not mine. Why is it so important to you to believe I'm Sean?
»all they'll say (with the exception of the sourced disproof of 28 victims) is that Herrold shouldn't give the same weigh to "Islamistic" (ha ha ha!) sources as to Western propaganda«
All right, so you're lying already here. You just don't care, do you?
»You've taken on the impossible task of attacking an _estimate_ that clearly states its methodology.«
I've given you links to critiques of that methodology. You disagre with the critiques, mainly because the critique the methodlogy instead of contradicting every item. Feel free.
»My reason for continuing this is that I'm bored at work«
Well, I've already realized that it can't be for love of the truth.
»Your naivete is touching. Yeah...let's just get up from our monitors and count the bodies: one, two, two and a quarter, three and a leg....«
Oh, so that's what you think empirical research is. Actually, here it means getting out and doing the interviews with witnesses oneself, and attempting to corroborate their stories through other witnesses, as well as other sources, instead of using second-, third-, and fourth-hand accounts and proclaiming it to be a "scientific method". And you're calling me naive?
Once again, the sites have criticized his methods. You're not interested in that; you claim they have to refute every instance, that it's not enough that they give examples of faults in his data, resulting from faulty methods. I disagree.
»I particularly admire your referencing of two of these "variable quality" sites which attack someone that provides data and fail to provide their own«
Since you're so fond of believing that Herold's "scientific", you should know that in scientific critiques one doesn't have to refute each and every proposition of an article, thesis, etc. If one can show weaknesses in the methodology and exemplify how these weaknesses have skewed the results, that's a pretty severe critique. Didn't you know that? What's your scientific experience?
»No dear, I take it as an _estimate_«
Well then, what is the margin of error? If you accept it as merely an estimate, you should have some idea about the quality of the estimate.
»Questions for Seanburgh«
While I'm sorry your worldview demands that you keep believing me to be Sean (and why?), I'll still give you my answers to you questions.
1. I don't know.
2. Easy. I don't.
3. Probably.
4. He's using sources of very variable quality.
5. Depends on the paper. However, anybody can start an "e-journal". Established quality newspapers have established routines for quality control, and through their wide distribution to many different sorts of people, a quality control by the people reading them -- too many or too gross errors, and knowledgeable people react.
6. We shouldn't, based solely on those criteria.
7. Islamicists, like fascists, communists and other extremist ideological movements have shown themselves to be so tightly governed by their ideology that they accept lies as a method of spreading that ideology. In the case of the Islamicist e-journal, the mode of distribution is also a problem. Together, they spell out (to the serious researcher): Get corroboration!
8. See below.
9. That you don't have to be a Pentagon supporter to be suspicious of Herold's figures.
10. No, Pilger can manage that all by himself.
12. Yes, occasionally. I figure that little contact with reality does wonders to help me keep some sort of perspective on the wildest conspiracy theories.
Sorry, old chum, don't have a link to the HRW study; and since you wouldn't settle for having it summarized -- and by a journalist, no less -- I'll provide you with a link to a different study, instead. You'll like it -- they state their methodology and sources clearly: http://www.comw.org/pda/0201oef.html and
BEGINQUOTE
»Your naivete is touching. Yeah...let's just get up from our monitors and count the bodies: one, two, two and a quarter, three and a leg....«
Oh, so that's what you think empirical research is. Actually, here it means getting out and doing the interviews with witnesses oneself, and attempting to corroborate their stories through other witnesses, as well as other sources, instead of using second-, third-, and fourth-hand accounts and proclaiming it to be a "scientific method". And you're calling me naive?
ENDQUOTE
You obviously don't understand that even if you had thousands of investigators on the ground looking at the body fragments (NOT, repeat NOT looking at newspapers) it would still be impossible to produce anything other than an estimate. Your investigators would be accused of "bias" (just like Islamicists (he he!) and would make subjective interpretative judgements, would be faced with fabricated stories cooked up by witnesses.
All the rest of your post is bosh like before. You and the sites that you linked to have not provided a disproof of Herrolds methodology. They have shown that 28 deaths may have to be reomved from the total.
The standard error of the estimate could be constructed through a resampling method. Monte Carlo procedures would probably be the most apt.
Your assault upon "Islamicists" which says that they tell lies and must therefore (and their e-journals) be disbelieved shows that you have no interest in accepting the data and trying to work with it. You are making prejudicial value judgements and discounting witness testimony. If you with to be an impartial investigator of the truth then you've got to accept all the data. In order to not be caught out by those that are lying and thus allow the figure to be skewed it is best to look for what you ask for
BEGINQUOTE
Together, they spell out (to the serious researcher): Get corroboration!
ENDQUOTE
I nearly died laughing when I read that, it's exactly what Herrold is trying to do.
Allow me to repeat Herrold's words to you (perhaps reading them a second time will give you a chance to understand them (I've also capitalised some words that you can study hard in there):
BEGINQUOTE
Naturally, skeptics will howl about how accurate data might be collected. I have relied upon official news agencies, major newspapers, reported first-hand accounts. Whenever possible, I have sought CROSS-CORROBORATION [the idea being that if a couple major news agencies report the event, then it is more likely accurate]. I HAVE AVOIDED GRANTING GREATER RELIABILITY to U.S. or British sources -- the ethnocentric bias. When greater detail was given about the specifics of a bombing attack, I lent it greater credibility
ENDQUOTE
Here's another link for you to try. It doesn't have all the confusing data in
it like Herold's does, just some anecdotes, so you might be able to grasp it:
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/570/in4.htm
Now, with regards to Human Rights Watch, this is another example of Seanburgh making an unsubstantiated claim and failing to back it up. You said:
BEGINQUOTE
Certainly not; one sends in people to investigate media claims -- as Human Rights Watch are doing now. I refer you to their web site for further information on their current estimate (which is far lower than Herold's) and their new investigation, on-site in Afghanistan.
ENDQUOTE
And I asked you where that data was. I'm still waiting for their "current estimate (which is far lower than Herrold's).
So far you've replied with:
BEGINQUOTE
Sorry, old chum, don't have a link to the HRW study; and since you wouldn't settle for having it summarized -- and by a journalist, no less -- I'll provide you with a link to a different study, instead.
ENDQUOTE
Gosh, this is starting to look exactly like the widely known refutation. This report (seeing as you obviously haven't read it) starts out with the position that it will refuse to accept "Taliban" figures for deaths. So, it's doing exaclty what you want it to do. It's accepting the word of coutnries doing the bombing and disregarding the word of those being bombed. What a crock! It must be more of your shifty, lying "Islamicists", so it's alright to disregard everything they say. Again, this falls well below Herrold's method which seeks to CORROBORATE casualties and refuses to weight Western reports above Afghan ones:
BEGINQUOTE
BEGINQUOTE
In deriving the 1000-1300 estimate only Western press sources were used for hard numbers -- principally wire services (Reuters, Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse) and the British press (BBC News, the Independent, The Times, and the Guardian ). These sources seemed more attuned to the issue of civilian casualties than were US newspapers, while also being disinclined to accept on face value official Taliban reports or accounts from the Pakistani press.
ENDQUOTE
Certainly though this report is a step up from the garbage websites that you were linking to earlier.
At least these guys state that they're not bothering to count a large number of the reported deaths.
»You obviously don't understand that even if you had thousands of investigators on the ground looking at the body fragments (NOT, repeat NOT looking at newspapers) it would still be impossible to produce anything other than an estimate. Your investigators would be accused of "bias"«
Obviously you don'y understand if you think they're there to mainly look at body fragments. If you have any experience doing interviews, you know that you need a lot of skill to clarify what's happened. In my mind, an Islamicist e-journal with the expressed purpose of promoting a certain point of view isn't trustworthy. In yours, it is. We disagree.
»whenever possible, I have sought CROSS-CORROBORATION«
Problem is when he doesn't get it often enough. "Sought" and "whenever possible" isn't enough. Sorry.
»these guys state that they're not bothering to count a large number of the reported deaths«
So, your reading comprehension skills are as keen as ever. In their methodology section, they explain how they've arrived at their method. You ignore statements like "Similarly, official Taliban tallies of casualties (which were often broadcast via the Pakistan press) seem to disagree with journalist scene reports by a factor of more than four, on average. (The discount factor for Taliban reports is based on cases in Kabul that were investigated by reporters for the Agence France Presse.)"
So who do you trust more, Western journalists on-site, or the Taliban?
»And I asked you where that data was«
So you expect them to have concluded the on-site investigation already?
»At least these guys state that they're not bothering to count a large number of the reported deaths«
Yeah, "reported" isn't enough. They get corroboration, which is a bit better than guessing: "Oh, I guess this is correct." You and Herold would have been a hit in the US government during the Vietnam war. And here lies another problem with your position. Calling Herold's work merely an "estimate", you seek to shield it from criticism aginst flaws in it methods. However, you don't know the margin of error in this "estimate", and it's hard to see how you could find them out without criticizing his sources -- which seems to be taboo for you. ("Monte Carlo procedures" -- are you kidding?)
»It's accepting the word of coutnries doing the bombing and disregarding the word of those being bombed.«
I'm not aware of France doing any bombing. Nor of the Guardian sending any bombers.
BEGINQUOTE
In my mind, an Islamicist e-journal with the expressed purpose of promoting a certain point of view isn't trustworthy. In yours, it is. We disagree.
ENDQUOTE
No, I don't find Islamic ejournals trustworth, nor do I find Pentagon denials trustworthy. Nor do I find on-the-ground witnesses trustworthy. However I don't decide that I am going to accept one side and disregard the other. In order to get a feel for what the truth is I would prefer a method like Herold's: one which weights multiple reports as more convincing no matter what the source.
It is reasonable to believe that there's an inherent bias in "Western" media which seeks to minimise our Afghan murders, just as it's reasonable to believe that the Taliban seek to play them up.
BEGINQUOTE
Problem is when he doesn't get it often enough. "Sought" and "whenever possible" isn't enough. Sorry.
ENDQUOTE
OK. You're again making a falsifiable claim. Where are the non-corroborated instances that you're talking about? How many are there and to what bumber does it reduce the total. Or, do you mean "not corroborated by the media-lackeys of the Western bombing campaign?"
BEGINQUOTE
So, your reading comprehension skills are as keen as ever. In their methodology section, they explain how they've arrived at their method.
ENDQUOTE
Sigh. Read the last quote in my last post again:
BEGINQUOTE
In deriving the 1000-1300 estimate only Western press sources were used for hard numbers[...]
ENDQUOTE
So, again, the "ethnocentric bias" that Herold eschews is something that the report that you're mouthing touts as a virtue. Given that "Western"(!) press sources were limited on the ground and the great difficulty in travelling to so many areas, the inherent bias against Afghan victims, and the inherent difficulty in evaluating claims this methodology is guaranteed to be a gross undercounting.
BEGINQUOTE
So who do you trust more, Western journalists on-site, or the Taliban?
ENDQUOTE
Depends on the journalist. For instance, if I knew that you were "on the ground" I'd disregard your reports completely if I were playing that game. However, realising that that would be an irrational approach I'd prefer not to try and make a value judgement like that as all I'd be able to do then was confirm my predjudices. Instead I'd prefer to take all the reported death incidents and believe those that are reported in significantly the same detail in multiple places.
BEGINQUOTE
So you expect them to have concluded the on-site investigation already? [referring to the non-existent data that Seanburgh claimed disproved Herold's numbers]
ENDQUOTE
Well, you told me that it existed and used it as a prop to bolster your assertion that Herold's data was "widely and convincingly disproved". If you tell me something like that then it's reasonable to expect that it exists.
BEGINQUOTE
Yeah, "reported" isn't enough. They get corroboration, which is a bit better than guessing: "Oh, I guess this is correct." You and Herold would have been a hit in the US government during the Vietnam war.
ENDQUOTE
And that's what Herold does: gets corroboration of multiple reports of the same event. So when all the whiskey-soaked hacks stumble out of the Kabul Hilton and potter about in the Jeep and compare notes and then send out the same reports or when the inherently-crazed-lying-ejournalling-Islamicistiticists report the same thing, then it has a greater likelihood of having actually happened.
Bottom of the line: Herold's number is an estimate without a standard deviation based upon a method which is not totally in thrall to the interests of one side or the other.
Your preferred method only takes data from one biased source. Herold's takes both.
BEGINQUOTE
I'm not aware of France doing any bombing.
ENDQUOTE
Here's something to help you. It's from a shifty-USiscist-ejournal:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/22/ret.france.troops/
Not directly. In the same way that Ireland didn't actually "do any bombing", yet allowed USAF to refuel and train at Shannon. In the same way that a ground mechanic back in Richmond didn't "do any bombing". France has supported the USA in its war on terror although it was equivocal about the bombing. It has been very active in supporting the new Northern Alliance regime by training and equipping its soldiers.
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Nor of the Guardian sending any bombers
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The Grauniad is a _newspaper_ silly! It employs people that are inhabitants of the ex-colonial power known as the UK. A country that has been the most active in colluding with the illegal and atrocious US murder of civilians by bombing.
And now sweet Seanburgh, goodbye. I'm bored with you. You were young, amusing and pretty once, but now that I've had my way with you I no longer am interested in you. I'm sorry, but this whole "thing" is going nowhere. We're just not made for each other. You're a biased, irrational fantasists and I'm not.
»Well, you told me that it existed and used it as a prop to bolster your assertion that Herold's data was "widely and convincingly disproved".«
So, you have a double reading comprehension problem -- first, I never claimed that Herold's data was "widely and convincingly disproved", I provided a couple of links to sites that were critical of his methods. They gave examples of how his methods were flawed. Second, I also never claimed the on-site HRW report already existed; they were going to do that, and they had also done a different, more rigorous study along similar lines as Herold. Since I can’t find that link again, though, feel free to disregard it. However, stop lying about the methods of the PDA study -- they’ve double-checked the type of accounts that Herold accepts and found them to be exaggerated. Hence, their reluctance to take them at face value.
So you want specific examples of one-source Herold items -- why not simply read his footnotes youself? Is that too hard on you?
When one reads Herold’s study, a couple of weaknesses with his methodology immediately leaps out -- and I’m surprised someone as knowledgeable as yourself (knowing how to apply Monte Carlo procedures and all) doesn't notice them.
Let me first point out to you an example of Herold playing with words to give an impression of scientific rigour where none exists, and then an example of why his “transparent data” aren’t so transparent after all.
Let’s try Herold’s claim that “Three days later, a researcher at the Institute for Health & Social Justice, Partners in Health of Harvard University, H.J. Chien, confirmed that civilians had been killed in Jalalabad and elsewhere”. But checking the publication where Chien “confirmed” this, we find the sum total of his confirmation to be “As the bombs fall on Afghanistan, the toll among civilians mounts: 76 dead and over 100 injured after four days, according to Reuters.”
Some confirmation. He read the newswires. If this is what Herold considers “confirmation”, well...
Or take the following: “Whereas the Taliban claimed that 4 civilians had been killed, Ms. King mentions that an A.P. correspondent who went to the scene was able to only 'confirm' one civilian death.” Herold then lists a number of newspapers who have used the larger number, but he doesn’t mention where they got their information from -- did they simply accept the word of the Taliban regime, without checking for themselves? Herold doesn’t tell. Thus, his data aren’t checkable without going to the library and checking all these articles out -- and perhaps interviewing the journalists themselves, if that info isn’t in the articles. The idea of cross-corroboration includes _independent_ sources. But with his “My assumption is that reporters, news story editors, and national-level media outlets try to report as accurately as possible given the resources at their disposal”, Herold is giving up control over his data. Not part of the scientific method, I assure you.
And that’s a problem both you and Herold have with a standard scientific procedure in history studies: being critical of sources. When you state that »Instead I'd prefer to take all the reported death incidents and believe those that are reported in significantly the same detail in multiple places«, you’re disregarding the possibility that those reports may be simply copying the same initial report. And how would you know? By checking. But you’re satisfied with merely finding a couple of articles (or one, in a pinch). The reliability of your results would be accordingly problematic.
Herold also prefers reports as close in time as possible to the event --“My belief is that casualty figures reported shortly after a bombing incident are a fairly accurate description of what occurred”. You yourself have pointed out (although in a -- predictably -- exaggerated manner) the problem of obtaining accurate date so soon after the event: »I take this opportunity to remind you again of the problems of obtaining an accurate number, as opposed to an estimate, with the example of the WTC death estimates as summarised in this piece from the Financial Times«.
(You might also do well to remember that in Herold’s world, more detailed accounts are considered more reliable. While this is a well-known and confirmed psychological mechanism, it’s pretty shallow compared with actually checking one’s sources.)
Now, I’ll grant you, Herold _may_ be correct in his guesstimates. But his methods are so suspect, that I am not inclined to take his figures for granted. Feel free, however, to maintain your religious belief in them. (_Scientific_ it isn’t.)
Oh, and on France: you claimed that » It's accepting the word of coutnries doing the bombing«. Now you -- again -- have to back off and redefine what you meant. That’s OK, but wouldn’t it have been better to be less sweeping from the start?
»And now sweet Seanburgh, goodbye«
Oh, please don’t go! You _have_ to explain how your brilliant scientific mind came up with the splendid idea of doing Monte Carlo procedures to find out the reliability of Herold’s data! Or how a resampling method should be implemented! Those ideas are so original, it would be a crime to deprive the world of the reasoning behind them.