Molly Ivins column. Not sure what to think.

[moderate_hero]

Has anyone else seen this? I am not sure what is more incredible, that she was "waiting" for the number to top 20,000 or the rest of the crap she is spouting. Say what you will about our blood for oil misadventure, but hoping for the deaths of Iraqis to make a political point seems to be beyond the pail.

CROW EATEN HERE: This is a horror. In a column written June 28, I asserted that more Iraqis (civilians) had now been killed in this war than had been killed by Saddam Hussein over his 24-year rule. WRONG. Really, really wrong.

The only problem is figuring out by how large a factor I was wrong. I had been keeping an eye on civilian deaths in Iraq for a couple of months, waiting for the most conservative estimates to creep over 20,000, which I had fixed in my mind as the number of Iraqi civilians Saddam had killed.

The high-end estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths in this war is 100,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University study published in the British medical journal The Lancet last October, but I was sticking to the low-end, most conservative estimates because I didn't want to be accused of exaggeration.

Ha! I could hardly have been more wrong, no matter how you count Saddam's killing of civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, Hussein killed several hundred thousand of his fellow citizens. The massacre of the Kurdish Barzani tribe in 1983 killed at least 8,000; the infamous gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja killed 5,000 in 1988; and seized documents from Iraqi security organizations show 182,000 were murdered during the Anfal ethnic cleansing campaign against Kurds, also in 1988.

In 1991, following the first Gulf War, both the Kurds and the Shiites rebelled. The allied forces did not intervene, and Saddam brutally suppressed both uprisings and drained the southern marshes that had been home to a local population for more than 5,000 years.

Saddam's regime left 271 mass graves, with more still being discovered. That figure alone was the source for my original mistaken estimate of 20,000. Saddam's widespread use of systematic torture, including rape, has been verified by the U.N. Committee on Human Rights and other human rights groups over the years.

There are wildly varying estimates of the number of civilians, especially babies and young children, who died as a result of the sanctions that followed the Gulf War. While it is true that the ill-advised sanctions were put in place by the United Nations, I do not see that that lessens Hussein's moral culpability, whatever blame attaches to the sanctions themselves -- particularly since Saddam promptly corrupted the Oil for Food Program put in place to mitigate the effects of the sanctions, and used the proceeds to build more palaces, etc.

There have been estimates as high as 1 million civilians killed by Saddam, though most agree on the 300,000 to 400,000 range, making my comparison to 20,000 civilian dead in this war pathetically wrong.

I was certainly under no illusions regarding Saddam Hussein, whom I have opposed through human rights work for decades. My sincere apologies. It is unforgivable of me not have checked. I am so sorry.

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

on edit: my apologies for not providing the link:
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/23493/

[Stockholm]

1. Link?

I not sure thats the point she would like to make, but provide the link and I´ll get back to you...

[NYCGirl]

2. You got a link for that, Sparky? NT

[SaveElmer]

3. Seems like she is correcting herself...Link

Something RW'ers do not do...

I also don't think she is suddenly pro-war!

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

[Goldeneye]

4. I'd also like a link.

[bitchkitty]

5. Here's a link -

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

[SteppingRazor]

6. I remember thinking when I first read that in the June 28 column...

That it seemed obviously, painfully wrong. I'm shocked Ivins would be so credulous as to prrint it.
Still, I'm willing to let her make one really dumb mistake. She's been right on the money so many times. As for this idea that she was ghoulishly waiting for the bodycount to tip a certain point so she could gloat, I think that's blowing things a little out of proportion. Like many political columnists, she probably has all sorts of ideas for futture columns, and she probably filed this one away for a point to be made if and when the sad day came.

[moderate_hero]

14. Good point

I did not think of it that way. As you can see (post count) I am still new to this and was wondering what you all thought since I would not be surprised that the right would use this apology as a show of weakness.

[Psephos]

30. Seems like a reasonable explanation to me. n/t

[Barrett808]

33. Juan Cole says: "death rate greater than...the Baath"

Sabrina Tavernisse of the New York Times managed to get the figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry on how many Iraqis are dying each month in violence related to the civil war. They estimate about 8,000 in the past 10 months, or 800 per month. This number appears not to include persons killed by US military action.

Even if the figure of 300,000 for the number of civilian victims of the Baath regime is not an exaggeration, that would be over 37 years, or 8,000 per year. That is, American Iraq is presiding over a civilian death rate greater than the highest estimates per month per capita for that of the Baath regime.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/17-killed-mostly-policemen-sabrina.html

[crispini]

7. 'Scuse me, but

"waiting" for an event does not necessarily imply "hoping" for an event. For example, I might be "waiting" to go get a root canal, but that certainly doesn't imply that I am eagerly looking forward to and hoping to get a root canal.

And, I'm still "waiting" for a link from the OP. :)

[Gato Moteado]

8. there's nothing in that article that said she was hoping for the....

....deathtoll to top 20,000 so she could make a point. you're twisting her words. why would you do that? hmm.

[moderate_hero]

13. So then why was she waiting

for the number to top 20,000? I agree she did not actually say why she was waiting for it, which does make me guilty of twisting words, I guess. That is why I said at the beginning that I did not know what to think. Did you miss that?

Which brings me back to the topic. What do you think she was trying to say? I personally thought she was watching the number to eventually make political hay out of the senseless deaths. I personally think that using the death of anyone to make political hay for any cause is wrong. * has used 9/11 to take us into war. We should not stoop to his level.

[Avalux]

9. I'd like to know what you think.

I read it as Molly Ivins writing an article correcting a mistake she made in an earlier piece. I don't have a problem with it.

[moderate_hero]

11. I am not sure...

I mean, I thought that the 100,000 number from the Lancet was good, but she does not buy it. The other thing that disturbs me is that she makes a point to say that she was waiting for the number to top 20,000. I assume she intended to make political hay out of those deaths. I think it is wrong to use the deaths of others to make a political point, whichever side you are on.

[Dr.Phool]

15. She said she was purposely using the lowest estimate.

She in no way discounted the Lancets figures, which I think BTW are pretty solid.

[moderate_hero]

17. got it

I agree with her by going with a lower estimate to be on the safe side since the Lancet's 95% confidence interval was between 8,000 and 194,000 deaths. Don't get me wrong. One death in this "war" is a tragedy and 8,000 is certainly criminal. I just think that their statistical rigor was weak and Ivins, being a responsible person, was smart enough to recognize it while still using the thrust of the study to make her point.

[RoyGBiv]

22. Incorrect ...

She did not make a point to say she was "waiting." Her construction is rather clearly a form of expression. I'm waiting for the number of US military deaths in Iraq to top 2,000. This implies nothing about what I'm planning to do once that number is reached. It's simply stating a fact.

Apparently Ms. Ivins had a column idea in mind that would only make sense once civilian deaths in Iraq resulting from the invasion topped the number suffered under Hussein's reign. Is this making "political hay"? No. This is making a point that can't be made unless certain conditions are met.

[K-W]

28. You dont think the number of Iraqi civillians we have killed is political?

How is using the fact that our military is killing Iraqi civillians to try to get it to stop killing civillians a problem exactly?

It seems to me like ignoring them would be far greater insult to thier memory.

[Brotherjohn]

10. I think she's eating crow, just like she says. As for "gloating" about...

... Iraqi civilian deaths, I don't think that is it at all.

If the number of Iraqi civilian deaths as a result of this war even comes close to what Saddam was responsible for during his entire reign (and it has, so that point of hers, at least, is valid), then we have to seriously question this war.

IF there had been a significant threat to us, and IF we could have been in and out of Iraq with minimal civilian and coalition casualties, then MAYBE the war would have been worth it.

Neither of those IFs has ended up even close to being true, however. And we opponents of the war were saying just that since before Bush started the war.

[Captain Hilts]

12. Good for her. If only more columnists/commentators were as honest.(nt)

[geckosfeet]

20. Hey Mook,,, thought you retired,,,,,,,,,,

[fudge stripe cookays]

16. She's apologizing.

That's what I think.

Something this administration and its pathetic sheep followers refuse to do to the other citizens of this country, and to the soldiers they put in harm's way for a lie.

FSC

[Raster]

18. what we have here is a example of a journalist "eating crow," as she put

it. In other words, correcting herself. The only thing to see here is Ms. Ivins honesty and integrity, both intact as usual. If a tenth of the "journalists" in this country had half of Molly's talent and common sense we wouldn't be in the bush* mess we are now. Molly Ivins is a decent human being of the first order. Take it for face value.

[geckosfeet]

19. Molly is grate. I would not dis her if'n I wuz u.

I think the larger points that she obliquely makes are:

1. She is big enough to admit a mistake.
2. She is smart enough to apologize.
3. She is a tough writer who can chew a little crow.
4. GWB is none of the above.

On edit: Tidied up grammar and customised subject line with some southern USA.

[RoyGBiv]

21. On Edit ...

Yeah, that was helpful ... or something.

[geckosfeet]

23. Glad to help out,,,

[Stuckinthebush]

25. Southern USA?

Wow, this Southern DUer doesn't speak that way. Nor do most of my friends and acquaintances.

Oh, well....

[geckosfeet]

26. Sorry,,, no disrespect to the south. Just funnin on the folks whose

diction is a bit on the colorful side.

[Stuckinthebush]

27. OK

Y'all have a great weekend!

:D

[geckosfeet]

31. Back at ya stuck.

[JPZenger]

24. Annual Rate of Deaths Much Higher Now

Hussein was brutal*, but most of the mass deaths by him were in earlier years. I haven't seen much evidence that Hussein was killing large numbers of civilians in recent years.

So, yes, Hussein killed more people over his 40 year reign than died during the 3 years of the U.S. invasion and occupation. However, the annual rate of death is now much higher than it was in recent years.

---
* Saddam took power during a political convention of the Bath Party. He literally had his thugs drag his competitors out of the convention hall and had them noisily murdered outside the doors. At that point, everyone agreed that it was best to vote for Saddam.

[agincourt]

29. Makes you wonder in 20 years,

How many they will lose from "liberation". She was right to retract her inaccurate death toll, however.

[democracyindanger]

32. Even taking the high-end estimate of 1 million

over, say, twenty years, at 100,000 dead since 2003, this "liberation" is more than keeping pace.

[Bark Bark Bark]

34. What's the problem?

She made a mistake. Then she corrected herself and apologized. That's a lot more than a greasy punk like Santorum (or Frist, or Fill In Name Here) will ever do.

This doesn't make her an idiot, or untrustworthy. Quite the opposite. It's part of what makes her one of the best writers out there today.

(Side note: Much like anyone named Clinton, Ivins is a favorite target of certain self-defeatists around here. They never hesitate or fail to point out that she's a "stammerer" when speaking publicly. I'll bet she can't win a knife fight either; so f***ing what?)