No Sineman, Ithaca Journal

Sineman is still on hiatus and my attention has been drawn to a recent opinion letter in the Ithaca Journal. I think reproducing it here falls under Fair Use.

My purpose is criticism and comment. This blog is non-commercial. I will reproduce the letter in its entirety (sans the author's identity) but, it was published in the weekend edition and it's currently 6:43 PM on Sunday. My reproducing the letter at this date and time will not affect sales of the Ithaca Journal. As to the internet aspect of the letter, I certainly won't reduce traffic to the Journal website. If anything, and if I actually had readers, I would increase traffic to the site thereby increasing revenue for the Journal.

I think I'm safe from any legal action under copyright law.

The letter is titled "Bush's 'holy' laurels" (bold is my emphasis)

A caller to C-SPAN wondered why we don't use overwhelming force in Iraq as Japan and Germany were submissive to our will after Hiroshima and Dresden.

Talk about comparing apples and oranges! Japan and Germany attacked others. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 yet has lost three quarter of a million of its citizens to post-invasion violence while another two million have given up homes and careers to seek safety in other countries.

When asked how he felt after the election Bush said he felt like Noah in the flood. Noah! The rescuer of life on earth! Bush indeed feels he is the apple of God's eye and it is his business to bring about the End Times, so a profane thing like an election is unlikely to sway him. He says he is listening to critics, but their words follow a direct path into his ears and then out. Why ponder, debate and analyze our dilemma when you can rest on your holy laurels?

The next two years will be a true test of the separation of power and the will of the people as Bush digs in his heels and the Democrats and the voters who gave them their slim majority endeavor to confront his unchanged course hiding behind changed rhetoric.

Ok. It is true that Japan and Germany attacked others. The insinuation is apparently that Iraq, under Saddam, did not. Remember now, Iraq, under Saddam, invaded Iran. Invaded Kuwait. Gassed Kurds. And slaughtered Shiites.

Given the US history of intervention around the world, each of those four instances is justification enough. Taken together?

750,000 dead. 655,000 dead according to the study published in the Lancet in 2006 right? It was 100,000 by the same researchers in 2004. In 2004, according to the United Nations, it was 18,187-29,299 (page 54 of the Analytical Report).

In the 2006 Johns Hopkins study 1,800 households were studied. In the UN report, 21,000+ were studied. A bit of a difference eh?

Also, from the UN report:

The question asked in ILCS was formulated and posed
in a relatively standard way typical to large surveys
and censuses (UN 1983). The question underestimates
deaths, because households in which all members
were lost are omitted. It is therefore common within
demographic studies to use a correction for this,
based on a number of assumptions derived from
stable population theory (UN 1983). This has not been
attempted here, as it is unlikely that the assumptions
are satisfied. It is not common to make this correction
in epidemiologically oriented studies, and this was
not done in the Roberts et al. study.

In other words, Roberts et al. made assumptions that the UN thought unwise and made "corrections" that the UN didn't. To be fair, this was in 2004. I'm sure things were different in 2006 (rolleyes).

The remainder of the letter mocks President Bush's faith. Have fun with that. Don't try it in say...Iraq.