Why do people think Americans have killed hundreds of thousands or even millions in the middle east?

Question

Not only have those numbers been seriously inflated by disreputable sources, the amount killed by our military is a VERY tiny fraction of that amount.
Isn't it nice how people take the media skew on things? The media never actually says we killed them but insinuates it a lot.
This ought to make for interesting answers. Let me guess, We caused them to kill each other or many numbers not based in fact. Let the rhetoric begin!

Go blue go, but you lose a lot of credibility by quoting CNN. I ask this one simple question. How many did our military kill?

Answer 1

Because a certain portion of the population just wants Americans to be the devil spawn of the world, so they jump on any nonsensical thing they see that portrays America in a poor light.

I agree on the numbers thing, the Lancet studies on Iraq have been bogus from the getgo. Anyone who passed third grade math can do some simple calculations and see that the claims are utterly absurd.

Answer 2

There are no accurate statistics concerning the numbers of people killed during the Iraq War and who have died as a result of the invasion. There are differences in numbers collected by various groups using different methods and those statistics can’t be reconciled. No individual group can claim to have accurate statistics and there is reason to believe that it is obviously in the interests of some groups to have lower mortality statistics reported.

Answer 3

So, we bear NO responsibility for destabilizing a region yet offering no security for the populace? What ever happened to the concept of "accountability"?

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Uh, Ruth - was Iraq having an exodus of refugees, daily bombings and multi-faction killings prior to the invasion? Was Iran the region's main power broker before the invasion? Were the numbers of radical muslim sympathsizers as high?

Answer 4

An estimated 30,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq. 2 million have had to flee their country.

Cost: 1 - 2 trillion.

All to appoint a shiite government friendly to Iran and Syria.

Answer 5

I change my answer to read, "OVER A MILLION DEATHS ARE DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE WAR.'

Upon researching the study even further, I find that the Lancet study is fairly DATED and therefore, must be updated:

"The estimate of more than one million violent deaths in Iraq was confirmed again two months ago in a poll by the British polling firm Opinion Research Business, which estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths since the US invasion. This is consistent with the study conducted by doctors and scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health more than a year ago. Their study was published in the Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal. It estimated 601,000 people killed due to violence as of July 2006; but if updated on the basis of deaths since the study, this estimate would also be more than a million. These estimates do not include those who have died because of public health problems created by the war, including breakdowns in sewerage systems and electricity, shortages of medicines, etc.

Amazingly, some journalists and editors - and of course some politicians - dismiss such measurements because they are based on random sampling of the population rather than a complete count of the dead. While it would be wrong to blame anyone for their lack of education, this disregard for scientific methods and results is inexcusable. As one observer succinctly put it: if you don't believe in random sampling, the next time your doctor orders a blood test, tell him that he needs to take all of it.

The methods used in the estimates of Iraqi deaths are the same as those used to estimate the deaths in Darfur, which are widely accepted in the media. They are also consistent with the large numbers of refugees from the violence (estimated at more than four million). There is no reason to disbelieve them, or to accept tallies such as that the Iraq Body Count (73,305 - 84,222), which include only a small proportion of those killed, as an estimate of the overall death toll.

Of course, acknowledging the holocaust in Iraq might change the debate over the war. While Iraqi lives do not count for much in US politics, recognizing that a mass slaughter of this magnitude is taking place could lead to more questions about how this horrible situation came to be."
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The study was done by an internationally respected and reputable publication, the Lancet. It is a MEDICAL JOURNAL which does not classify as "mainstream media." The Lancet is not "Democrat" or "Republican." It is a medically-based entity. Their interest in the numbers is humanitarian, not political.

The numbers are accurate, the numbers are reached by the same statistics-gathering methods which the military has used in all other wars.

It is astonishing how ignorant some Americans are. And downright dangerous.

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf


BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.
"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/

Answer 6

watch this video to understand
it is not a conspiracy video but a video documentary made on how war has been reported throughout history until present
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2863861954538932125&hl=en

Answer 7

This is the propagnda of the left wing loons. They hate Bush too much that their hatred is clouding their common sense.

Answer 8

Herd mentality with cheap-skate ghostly stories in different time zone with communication problems.
Luke 8.10, 17
What do you think?

Answer 9

Those people choose to believe this because their other option would be to support our nation.

How do you "destabilize" an unstable region, anyway?

Answer 10

Because they don't like the military, so they don't do any research on the subject.