rise up Rochester

It doesn’t surprise me that the mainstream media in America continually under-represents the true cost of the war in Iraq for the political purposes of those in Washington. But I expect more from the City Newspaper here in Rochester. This newspaper is perceived as independent and its readership is among the more educated in our community. The views in the City and those of its readership also tend to me more ‘liberal’, so it continues to shock me that they are whitewashing this war. Why must they continue to publish these false statistics when it is common knowledge on the streets that the current situation is much worse? Here is what City published in this weeks issue:

COST OF WAR: The Iraq conflict by the numbers (7/30)

On Jul. 30th, 2008

TOTALS – 4124 U.S. soldiers, 314 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 86,423 to 94,285 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to July 28.

There is well documented, scientifically researched evidence from multiple sources that the actual death toll may have already surpassed the one million person mark, including women and children. Below are some of the sources, but if you Google “one million Iraqis dead’ you can find scores of other stories:

At justforeignpolicy.org you can find an interesting article on this subject written a year ago:

The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US invasion.

The Huffington Post also wrote a year ago that:

Yesterday a radio interviewer in South Africa asked me what had been the response of the “mainstream media in the United States” to Just Foreign Policy’s ongoing estimate of the Iraqi death toll from the U.S. invasion and occupation, which on Thursday crossed the one million mark.

Reuters also reported a similar story from the same information, although a few months later in January of this year. This is what they wrote, which lays out the specifics from the study:

LONDON (Reuters) – More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain’s leading polling groups.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes.

The last complete census in Iraq conducted in 1997 found 4.05 million households in the country, a figure ORB used to calculate that approximately 1.03 million people had died as a result of the war, the researchers found.

The margin of error in the survey, conducted in August and September 2007, was 1.7 percent, giving a range of deaths of 946,258 to 1.12 million.

And for you video junkies out there, here’s a clip that lays it all out:

Also, why no mention of the untold trillions of dollars spent so far that is literally bankrupting our entire economy? The loss of life is huge, but the economic impact could be even more wide-reaching if this continues. Although millions have been affected so far, an economic collapse in this country would quickly spread to the rest of the world, effecting possibly billions of people.

Speak up now and demand truthful reporting from the City Newspaper as well as every other media outlet in our country. Why must we be lied to in this way?

UPDATE: As of 11:30pm tonight City Newspaper has removed my comment on their page explaining how their statistics are wrong. I also provided a link to this article. I wonder why they wouldn’t let my comment stay?

UPDATE: This morning an assistant editor at City Newspaper emailed me and told me that they did not remove my comment, it was just not approved yet. I’m glad to see that already a dialog is beginning to develop as a reaction to my comment.