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Oct. 16, 2006 Predictably enough, US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair sprang up with jack-in-the-box denials of the findings of a recent study, conducted by scholars from Baltimore’s John Hopkins University and Baghdad’s al-Mustansiriya University. The study estimated that excess deaths in Iraq since the Anglo-American invasion of March 20, 2003 number 655,000, though the probabilistic margin of error is wide. The estimate was based on interviews with a large sample of households scattered over a number of Iraq’s governorates. In most cases, the affirmations of the interviewees were supported by death certificates. The findings of the study have been published all over the world—in China, Russia, India, Australia, Europe, Arab countries and Latin America. Most of the people in those places hold the credibility of both Bush and Blair in very low esteem, and this is understandable, in view of their numerous witting and unwitting deviations from the truth. You would think that anyone seriously concerned with the catastrophe that has befallen Iraq would at the very least allow the possibility that the study might have some merit. The promptitude of the denials made by Bush and Blair only reinforces my personal conviction and probably that of many others that the two heads of state don’t care a whit about the death toll, but rather seek only to extenuate their own guilt. After all, both Bush and Blair have been demonstrable liars. Should anyone take their denials seriously? The new estimate of the Iraqi death toll was made in much the same way that the estimate of the Holocaust death toll of 6,000,000 was made. Obviously, no one collected the 6,000,000 bodies from the Holocaust. That number was arrived at by comparison of census records, estimates of Jewish populations before and after the war, interviews and testimony. In other words, the figure of 6,000,000 was reached by demographic inference, based upon the branch of mathematics called ‘statistics’. Statistics is a methodology involving a number of axioms, postulates and theorems, and is very analogous to geometry and calculus. It is not merely a collection of numbers. In the case of the Holocaust, all sorts of assumptions and projections had to be made before a final figure was settled on. It is this very procedure that has caused some Holocaust revisionists to have their reservations about the number 6,000,000. The number 6,000,000 has been institutionalized. Everyone is conditioned to repeat that number reflexively. Even people who have never read a single book on the subject, or even thought it over, will say, “Everybody knows that.” In several European countries, it is considered a criminal offense to question or deny the official version of the Holocaust. At this very moment, historian David Irving is sitting in a prison in Austria for Holocaust denial. I don’t want anyone to think I am denying or revising the Holocaust. No, I am not. Basically, I don’t much care, but I’m willing to listen to arguments one way or the other. I don’t stand by the official version, but I haven’t been swayed by alternative versions either. What I’m getting at is that the figure of 655,000 was deduced in practically the same way, by demographic inference. In the last 60 years, the methods of statistical inference have been vastly improved by researchers in such disciplines as mechanical statistics and actuarial science. Moreover, the introduction of computers has put infinitely more powerful tools in the hands of statisticians. Back in the 1940’s, statisticians worked with adding machines, slide rules, tables of logarithms and pencils. They didn’t even have ball-point pens! So I suspect that studies of the kind made today are far more dependable than those made then. I personally don’t know that this latest study is correct, but I’m willing to listen to arguments. I do believe that the official estimates are deliberately understated. The only question in my mind is how grossly they are understated. Is 655,000 the correct figure? Should it be 400,000? Should it be 250,000? The only thing that is certain is that estimates like 30,000 or 50,000 are whitewashes. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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