Re:Here's some evidence
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I can't speak for what link the British press may have made between Powell's and Blair's (separate) sets of presented evidence, but in either case, surely you would agree that an `unnamed source' which appear only in the Guardian (a paper with a well-defined ideological position, to put it mildly) is not necessarily the best source of information on what Powell is thinking, no?
The British press and politicians all appear to know exactly who the unnamed source was: British law is very strict about revealing state secrets, hence the secrecy. But all hell is breaking loose in Downing Street at the moment. Here is The Times' take on it, top-selling right-wing paper in Britain.
That post was indeed by glrotate. My apologies -- from the haste with which you posted to defend it, I took his position to be yours as well, and mistook who had posted first.
That's perfectly alright. Thank you for your polite and timely reply.
Is his position yours as well?
Not quite. glrotate says "There were no Scuds." I'm saying that there is no evidence of any Scuds yet, so we should proceed on the basis that there were none until the claims are independently verified.
As for your questions on Professor Herold, no, I can find no statisticians leaping to his defense on the Afghan numbers. But likewise, I can find only STATS criticising them, and lots of people quoting STATS. STATS claim to be a "non-partisan" stats group: well, how many stats groups or statisticians claim to be "partisan"? Every one of them is "non-partisan", just like every man in jail is innocent. The Iraq Body Count team may have only used a very small percentage of incidents from what you and I would consider unreliable sources (Saddam loyalists et al.), with a resulting insignificant impact on interpreted results.
My long background in medical stats has given me a healthy dread of the nasty little games statisticians play. If you'd like to see a good example of how distinguished "non-partisan" statisticians are happy to send innocent people to their graves for a buck, try googling for "thimerosal".
So please forgive me if I cannot accept a summary from some group I've never heard of, criticising the past work of one academic, as a basis for rejecting the work of all future work of any team he ever works in again. I'm aware that you would need to buy the report in order to prove their methodology to me, and even I'm not so presumptuous as to insist on that.
We therefore seem to be at something of a standstill.
Still, if you ever do come across a copy of what critieria they used to judge "reliable" and "unreliable" incidents on the Iraq numbers, and it shows I was wrong, I promise to admit it here, and remove the sig immediately.
Until then...
Re:Here's some evidence
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While I wouldn't want to speak for Mr. Blair or his sources, your resort to insults (`poor schmuck' and the like) here certainly seems to suggest that you aren't very confident that your argument stands on it's own merits. In any case, looking over Colin Powell's presentation to the UN, I note that he did not source Mr. Blair or his dossier for any of the evidence he presented, so your case looks a bit forced, no?
He did indeed source it: though he did not mention Blair in the UN speech itself, he did brief the British press about it afterwards. And he is rather embarrassed about it now.
How many would you consider `acceptable', especially in the absence of any studies substantiating Mr. Herold's claims?
I have just answered this in detail on the other sub-thread where you asked it, though you probably haven't read this yet.
In this post you directly alleged that the only missile Iraq fired on Kuwait was the single Seersucker which impacted outside a shopping mall in Kuwait City. The Iraqi Information Minister claimed the same thing, but every single news outlet referenced in that thread including the ones you posted links to claimed otherwise.
That post was by glrotate. There are many links in that thread to news reports of Scuds landing in Kuwait: all have the US Defense Dept as their source, none are verified. The military would not let anyone see all these alleged Scuds. I certainly can't blame a reporter for quoting US Defense Dept briefings: that's news. But I won't believe the reports until I read that the press went and actually saw 14 impact sites with fragments of Scuds.
I've yet to see a single actual statistician consider Mr. Herold's work as valid, but perhaps you could give us a counterexample? Even one?
A man is innocent until proven guilty. You have attacked Professor Herold's work, not me: prove his guilt, and I will accept it.
I've just shown you several statisticians and even a trade group of statisticians which consider Mr. Herold's work to be nonsense. Can you show me any that have confirmed his work? Any?
I can only recall one, that of STATS: please remind me of which other statisticians you quoted? Remember that the Iain Murray article is in fact a reprint of his original piece on the STATS site.
Poor Mr. Fox. I'd wager you don't even see the irony of your juvenile name-calling coming but one paragraph after your appeal for politeness and reasoned debate.
Yes, that was indeed the joke, Mr. Con. Glad to see you enjoyed it.
Re:Here's some evidence
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Mr. Herold's resume is currently off-line (whether through server trouble or as a response to the number of people who have recently pointed out how thin it is), but a quick look at google's cached copy confirms that it lists not a single published work of a statistical nature, whether peer-reviewed or otherwise.
You link to a career precis listing work on:
social and economic changes in the Second and Third Worlds
Chile under Allende
Grenada under the New Jewel movement
industrialization in Albania and the German Democratic Republic
foreign capital in El Salvador and in Mexico
the peripheral socialist planning model in Nicaragua
the new international division of labor
survival strategies of poor urban women in Brazil
the construction of modern business since 1840
steamship rivalry to secure trade routes to Brazil
a case study of economic change of the state of Bahia
How do you think one publishes peer-reviewed works in these areas without statistics? Are only statisticians skilled analysts of statistics? Statistics is the backbone of the study of economics, and he has a PhD in Economics from Berkeley. Your assertion that "Mr. Herold has no background or formal training in statistics" is therefore demonstrably false.
Again, how many would you consider `acceptable'? And why has Mr. Herold done nothing to address the cases of double- and triple- counting already pointed out, even in his report on Afghanistan?
You have submitted three examples of double-counts. They may be true, though I have no means of checking them. 3/3000 = one-tenth of one percent of entries possibly wrong. 3/3400 =.08 of one percent. Both can reasonably considered negligible. I would personally consider that if 30-40% of the low side of his estimate were proven wrong, that would be grounds on which to consider the rest of his work suspect. Since STATS judges that only 690 of his entries are what they would consider reliable, that would mean 77%.
But because we have no idea on what basis this one statistical group has judged entries invalid, you have only an opinion, not an academic basis from which to attack this single example of Professor Herold's previous work. If you can show me their methodology, I will gladly admit here that I was wrong: I take great pride in my unblemished record on this. If you can prove to me a similar level of error in the Iraq Body Count numbers, I will admit that I'm wrong on that too, and remove it from my sig. In fact I am even open to persuasion on Chile, and anything else you care to argue about. I would start voting neocon myself, today, if you could prove to me a basis on which to believe that it is a correct ideology. In fact I was a conservative myself for many years, until I was shown that the data on which I'd based my ideological alignment were demonstrably incorrect.
There: I have just answered "how many would you consider acceptable", the very first time you asked. Will you now at long last answer my similar question "what evidence would you consider acceptable on US involvement on the Pinochet coup", now that I have asked you repeatedly?
Re:Here's some evidence
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Well, I hit 'em like they're pitched, Mr. Con. As soon as you stop hurling personal abuse and insults at me, I'll stop batting them right back at you. If you're ready to be polite while discussing this, I will respond in kind and be glad to do so.
You have submitted opinions that you think Dr. Herold's Afghan count is faulty, and attempted to use this to impugn the work of a team of 21 on another project. You have quoted (double-quoted actually) the work of one statistical group to support this, and then gone on to claim that all statisticians must therefore agree.
I do not agree that you have proven that Dr. Herold has breached any of the standards you cite on the Afghan project, and I await your assesment of the Iraq Body Count data or methodology, since that was what you were criticising in the first place.
Re:Here's some evidence
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The links I have given are all evidence. They're not proof, but evidence, because that's what you asked for. By way of analogy, a witness' claim of someone matching a suspect's description placing him at the scene of the crime is not proof, it's evidence.
You don't like the evidence I've provided. Well, then please tell me what kind of evidence you are looking for, and I will give it.
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Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume you really don't understand what I've clearly stated several times. I am not interested in playing the game of being sent repeatedly for evidence, and having it dismissed for no reason, until I wear out. If you want more evidence from me, you're going to need to tell me what evidence will convince you.
It's quite mystifing that you are so unwilling to answer this simple question.
Re:Here's some evidence
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A long post, yet you manage to address none of the agreed upon facts. As far as I can tell, everyone agrees on the following:
Everyone? Really? You've read the opinions of everyone? Cool! Where can I find the writings of everyone who's reviewed Herold's research? Or did you mean "everyone" you happen to agree with?
* Mr. Herold has no background or formal training in statistics
That's an interesting assertion. May I see some evidence please?
* In preparing his reports, Mr. Herold includes numbers provided by the Iraqi information minister as directly factual,
Which numbers please? How many? Two? Three? A hundred? What percent of 3000 are they?
something no one else agrees is reasonable to do.
No-one? There it is again! I've just got to see this database of the opinions of tens of thousands of professional statisticians you've found. Please post the URL: I will happily pay a subscription charge to see research that thorough.
* Even a cursory examination of Mr. Herold's claims turns up several instances of double- and even triple- counting of numbers from other sources.
Hm, so now it's gone from "numerous" to "several". How many is "several" please? Two? Three? A hundred?
wouldn't Marc Herold's numbers agree more closely with the estimates of other journalists in Iraq than in Afghanistan? As it happens, they don't.
Which "other journalists" please? Are you claiming that all journalists disagree with Iraq BodyCount's numbers? You've read every journalist in the world that's written on the civilian casualties in Iraq? Or do you mean the "other journalists" that you know of, and happen to agree with?
And they are not "Herold's numbers", as I've already explained to you: he's one of a staff of 21 researchers. It's worth noting that one of those researchers is Dr. Glen Rangwala of the Univ. of Cambridge. Tony Blair's infamous "intelligence dossier" on Iraq was based in large part on plagiarism from Rangwala's doctoral thesis on Iraq done 12 years ago, and spiffed up by British civil servants to look like recent research. Rangwala noticed, and complained in public, so the Blair government is still feeling the fallout from that particular pack of lies about the war. That poor schmuck Colin Powell singled out Blair's "valuable dossier" for particular praise while he was fighting hard to persuade people that some sort of threat existed from Iraq. Bet he now wishes he hadn't. But it's telling that you only attempt to discredit the Iraq numbers by attacking a single past piece of work by a single member of a team of 21. It makes me wonder why you can't find anything else to criticise about the Iraq Body Count numbers.
However, this is a moot point, since as we discuss below, Mr. Herold is relying on bogus (according to every actual statistician who has looked at them) statistical interpretations of the same data as everyone else, not on independent data.
You mean "every actual statistician" you've read and agree with. Why would a statistician go to the press to say he agrees with someone's statistics? You will only ever read about a disagreement in the press, as agreement is not news. And since you can't possibly have read the opinion of every "every actual statistician" who has looked at them, I suggest you stop claiming that you have.
Except that Herold's `attempt at a count' was (according to him) based on the exact same reports which yielded the other estimates -- in other words, given the exact same reports, he came up with different numbers.
Researchers can use different criteria when evaluating the same raw data. Some researchers were even more cautious than he was, and applied different criteria. If you were a scientist, you'd know that this is a source of debate in every field: that's why not all scientists agree on climate change, the health effects of tobacco, risks of
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I'm sorry you don't like it when I use the word "tertiary". It's pretty big, I'll grant you, but I note you've just used several bigger words in your last post, like "intelligence" and "exhaustively". Getting comfortable with the word "tertiary" should be just a matter of you hearing it and using it a few times, so don't worry.
Like I've said several times now, you are still complaining that none of the evidence I've submitted is good enough for you, so what we'll need now is for you to state which evidence would convince you of US involvement in the coup, so I can dig some out for you. Please don't wait too much longer, as/. are going to archive this story pretty soon. Thanks!
Re:Here's some evidence
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Several points:
a) journalists got nowhere near the same access to the Afghan bombings as they did in Iraq.
b) your journalists compare back-of-the-envelope estimates by some human rights groups and journalists, who clearly stated at the time that they were estimates, with Herold's attempt at a count. When Herold started out, he was the only one attempting a count. The PDA later also attempted an Afghan count too, which came out lower. Neither claims to count all the deaths, as some could not possibly have been reported, such as isolated families being wiped out in the sticks. The PDA one was even more catuious than Herold, but neither counts subsequent deaths from disease and starvation that were a direct result of the bombings. Both are then almost certainly too low, but it would take years of hard work to count those additional numbers. Little chance of that happening, now that the US has allowed the warlords to take the country over again, as they did after the Soviet invasion.
Your first link: "Professor Herold's general methodology seems to be that..." It goes on to note that Herold, whose count is one of two attempts at a methodical count available in the public domain, has revised his figures down to a paltry 3000-3600. Only 3000 dead. Is this OK by you then, so long as they weren't American dead?
This Spectator writer isn't even confident enough in his accusations aginst Herold to state what he alleges was done wrong, he just say "seems". Just because several journalists say something is true doesn't make it true, as you pointed out recently, and this fellow is too cowardly even to declare any precise wrongdoing, for fear of a libel lawsuit. The Spectator has certainly had its share: they were recently in trouble with the police over an extremely racist article they printed, and as the mouthpiece of the moribund Conservative party, they cannot afford any more trouble in court.
The article does not even offer its own alternative methodical count, it merely quotes the PDA one, and several back-of-the-envelope estimates. How spectacularly useless.
Your second link: Says he quotes journalists who rely on the AIP, but does not say which, or even how many. Two? Three? A hundred? He goes on to cite three examples of double counts, which you and I have no means of checking, and then claims that these are followed by "numerous" other examples. How numerous? Two? Three? A hundred? If he actually found a lot, why doesn't he even say "I found fifty more before I gave up"? Because the count is actually very low, of course. Herold himself says he knows that some of his sources will be wrong, and that he's making a best-attempt at a count. Yet this articles implies that three innaccuracies out of thousands renders the data somehow invalid. He then says " A STATS review of the data suggests that, on a careful reading, only 650 of the deaths he claims are in any way reliably reported." Do we get to see their "careful reading"? Nope. Do we evn get to hear secondhand what methodology their "careful reading" employed? Nope. But we're assured by the journalist that it's reliable, so maybe we should just trust him. How about applying your fastidiously rigid criteria on evidence about the Pinochet coup here?
He then quotes the lower PDA count, as well as the beginnings of an AP attempt, and even he notes that the AP attempt is unfinished and will be higher, and concludes by saying that the civilian death toll was indeed disproportionate, and that the Defense Dept needs to start addressing this issue, so he is actually agreeing with Herold's conclusion, though he disagrees about how many thousands of civilians were killed. "Thoroughly debunked"? Hardly.
In your third link, you cite an article where a writer from an ultra-right-wing commentary sheet could not find corroborating sources on his own, and claims that Herold refused to help him out. From this you conclude that he "he steadfastly refuses to explain where he gets his numbers
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Nearly all of them cite evidence, none of which you like. For example, you don't like Hitchens' damning indictment of Kissinger for assisting the Pinochet coup and other crimes, but since the whole book isn't about his involvement in Chile, it's somehow not good enough. And so on.
You, meanwhile, produce secondary and tertiary evidence, call it primary, and rather amusingly try to imply that I'm at fault for not accepting it as primary. This is your "evidence" in support of your bizarre thesis that the US was really not involved in the Pinochet coup. Dogma makes men twist themselves into the oddest positions.
I am still waiting, by the way, for you to tell me what evidence would convince you, since all the evidence I have produced is somehow not good enough. You still refuse. I wonder why?
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I note that once again you cannot dispute the statistics, hence you must fall back on your faithful safety net of ad-hominem argument:
a) He's a professor of Professor of Economics, International Relations, and Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire, therefore his statistics are somehow valid.
b) Sahaf claimed high civilian casualties, therefore all other high counts of casualties are somehow supporting Sahaf, and are likewise somehow invalid.
Is that the best you can do?
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:-) Proof at last that you won't accept any evidence at all, and your opinion was permanently set in stone on the subject years ago. I suspected as much.
Neoconservatism isn't an ideology, it's a religion, and a man might as well be arguing about economics with Castro as argue about history with a neocon. Good thing I didn't burn up even more time digging out all the rest of the evidence out for you then.
This thread will stay alive for some days more: think it over. If you do eventually decide there's any evidence at all that would convince you, then y'all come back, I'll be here waiting.
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Yes, I've got all of the above evidence, and more. Thank you for summarising several all on one page: I will bookmark that for convenient reference.
We cluster-bombed Baghdad on far less evidence than that. And as soon as you tell me what evidence you will accept, there will be even more.
I will not continue to dig out and submit yet more evidence to you, for instant dismissal on the grounds that it's somehow not good enough for Sir, like a waiter bringing out everything in the kitchen until Mr. Creosote sees something he likes. As soon as you're ready for real debate, I'm all ears. We can start now if you like.
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You have submitted no "primary documents" yet, let alone a refutation of a single word I've written, only the official parliamentary record of politicians accusing other politicians of wrongdoing, couched in long paragraphs of ad-hominem. That's hardly the mark of someone who's confident about his arguments. Do you think those actually report verbatim what's said in any country's parliament or congress? Do you really consider that to be a primary source? Do you really? Really?
I am still as keen as ever to furnish you with further evidence. Will you be telling me anytime soon what evidence would convince you? Why do you keep refusing to answer this single, simple question? Could it be that all you're interested in is getting me to dig out yet more evidence, so you can dismiss it, and demand more and more and more until I eventually give up in disgust, like most people do on/. after trying to have an honest debate with you? No thanks! Tell me your required evidence, and then I'll supply some. Otherwise you're just blowing hot air.
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First you claimed that no-one could be expected to believe that the US is behind the Pinochet coup on the basis of the existing evidence, then when I point out that most of the world believes it, you accuse me of basing my argument solely on widespread belief. Backflips like that must be rather painful!
Watching you twist my arguments back and forth is good fun, but you can forget about wearing me down with that old tactic. I am still waiting for you to tell me what evidence would convince you. You seem strangely unwilling to answer.
In case you weren't paying attention, here are some stories on those attacks.
* The Guardian: Iraq launches Scud missiles
* Canadian Broadcasting Corp.: Iraq lobs missiles at Kuwait
* Houston Chronicle: Patriot system proves its worth
And here are the follow-up stories, written once the over-excited journos had a chance to calm down a little and look at the evidence:
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On the contrary, you'll find that outside of the United States, it's almost universally accepted that the US was behind the Pinochet coup, just as it was behind the recent attempted coup in Venezuela, and the coup against Mossadegh in Iran, and against Kassem in Iraq, and against Arbenz in Guatemala, etc, etc, etc.
Why do you think Kissinger doesn't travel abroad much?
Because the evidence is piling up: 123, ...and next time he's taken in for questioning, he might not strike it lucky again.
It's completely fair and logical for you to declare that you're not convinced by all the evidence you've seen to date for US involvement in the Pinochet coup, but it's quite illogical of you to then go on to assert that "no-one else is convinced of this".
And as I've said several times, I'd be delighted to cite you even more evidence, just as soon as you tell me what evidence would convince you.
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I'm still making the same point as I have throughout this thread. I provided evidence, and you don't believe it. That's OK, it's just evidence, not proof. But your rebuttal from the beginning centred on Allende "cancelling elections". You have since then come up with all sorts of interesting evidence that Allende may have done this or that wrongdoing during, before and after elections, but you have not yet cited your evidence that Allende cancelled or suspended any election. I do want to see this evidence, as it could certainly change my mind once I've finally seen it.
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I've read every pearl you've written, and can find only allegations of other sorts of wrongdoing, and nothing about cancelling elections.
I'm still waiting for some evidence of your original, repeated assertion that Allende cancelled the elections.
Do you intend to supply any?
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You have presented several articles, which do not mention him suspending or cancelling elections.
You have also provided a list of accusations by some elected politicians. The latter is not evidence, it's allegation. Where is your evidence?
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Thanks for the links. I can find many criticisms of Allende in there, but nowhere can I find evidence that he cancelled or suspended elections.
No, I would not have proposed invading Chile to affect political change: I am not a neocon. I propose that Carter and his successors ought to have not only ceased all weapons sales, but also stopped the CIA from providing covert aid, publicly cut ties with Chile, introduce resolutions aginst the Pinochet regime in the UN and other international bodies where the US holds sway, and introduced economic and other sanctions.
As for my evidence that the US helped to put Pinochet there, well, I'm sorry you're not convinced by it. I think it's far more damning than any evidence that US administrations have put forward against Iraq, Iran, Syria, Panama, Vietnam, etc. You seem happy for our military to take up cudgels against these on receipt of the slimmest of evidence, but then turn around and insist on the most rigorous standards of evidence for other countries.
And while we're at it, perhaps you can provide a source for your claims of `tens of thousands' killed under Pinochet's rule? Most credible reports which I've seen put the number of deaths at around 1,000 or 2,000, and even the site remember-chile.org which you link to puts the number of deaths at 3,197 (957 of those being `disappearances'). This is still too many, of course, but it raises questions about the credibility of your claims that you report numbers five to ten times higher thananyone else does...
Since he was very good at disposing of the bodies, it is indeed very difficult to prove an exact number of deaths. But I actually said "the torture and murder of tens of thousands". I am only sure of 3,197 dead so far, but many thousands more were tortured, and many still live with the physical and mental agony. On a personal note, I would prefer death to having my eyes slowly gouged out in front of my children.
Of course, your comparison of Israel, a free and open democracy with equal rights for all of its citizens, to either Allende's or Pinochet's dictatorships suggests that you're not really interested in reasoned debate anyway. Please take such nonsense to another thread...
I believe it to be a directly relevant analogy. Israel is not "a free and open democracy with equal rights for all its citizens": Israeli Arabs do not have the democratic freedoms that the majority of its citizens do. Similarly, those Arabs who would not or could not agree to forced citizenship, and their descendants, regularly have their human rights trampled in the worst ways. People were tortured and killed by the US client state Chile while the White House under GOP and Dems did almost nothing, and sometimes actually assisted this vile regime. The same is true for Israel, presently ruled by a war criminal no better than Pinochet, whom Bush describes as "a man of peace".
Well, let's see. Allende
* cancelled elections
* disbanded the Supreme Court of Chile
* actively encouraged mutinies within the Chilean navy, out of fear that officers might obey their oath to uphold the Chilean constitution
* ordered tear gas and even live ammunition fired into crowds of unarmed protestors, including a delegation of wives of military officers
* called for and received three hundred Cuban guerillas to act as a personal bodyguard
You repeat these allegations, yet have still offered no evidence to support them, only essays alleging them with no evidence in support. In particular, the link you provide right after the above quote does not support them anywhere as far as I can see. I would be interested to see some evidence please.
Even if you could prove all of the above, it would in no way prove that he would not have stepped down had the US failed to support the Pinochet coup. The future is unproveable, and I wouldn't dream of asking you to prov
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When did Allende suspend elections, as claimed in your first and third points?
You also claim the CIA had no knowledge of their contacts' illegal actions, ostensibly including that of Manuel Contreras and the DINA assassins of Letelier and Moffitt, and demand evidence of this knowledge. May I ask what sort of evidence would satisfy you that they knew?
Finally, you claim that pressure from the Reagan adminstration forced Pinochet to step down, and that this is an "uncontested fact". Yet the Reagan administration were selling helicopters to Pinochet's regime, all the while they were supposedly "pressuring" for elections. http://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/C hile.htm
It's more logical to conclude that Pinochet was planning to step down, and the US was simply applying the same sort of "pressure" that Israel currently enjoys from the US, meaning mild, periodic press releases requesting the client state to do the decent thing. The Republicans put Pinochet there, should we congratulate them for asking him to step down years later, all the while suppressing documents on US involvement, all the while turning a blind eye to the torture and murder of tens of thousands, including that of US citizens?
What evidence can you cite that Allende would not have stepped down? So far, you have offered only Castro as some sort of proxy evidence.
In fact, Castro was never Allende's "buddy", and Castro was not encouraging revolution in Chile in Allende's time, rather the reverse is true. Castro and his Stalinists played a significant role in stopping revolution in Chile. When Castro visited Chile in 1971, and conflict was at its peak between the most militant sections of workers and the Allende government, Castro was advising against any independent revolutionary activity. Chile, he told the workers, was different to Cuba, and because of its long history of constitutional government, there was a distinct "Chilean road to socialism" which could take a parliamentary path. Cuba, on the other hand, was a dictatorship under the US' pal Batista, and Castro rightly saw there was no way a parliamentary struggle against Batista could succeed. He never did implement democracy in Cuba, and its correct to criticise him for that. But Allende did, and had Chile been left alone, it could have served as a stick to beat Castro with. Nope, not good enough for the White House and the CIA, they wanted both govts out at any price. So to this day they defend their indefensible actions in Chile by saying "it all would have turned out like Cuba, we just KNOW it."
Some stupid-ass language selector JSP is stalled (who uses JSP to put up a press release?!)
Very smart of them to use JSP actually, so they can dynamically backpedal in real-time, using live updated content from their massive marketing database:
java.sql.ResultSet columns = statement.executeQuery( "SELECT time, excuse_content, discount_on_fucking_lame_products_nobody_wants FROM backpedal-o-matic WHERE (discount_on_fucking_lame_products_nobody_wants <.1* slushmoney_from_Redmond)" );
Slashdot Mirror
I can't speak for what link the British press may have made between Powell's and Blair's (separate) sets of presented evidence, but in either case, surely you would agree that an `unnamed source' which appear only in the Guardian (a paper with a well-defined ideological position, to put it mildly) is not necessarily the best source of information on what Powell is thinking, no?
The British press and politicians all appear to know exactly who the unnamed source was: British law is very strict about revealing state secrets, hence the secrecy. But all hell is breaking loose in Downing Street at the moment.
Here is The Times' take on it, top-selling right-wing paper in Britain.
Here is another from a middle-of-the-road paper, The Independent.
This story is relevant too.
And here it is again from Channel 4 News in London.
That post was indeed by glrotate. My apologies -- from the haste with which you posted to defend it, I took his position to be yours as well, and mistook who had posted first.
That's perfectly alright. Thank you for your polite and timely reply.
Is his position yours as well?
Not quite. glrotate says "There were no Scuds." I'm saying that there is no evidence of any Scuds yet, so we should proceed on the basis that there were none until the claims are independently verified.
As for your questions on Professor Herold, no, I can find no statisticians leaping to his defense on the Afghan numbers. But likewise, I can find only STATS criticising them, and lots of people quoting STATS. STATS claim to be a "non-partisan" stats group: well, how many stats groups or statisticians claim to be "partisan"? Every one of them is "non-partisan", just like every man in jail is innocent. The Iraq Body Count team may have only used a very small percentage of incidents from what you and I would consider unreliable sources (Saddam loyalists et al.), with a resulting insignificant impact on interpreted results.
My long background in medical stats has given me a healthy dread of the nasty little games statisticians play. If you'd like to see a good example of how distinguished "non-partisan" statisticians are happy to send innocent people to their graves for a buck, try googling for "thimerosal".
So please forgive me if I cannot accept a summary from some group I've never heard of, criticising the past work of one academic, as a basis for rejecting the work of all future work of any team he ever works in again. I'm aware that you would need to buy the report in order to prove their methodology to me, and even I'm not so presumptuous as to insist on that.
We therefore seem to be at something of a standstill.
Still, if you ever do come across a copy of what critieria they used to judge "reliable" and "unreliable" incidents on the Iraq numbers, and it shows I was wrong, I promise to admit it here, and remove the sig immediately.
Until then...
While I wouldn't want to speak for Mr. Blair or his sources, your resort to insults (`poor schmuck' and the like) here certainly seems to suggest that you aren't very confident that your argument stands on it's own merits. In any case, looking over Colin Powell's presentation to the UN, I note that he did not source Mr. Blair or his dossier for any of the evidence he presented, so your case looks a bit forced, no?
He did indeed source it: though he did not mention Blair in the UN speech itself, he did brief the British press about it afterwards. And he is rather embarrassed about it now.
How many would you consider `acceptable', especially in the absence of any studies substantiating Mr. Herold's claims?
I have just answered this in detail on the other sub-thread where you asked it, though you probably haven't read this yet.
In this post you directly alleged that the only missile Iraq fired on Kuwait was the single Seersucker which impacted outside a shopping mall in Kuwait City. The Iraqi Information Minister claimed the same thing, but every single news outlet referenced in that thread including the ones you posted links to claimed otherwise.
That post was by glrotate. There are many links in that thread to news reports of Scuds landing in Kuwait: all have the US Defense Dept as their source, none are verified. The military would not let anyone see all these alleged Scuds. I certainly can't blame a reporter for quoting US Defense Dept briefings: that's news. But I won't believe the reports until I read that the press went and actually saw 14 impact sites with fragments of Scuds.
I've yet to see a single actual statistician consider Mr. Herold's work as valid, but perhaps you could give us a counterexample? Even one?
A man is innocent until proven guilty. You have attacked Professor Herold's work, not me: prove his guilt, and I will accept it.
I've just shown you several statisticians and even a trade group of statisticians which consider Mr. Herold's work to be nonsense. Can you show me any that have confirmed his work? Any?
I can only recall one, that of STATS: please remind me of which other statisticians you quoted? Remember that the Iain Murray article is in fact a reprint of his original piece on the STATS site.
Poor Mr. Fox. I'd wager you don't even see the irony of your juvenile name-calling coming but one paragraph after your appeal for politeness and reasoned debate.
Yes, that was indeed the joke, Mr. Con. Glad to see you enjoyed it.
You link to a career precis listing work on:
How do you think one publishes peer-reviewed works in these areas without statistics? Are only statisticians skilled analysts of statistics? Statistics is the backbone of the study of economics, and he has a PhD in Economics from Berkeley. Your assertion that "Mr. Herold has no background or formal training in statistics" is therefore demonstrably false.
Again, how many would you consider `acceptable'? And why has Mr. Herold done nothing to address the cases of double- and triple- counting already pointed out, even in his report on Afghanistan?
You have submitted three examples of double-counts. They may be true, though I have no means of checking them. 3/3000 = one-tenth of one percent of entries possibly wrong. 3/3400 =
But because we have no idea on what basis this one statistical group has judged entries invalid, you have only an opinion, not an academic basis from which to attack this single example of Professor Herold's previous work. If you can show me their methodology, I will gladly admit here that I was wrong: I take great pride in my unblemished record on this. If you can prove to me a similar level of error in the Iraq Body Count numbers, I will admit that I'm wrong on that too, and remove it from my sig. In fact I am even open to persuasion on Chile, and anything else you care to argue about. I would start voting neocon myself, today, if you could prove to me a basis on which to believe that it is a correct ideology. In fact I was a conservative myself for many years, until I was shown that the data on which I'd based my ideological alignment were demonstrably incorrect.
There: I have just answered "how many would you consider acceptable", the very first time you asked. Will you now at long last answer my similar question "what evidence would you consider acceptable on US involvement on the Pinochet coup", now that I have asked you repeatedly?
Well, I hit 'em like they're pitched, Mr. Con. As soon as you stop hurling personal abuse and insults at me, I'll stop batting them right back at you. If you're ready to be polite while discussing this, I will respond in kind and be glad to do so.
You have submitted opinions that you think Dr. Herold's Afghan count is faulty, and attempted to use this to impugn the work of a team of 21 on another project. You have quoted (double-quoted actually) the work of one statistical group to support this, and then gone on to claim that all statisticians must therefore agree.
I do not agree that you have proven that Dr. Herold has breached any of the standards you cite on the Afghan project, and I await your assesment of the Iraq Body Count data or methodology, since that was what you were criticising in the first place.
The links I have given are all evidence. They're not proof, but evidence, because that's what you asked for. By way of analogy, a witness' claim of someone matching a suspect's description placing him at the scene of the crime is not proof, it's evidence.
You don't like the evidence I've provided. Well, then please tell me what kind of evidence you are looking for, and I will give it.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume you really don't understand what I've clearly stated several times. I am not interested in playing the game of being sent repeatedly for evidence, and having it dismissed for no reason, until I wear out. If you want more evidence from me, you're going to need to tell me what evidence will convince you.
It's quite mystifing that you are so unwilling to answer this simple question.
A long post, yet you manage to address none of the agreed upon facts. As far as I can tell, everyone agrees on the following:
Everyone? Really? You've read the opinions of everyone? Cool! Where can I find the writings of everyone who's reviewed Herold's research?
Or did you mean "everyone" you happen to agree with?
* Mr. Herold has no background or formal training in statistics
That's an interesting assertion. May I see some evidence please?
* In preparing his reports, Mr. Herold includes numbers provided by the Iraqi information minister as directly factual,
Which numbers please? How many? Two? Three? A hundred? What percent of 3000 are they?
something no one else agrees is reasonable to do.
No-one? There it is again! I've just got to see this database of the opinions of tens of thousands of professional statisticians you've found. Please post the URL: I will happily pay a subscription charge to see research that thorough.
* Even a cursory examination of Mr. Herold's claims turns up several instances of double- and even triple- counting of numbers from other sources.
Hm, so now it's gone from "numerous" to "several". How many is "several" please? Two? Three? A hundred?
wouldn't Marc Herold's numbers agree more closely with the estimates of other journalists in Iraq than in Afghanistan? As it happens, they don't.
Which "other journalists" please? Are you claiming that all journalists disagree with Iraq BodyCount's numbers? You've read every journalist in the world that's written on the civilian casualties in Iraq?
Or do you mean the "other journalists" that you know of, and happen to agree with?
And they are not "Herold's numbers", as I've already explained to you: he's one of a staff of 21 researchers. It's worth noting that one of those researchers is Dr. Glen Rangwala of the Univ. of Cambridge. Tony Blair's infamous "intelligence dossier" on Iraq was based in large part on plagiarism from Rangwala's doctoral thesis on Iraq done 12 years ago, and spiffed up by British civil servants to look like recent research. Rangwala noticed, and complained in public, so the Blair government is still feeling the fallout from that particular pack of lies about the war. That poor schmuck Colin Powell singled out Blair's "valuable dossier" for particular praise while he was fighting hard to persuade people that some sort of threat existed from Iraq. Bet he now wishes he hadn't.
But it's telling that you only attempt to discredit the Iraq numbers by attacking a single past piece of work by a single member of a team of 21. It makes me wonder why you can't find anything else to criticise about the Iraq Body Count numbers.
However, this is a moot point, since as we discuss below, Mr. Herold is relying on bogus (according to every actual statistician who has looked at them) statistical interpretations of the same data as everyone else, not on independent data.
You mean "every actual statistician" you've read and agree with. Why would a statistician go to the press to say he agrees with someone's statistics? You will only ever read about a disagreement in the press, as agreement is not news. And since you can't possibly have read the opinion of every "every actual statistician" who has looked at them, I suggest you stop claiming that you have.
Except that Herold's `attempt at a count' was (according to him) based on the exact same reports which yielded the other estimates -- in other words, given the exact same reports, he came up with different numbers.
Researchers can use different criteria when evaluating the same raw data. Some researchers were even more cautious than he was, and applied different criteria. If you were a scientist, you'd know that this is a source of debate in every field: that's why not all scientists agree on climate change, the health effects of tobacco, risks of
I'm sorry you don't like it when I use the word "tertiary". It's pretty big, I'll grant you, but I note you've just used several bigger words in your last post, like "intelligence" and "exhaustively". Getting comfortable with the word "tertiary" should be just a matter of you hearing it and using it a few times, so don't worry.
/. are going to archive this story pretty soon.
Like I've said several times now, you are still complaining that none of the evidence I've submitted is good enough for you, so what we'll need now is for you to state which evidence would convince you of US involvement in the coup, so I can dig some out for you. Please don't wait too much longer, as
Thanks!
Several points:
a) journalists got nowhere near the same access to the Afghan bombings as they did in Iraq.
b) your journalists compare back-of-the-envelope estimates by some human rights groups and journalists, who clearly stated at the time that they were estimates, with Herold's attempt at a count. When Herold started out, he was the only one attempting a count. The PDA later also attempted an Afghan count too, which came out lower. Neither claims to count all the deaths, as some could not possibly have been reported, such as isolated families being wiped out in the sticks. The PDA one was even more catuious than Herold, but neither counts subsequent deaths from disease and starvation that were a direct result of the bombings. Both are then almost certainly too low, but it would take years of hard work to count those additional numbers. Little chance of that happening, now that the US has allowed the warlords to take the country over again, as they did after the Soviet invasion.
Your first link: "Professor Herold's general methodology seems to be that..." It goes on to note that Herold, whose count is one of two attempts at a methodical count available in the public domain, has revised his figures down to a paltry 3000-3600. Only 3000 dead. Is this OK by you then, so long as they weren't American dead?
This Spectator writer isn't even confident enough in his accusations aginst Herold to state what he alleges was done wrong, he just say "seems". Just because several journalists say something is true doesn't make it true, as you pointed out recently, and this fellow is too cowardly even to declare any precise wrongdoing, for fear of a libel lawsuit. The Spectator has certainly had its share: they were recently in trouble with the police over an extremely racist article they printed, and as the mouthpiece of the moribund Conservative party, they cannot afford any more trouble in court.
The article does not even offer its own alternative methodical count, it merely quotes the PDA one, and several back-of-the-envelope estimates. How spectacularly useless.
Your second link:
Says he quotes journalists who rely on the AIP, but does not say which, or even how many. Two? Three? A hundred? He goes on to cite three examples of double counts, which you and I have no means of checking, and then claims that these are followed by "numerous" other examples. How numerous? Two? Three? A hundred? If he actually found a lot, why doesn't he even say "I found fifty more before I gave up"? Because the count is actually very low, of course. Herold himself says he knows that some of his sources will be wrong, and that he's making a best-attempt at a count. Yet this articles implies that three innaccuracies out of thousands renders the data somehow invalid. He then says " A STATS review of the data suggests that, on a careful reading, only 650 of the deaths he claims are in any way reliably reported." Do we get to see their "careful reading"? Nope. Do we evn get to hear secondhand what methodology their "careful reading" employed? Nope. But we're assured by the journalist that it's reliable, so maybe we should just trust him. How about applying your fastidiously rigid criteria on evidence about the Pinochet coup here?
He then quotes the lower PDA count, as well as the beginnings of an AP attempt, and even he notes that the AP attempt is unfinished and will be higher, and concludes by saying that the civilian death toll was indeed disproportionate, and that the Defense Dept needs to start addressing this issue, so he is actually agreeing with Herold's conclusion, though he disagrees about how many thousands of civilians were killed. "Thoroughly debunked"? Hardly.
In your third link, you cite an article where a writer from an ultra-right-wing commentary sheet could not find corroborating sources on his own, and claims that Herold refused to help him out. From this you conclude that he "he steadfastly refuses to explain where he gets his numbers
Nearly all of them cite evidence, none of which you like. For example, you don't like Hitchens' damning indictment of Kissinger for assisting the Pinochet coup and other crimes, but since the whole book isn't about his involvement in Chile, it's somehow not good enough. And so on.
You, meanwhile, produce secondary and tertiary evidence, call it primary, and rather amusingly try to imply that I'm at fault for not accepting it as primary. This is your "evidence" in support of your bizarre thesis that the US was really not involved in the Pinochet coup. Dogma makes men twist themselves into the oddest positions.
I am still waiting, by the way, for you to tell me what evidence would convince you, since all the evidence I have produced is somehow not good enough. You still refuse. I wonder why?
I note that once again you cannot dispute the statistics, hence you must fall back on your faithful safety net of ad-hominem argument:
a) He's a professor of Professor of Economics, International Relations, and Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire, therefore his statistics are somehow valid.
b) Sahaf claimed high civilian casualties, therefore all other high counts of casualties are somehow supporting Sahaf, and are likewise somehow invalid.
Is that the best you can do?
:-) Proof at last that you won't accept any evidence at all, and your opinion was permanently set in stone on the subject years ago. I suspected as much.
Neoconservatism isn't an ideology, it's a religion, and a man might as well be arguing about economics with Castro as argue about history with a neocon. Good thing I didn't burn up even more time digging out all the rest of the evidence out for you then.
This thread will stay alive for some days more: think it over. If you do eventually decide there's any evidence at all that would convince you, then y'all come back, I'll be here waiting.
Yes, I've got all of the above evidence, and more. Thank you for summarising several all on one page: I will bookmark that for convenient reference.
We cluster-bombed Baghdad on far less evidence than that. And as soon as you tell me what evidence you will accept, there will be even more.
I will not continue to dig out and submit yet more evidence to you, for instant dismissal on the grounds that it's somehow not good enough for Sir, like a waiter bringing out everything in the kitchen until Mr. Creosote sees something he likes. As soon as you're ready for real debate, I'm all ears. We can start now if you like.
You have submitted no "primary documents" yet, let alone a refutation of a single word I've written, only the official parliamentary record of politicians accusing other politicians of wrongdoing, couched in long paragraphs of ad-hominem. That's hardly the mark of someone who's confident about his arguments. Do you think those actually report verbatim what's said in any country's parliament or congress? Do you really consider that to be a primary source? Do you really? Really?
/. after trying to have an honest debate with you? No thanks! Tell me your required evidence, and then I'll supply some. Otherwise you're just blowing hot air.
I am still as keen as ever to furnish you with further evidence. Will you be telling me anytime soon what evidence would convince you? Why do you keep refusing to answer this single, simple question? Could it be that all you're interested in is getting me to dig out yet more evidence, so you can dismiss it, and demand more and more and more until I eventually give up in disgust, like most people do on
First you claimed that no-one could be expected to believe that the US is behind the Pinochet coup on the basis of the existing evidence, then when I point out that most of the world believes it, you accuse me of basing my argument solely on widespread belief. Backflips like that must be rather painful!
Watching you twist my arguments back and forth is good fun, but you can forget about wearing me down with that old tactic. I am still waiting for you to tell me what evidence would convince you. You seem strangely unwilling to answer.
* The Guardian: Iraq launches Scud missiles
* Canadian Broadcasting Corp.: Iraq lobs missiles at Kuwait
* Houston Chronicle: Patriot system proves its worth
And here are the follow-up stories, written once the over-excited journos had a chance to calm down a little and look at the evidence:
On the contrary, you'll find that outside of the United States, it's almost universally accepted that the US was behind the Pinochet coup, just as it was behind the recent attempted coup in Venezuela, and the coup against Mossadegh in Iran, and against Kassem in Iraq, and against Arbenz in Guatemala, etc, etc, etc.
...and next time he's taken in for questioning, he might not strike it lucky again.
Why do you think Kissinger doesn't travel abroad much?
Because the evidence is piling up:
1 2 3,
It's completely fair and logical for you to declare that you're not convinced by all the evidence you've seen to date for US involvement in the Pinochet coup, but it's quite illogical of you to then go on to assert that "no-one else is convinced of this".
And as I've said several times, I'd be delighted to cite you even more evidence, just as soon as you tell me what evidence would convince you.
I'm still making the same point as I have throughout this thread. I provided evidence, and you don't believe it. That's OK, it's just evidence, not proof. But your rebuttal from the beginning centred on Allende "cancelling elections". You have since then come up with all sorts of interesting evidence that Allende may have done this or that wrongdoing during, before and after elections, but you have not yet cited your evidence that Allende cancelled or suspended any election. I do want to see this evidence, as it could certainly change my mind once I've finally seen it.
I've read every pearl you've written, and can find only allegations of other sorts of wrongdoing, and nothing about cancelling elections.
I'm still waiting for some evidence of your original, repeated assertion that Allende cancelled the elections.
Do you intend to supply any?
You have presented several articles, which do not mention him suspending or cancelling elections.
You have also provided a list of accusations by some elected politicians. The latter is not evidence, it's allegation. Where is your evidence?
Thanks for the links. I can find many criticisms of Allende in there, but nowhere can I find evidence that he cancelled or suspended elections.
No, I would not have proposed invading Chile to affect political change: I am not a neocon. I propose that Carter and his successors ought to have not only ceased all weapons sales, but also stopped the CIA from providing covert aid, publicly cut ties with Chile, introduce resolutions aginst the Pinochet regime in the UN and other international bodies where the US holds sway, and introduced economic and other sanctions.
As for my evidence that the US helped to put Pinochet there, well, I'm sorry you're not convinced by it. I think it's far more damning than any evidence that US administrations have put forward against Iraq, Iran, Syria, Panama, Vietnam, etc. You seem happy for our military to take up cudgels against these on receipt of the slimmest of evidence, but then turn around and insist on the most rigorous standards of evidence for other countries.
And while we're at it, perhaps you can provide a source for your claims of `tens of thousands' killed under Pinochet's rule? Most credible reports which I've seen put the number of deaths at around 1,000 or 2,000, and even the site remember-chile.org which you link to puts the number of deaths at 3,197 (957 of those being `disappearances'). This is still too many, of course, but it raises questions about the credibility of your claims that you report numbers five to ten times higher thananyone else does...
Since he was very good at disposing of the bodies, it is indeed very difficult to prove an exact number of deaths. But I actually said "the torture and murder of tens of thousands". I am only sure of 3,197 dead so far, but many thousands more were tortured, and many still live with the physical and mental agony. On a personal note, I would prefer death to having my eyes slowly gouged out in front of my children.
Of course, your comparison of Israel, a free and open democracy with equal rights for all of its citizens, to either Allende's or Pinochet's dictatorships suggests that you're not really interested in reasoned debate anyway. Please take such nonsense to another thread...
I believe it to be a directly relevant analogy. Israel is not "a free and open democracy with equal rights for all its citizens": Israeli Arabs do not have the democratic freedoms that the majority of its citizens do. Similarly, those Arabs who would not or could not agree to forced citizenship, and their descendants, regularly have their human rights trampled in the worst ways. People were tortured and killed by the US client state Chile while the White House under GOP and Dems did almost nothing, and sometimes actually assisted this vile regime. The same is true for Israel, presently ruled by a war criminal no better than Pinochet, whom Bush describes as "a man of peace".
Well, let's see. Allende
* cancelled elections
* disbanded the Supreme Court of Chile
* actively encouraged mutinies within the Chilean navy, out of fear that officers might obey their oath to uphold the Chilean constitution
* ordered tear gas and even live ammunition fired into crowds of unarmed protestors, including a delegation of wives of military officers
* called for and received three hundred Cuban guerillas to act as a personal bodyguard
You repeat these allegations, yet have still offered no evidence to support them, only essays alleging them with no evidence in support. In particular, the link you provide right after the above quote does not support them anywhere as far as I can see. I would be interested to see some evidence please.
Even if you could prove all of the above, it would in no way prove that he would not have stepped down had the US failed to support the Pinochet coup. The future is unproveable, and I wouldn't dream of asking you to prov
When did Allende suspend elections, as claimed in your first and third points?
C hile.htm
You also claim the CIA had no knowledge of their contacts' illegal actions, ostensibly including that of Manuel Contreras and the DINA assassins of Letelier and Moffitt, and demand evidence of this knowledge. May I ask what sort of evidence would satisfy you that they knew?
Finally, you claim that pressure from the Reagan adminstration forced Pinochet to step down, and that this is an "uncontested fact". Yet the Reagan administration were selling helicopters to Pinochet's regime, all the while they were supposedly "pressuring" for elections.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/
It's more logical to conclude that Pinochet was planning to step down, and the US was simply applying the same sort of "pressure" that Israel currently enjoys from the US, meaning mild, periodic press releases requesting the client state to do the decent thing. The Republicans put Pinochet there, should we congratulate them for asking him to step down years later, all the while suppressing documents on US involvement, all the while turning a blind eye to the torture and murder of tens of thousands, including that of US citizens?
What evidence can you cite that Allende would not have stepped down? So far, you have offered only Castro as some sort of proxy evidence.
In fact, Castro was never Allende's "buddy", and Castro was not encouraging revolution in Chile in Allende's time, rather the reverse is true. Castro and his Stalinists played a significant role in stopping revolution in Chile. When Castro visited Chile in 1971, and conflict was at its peak between the most militant sections of workers and the Allende government, Castro was advising against any independent revolutionary activity. Chile, he told the workers, was different to Cuba, and because of its long history of constitutional government, there was a distinct "Chilean road to socialism" which could take a parliamentary path. Cuba, on the other hand, was a dictatorship under the US' pal Batista, and Castro rightly saw there was no way a parliamentary struggle against Batista could succeed. He never did implement democracy in Cuba, and its correct to criticise him for that. But Allende did, and had Chile been left alone, it could have served as a stick to beat Castro with.
Nope, not good enough for the White House and the CIA, they wanted both govts out at any price. So to this day they defend their indefensible actions in Chile by saying "it all would have turned out like Cuba, we just KNOW it."
Some stupid-ass language selector JSP is stalled (who uses JSP to put up a press release?!)
.1* slushmoney_from_Redmond)"
Very smart of them to use JSP actually, so they can dynamically backpedal in real-time, using live updated content from their massive marketing database:
java.sql.ResultSet columns = statement.executeQuery(
"SELECT time, excuse_content, discount_on_fucking_lame_products_nobody_wants FROM backpedal-o-matic WHERE (discount_on_fucking_lame_products_nobody_wants <
);
Do you have some evidence? Or are you suggesting that random FUD spewed by AC's on slashdot is a more reliable source?
There's plenty of evidence online, if you're willing to read it. Here, this should get you started.
The only thing Windows can't do is run on top of Linux :).
Sure it can, using VMware, Win4Lin, Bochs or Plex86.