Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The Media - Not quite telling the whole story
Death statistics are ugly, no matter who or what is the cause; however, before making the easy judgement, all sides of the story need to be heard...
At the National Review Online, Mark Goldblatt discusses lives saved vs lives lost, and the reporting in detail:
"According to U.N. studies using similar methodologies to those utilized by JHBSPH, roughly 150,000 civilians, more than half of them children, were dying every year as a direct result of U.N. sanctions. Since the sanctions ended in May 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, that means that in the 3.5 years since then, roughly 525,000 lives were spared. If we compare that number with the JHBSPH’s estimate of 600,000 lives lost as a result of the conflict, we’re led to conclude that George W. Bush’s decision to oust Saddam has cost roughly 75,000 Iraqi civilian lives. But the JHBSPH researchers acknowledge a huge margin for error; their low end estimate is 426,369. That means Bush’s decision to invade may actually have saved almost 100,000 lives."
