Dec. 11th - the Kucinich-Paul Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq
Kucinich managed to assemble a panel of "experts" on Dec. 11th to discuss civilian caualties in Iraq, a topic that no doubt deserves very serious discussion and is no laughing matter. But who did Kucinich bring out for the press to provide their expert opinion? Three guys who's work is anything but widely accepted, and in fact their work is quite commonly rejected -- two authors of the wideley discredited Lancet study on civilian casualties in Iraq, Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response and Prof Les Roberts from Columbia University. Joining them was Prof. Juan Cole of U. of Michigan, a supposed "middle east expert" who's work and comments regarding Iraq have been dressed down do many times in the blogosphere it's amazing anyone considers him a middle-east expert anymore. Nevertheless, apparently Dennis Kucinich is happy to have these guys and happy to trumpet their controversial (and that's being generous) views from Capitol Hill.
I'm not qualified to summarize al the criticisms of the Lancet study and Juan Cole, but some other resources are below. A few key points -- this Lancet study studied a few hundred deaths and extrapolated that an astounding 655,000 civilians died in 2 1/2 years. That number surpasses even the wildest previous estimates by a wide margin, including all those by all major newspaper reports, the United Nations, and even the Iraq Body Count project. It's more than the number of people who died in the American Civil War, or the number of civilians killed in the WWII Allied air campaign when entire cities were firebombed. Think the study might be just a bit off the mark? Yet Mr. Kucinich is inviting these people to Congress to testify, and doing so without even one whisper acknowledging the very low regard that most of the world, even holds this study.
It'd be nice if some reporter would ask Kucinich why he selected these particular experts. And how much faith he himself places in the Lancet Study. And, assuming he agreees with it's conclusions, how he squares those results with all the other similar estimates that come no where near the Lancet's numbers. And does Kucinich think by only presenting the most extreme "experts" he can actually win over Americans to his point of view? At the very least, I think people in his Congressional district would be interested in a little backstory on Kucinich's latest hearing on the Hill.
I'm not qualified to summarize al the criticisms of the Lancet study and Juan Cole, but some other resources are below. A few key points -- this Lancet study studied a few hundred deaths and extrapolated that an astounding 655,000 civilians died in 2 1/2 years. That number surpasses even the wildest previous estimates by a wide margin, including all those by all major newspaper reports, the United Nations, and even the Iraq Body Count project. It's more than the number of people who died in the American Civil War, or the number of civilians killed in the WWII Allied air campaign when entire cities were firebombed. Think the study might be just a bit off the mark? Yet Mr. Kucinich is inviting these people to Congress to testify, and doing so without even one whisper acknowledging the very low regard that most of the world, even holds this study.
- Iraq the Model -- Lancet study is "fake research"
- Check out this YouTube video of the Lancet's editor -- thankfully he wasn't part of Kucinich's hearing, but his partners and his study certainly was.
- Lancet links from Instapundit.com
- On Juan Cole at The New Republic
- Some right-wing criticism of Jaun Cole here and here. If your liberal you probably don't like these blogs, but the points made are accurate.
It'd be nice if some reporter would ask Kucinich why he selected these particular experts. And how much faith he himself places in the Lancet Study. And, assuming he agreees with it's conclusions, how he squares those results with all the other similar estimates that come no where near the Lancet's numbers. And does Kucinich think by only presenting the most extreme "experts" he can actually win over Americans to his point of view? At the very least, I think people in his Congressional district would be interested in a little backstory on Kucinich's latest hearing on the Hill.
posted by Michael at 9:56 AM
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