documented deaths from voilence since 2003 are about 1840,000. The actual number is probably higher, but a million seems very high - indeed, about as many as were estimated to have died in Saddam's wars and atrocities.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Gotta love the blatancy of the Pilger process.

>>Scientific studies report that up to a million Iraqi men, women and children died...<<

"Scientific studies", Mr Pilger? Whose?

Add to this the weasel qualifier, "up to", and you have presented an evidence-free - yet incontrovertible, thanks to the "up to" part - argument, from which you can proceed to assume a million casualties.

That's not journalism. That's propaganda in its purest for.

m

sorry, should be 184,000

do scientific studies say who killed most? Was it Muslims killing muslims?

Hi Rhian

Pilger's first para "Scientific studies report that up to a million Iraqi men, women and children died in an inferno lit by the British government and its ally in Washington."

looks like it originated from the British Lancet's two journal articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties :

"The Lancet, one of the oldest scientific medical journals in the world, published two peer-reviewed studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on the Iraqi mortality rate.

...The studies estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the occupation, both direct (combatants plus non-combatants) and indirect (due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poor healthcare, etc.)."

Assassinating Saddam Hussein and Sons would have saved a lot of deaths and treasure. But after 9/11 the US Gov felt it had to demonstrate it was taking action - using the full weight of the US military - more than avenging the deaths of the 3,000.

Planta

Plantagenet,
Assassinating the Saddams would have yielded the exact same result, on the other hand Socialism even with all it's goons and gunmen can't hold a society together for any length of time so civil war in Iraq was probably inevitable.
As we know good information is hard to find on the internet but lately I'm leaning toward the theory that the NATO interventions in the Middle East were a controlled demolition of the region in order to stall the inevitable war between Shia and Sunni until the West had built up the infrastructure for their own energy security.
See we haven't seen state sponsored, imperialistic Islamic Jihad for over a hundred years but it was always going to re appear, this is the Islamic world falling under a new Ottoman Empire, the Saudi Empire.

Plantagenet

It looks like the Lancet study is a lot broader than reported deaths – including general increases in mortality after the invasion. The article talks of people “killed”, which to me implies the individual’s death can be directly ascribed to actions arising because of the invasion.

Also, the Lancet estimate is controversial – most estimates are lower, as your wikileaks article indicates.

The Lancet appears to be trying to estimate whether there would be more or less Iraqis alive today had the invasion not happened. The baseline estimate is therefore important. Does it include the hundreds of thousands killed by Saddam, the deaths in the Iran-Iraq war, and the reported million+ Iraqis (mostly children) who died as a result of economic sanctions on Saddam?

Agree with your last para, though. The case for action against Saddam had almost nothing to do with 9/11

Isn't marvellous as we sit in our ivory towers, thousands of miles from the action of war, we tend to believe the Government of the day that what they did was right, I have yet to believe any action a Government takes, perhaps one hundred years from now the truth on any present action will come out. Pilger actually says what most people think. Perhaps Edward Snowden could give us the answer to the Abbott secrecy regarding the refugee boats, it would be nice to know.

I started to read PIlger's article but only because as a ranting, left wing jpurnalist who exchanges commonsense for ideology, I sometimes raise a smile at his absurdities. Then in the first paragraph, after he had stated how far removed the opinions of ordinary Britishers were from a scientific report on the number of deaths in Iraq, he concluded:
"What this reveals is how we in Britain have been misled by those whose job is to keep the record straight."
Since Pilger nowhere states that the ordinary Britisher derived their opinion from the British government, this non sequitur can serve no other purpose than to provide the straw man he can beat up in the rest of his article - which he does.
Since the source of the public's opinion is always going to be journalists like Mr Pilger, what his straw man is suggesting is that the government should correct the mistakes of the journalists and news media. Perhaps, where the mistake is gross and likely to cause wrong opinion, Mr Pilger would like to see freedom of speech abated and censorship? I am sure his writings would be very high on that list.

Pilger is one of the worst offenders when it comes to misinformation and he's as much part of the "Media" control mechanism as Cameron or Obama.
Let's pick out a couple of examples from this piece:
"Rwandan Genocide", no, there was no Rwandan Genocide because in fact there has never been any such thing as a Genocide and there never will.
Causes of the Hutu vs Tutsi conflict are political and class based:
http://worldnews.about.com/od/africa/a/hutututsiconflicthistory.htm
He describes the Apartheid regime as "depraved" when it was really far more humane and just than what's been unleashed upon the population by the Marxist ANC:
http://www.censorbugbear.org/
So Obama and Cameron support a far worse regime than that which existed before 1994 but in the mind of Pilger and his ilk racial discrimination is a seen as a worse crime than murder.
Iraq as a peaceful state where Sunni, Shia, Christian and Kurd lived in harmony? That's bogus, the Saddam regime was Sunni, the Mukhrabat and his other goons simply whacked anyone who stepped out of line and the Shia and Kurds were treated as second class citizens. The figure of 70-125 civilian deaths per day at the hands of Saddam's government for the duration of his rule is a widely accepted estimate

Pilger goes on to canonise PFC "Dick Tuck" Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange and describes how the mighty may tremble at the secrets they hold but what have the heroes of the hipster left really revealed? They've said nothing about Israel or Russia, very little about China, Japan and Saudi Arabia and there's always been a cloud of suspicion over Wikileaks in particular, Assange is accused of taking bribes from the Israeli government:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/08/gordon-duff-busted-wikileaks-working-for-israel/

Hi Rhian

I agree with your concerns about the Lancet methodology.

If we applied the Lancet formula to Australia in WWI and WWII Australian "casualties" might have been (say) one million people more people in Australia who might have been born under peacetime conditions.

Hence the Lancet approach looks a bit far-fetched involving a whole different way to view demographic and "blame" history.

Pete

I agree Jay of Melbourne. Both Assange and Snowden are darlings of the media when a lot of other whistle blowers like Bradley Manning, Sibel Edmonds, Ray McGovern, Prof Steven Jones, Susan Lindaur to name a few get ignored.

I suspect Assange and Snowden of being double agents to lead us off the scent of true treachery.

The comments here assume that Pilger and his team of researchers have simply pulled their numbers out of thin air, because they have a political agenda – i.e. to undermine the noble US-led cause of throwing off Saddam's evil yoke.

If JP and his sources are too stupid to understand that their figures are wrong, what makes his adversaries so intelligent as to believe their figures are right? And if JP has an agenda in using studies like the Lancet, which put the death toll at well over 600,000, why then doesn’t the BBC have an agenda in using studies like IBC, that claim the death toll to be so much lower?

Also, all this quibbling about methodology and what does or does not constitute a genuine, bona fide, real-McCoy war death ignores the all-important point JP was making – i.e. that the British public revealed itself to be woefully ignorant of the true Iraq death toll. The fact that a majority thought that fewer than 10,000 people (less than 10% of the minimum accepted figure) had died as a result of the Iraq war means that the British media has been less than 10% successful in doing the minimum job they are supposed to do – i.e. keep the British public informed enough to make informed decisions in the interests of informed democracy.

Off topic. Its too bad that the short lamented General Ariel Sharon croaked today.

Another article illustrating the disconnect from reality which the author suffers.

Not all of the lies he tells are his own composition. The one about the million deaths in Iraq appeared in “The Lancet", a previously prestigious medical journal, which unfortunately employed a lefty editor Richard Horton who made it a vehicle for nonsensical untruths, of which the story about Iraq was just one.
An example of a composition of Pilger’s own was the “battle of Patonga’, A Complete fiction about a battle by Aborigines against white intrusion at Patonga. It was simply Pilger’s mode of venting his spleen on Patonga for having a large War Memorial at the entrance to the township. There was no truth in his assertion.

This article reminds us of the author’s propensity, and the absence of any reform in his treatment of fact.

Journalism...a law un-too its self:)...not another word needs to be said....bless there little hearts:)

Planet3

Hi Arjay,

"I suspect Assange and Snowden of being double agents to lead us off the scent of true treachery."

OR could it be ..... no ! that that's just what the CIA wants us to think ? And is it possible that .... it couldn't be ! that you are actually an undercover agent for the CIA, employed to cast doubt on the motives of people like Assange and Snowden ?

Or is THAT just what the CIA wants us to think ?

It's such an evil world :)

Joe

It's all beginning to sound like a final desperate cry for attention.

His ever-growing list of half-truths, exaggerations and outright falsehoods are, quite rightly in my view, consigning Pilger's work to permanent irrelevance. And my personal starting position, by the way, is evidenced by the handful of Pilger's books on my bookshelf; I was not always so clinical in my appraisal.

Leo Lane is spot on, for example, about the "battle of Patonga" story. The tale itself was lifted from David Denholm's book "The Colonial Australians", which Pilger describes as "a history", a category that the author himself did not claim. As a novelist (this was his only "history book"), he approached early settlement with an eye inquisitive about minutiae, rather than dedicated to rigorously documenting fact. In his own words, it "...is not a general short history book".

Having given himself this freedom, he uses secondary sources for Patonga. He reports that the Dharug "resisted the Hawkesbury River settlers for twenty-two years", when the fact was that Patonga was sited in Guringai territory, and did not even house any "settlers" until well into the twentieth century. Both of these realities are easily confirmed, from numerous sources.

Unfortunately, we are informed predominantly by agenda-driven sources. The Pilgers of the world - as well as the Windshuttles, to be even-handed - have their followers, who themselves receive only that information that conforms to their prejudices. Regrettably, with the mass-communication aspects of social media, the situation can only get worse.

In a very real way, it is extremely sad. The world needs someone to occasionally hold it up to an unfliching mirror. By gradually reducing himself to insignificance, Pilger has actually done us a profound disservice.

From the dawn of time, too and from the stone-age...its all the connivance, which structures as far as in all recorded history.

The use of tools, has been our divine values.

Planet3

Pericles

Let me get this straight ...

Because John Pilger took an item from a less than academically verified local history source and put it in a documentary/book 30 years ago, we needn't concern ourselves in the present time with the fact that a recent UK opinion poll revealed the majority of the UK public believe less than 10,000 people died as result of the invasion and subsequent 10-year war in Iraq - i.e. less than 10% of the accepted MINIMUM (academically accepted) figure.

Someone is making 'a final desperate cry for attention' here and it's not John Pilger.

You are showing a distinctly Pilger-like devotion to reality, Killarney.

>>Because John Pilger took an item from a less than academically verified local history source and put it in a documentary/book 30 years ago, we needn't concern ourselves in the present time with the fact that a recent UK opinion poll revealed the majority of the UK public believe less than 10,000 people died...<<

Credibility surely rests on getting things right, and avoiding inventing bits to fit your story.

Pilger invents "control of a submissive population by the media" as the reason why the public show an ignorance on the numbers. There are other explanations, and given the range of information resources available, it seems somewhat perverse to assume that no-one could discover the truth, if they wanted to know.

I'd put it down to communal apathy, rather than government conspiracy. Having said that, it is of course more than likely that your hero would blame this on government too.

Periclueless, you are doing a real job on Pilger. Why? Does that make you feel powerful, divine?

What have you contributed to making our world a better place? On your C.V., what injustices have you fought against?

On my C.V. are many issues but on yours it seems that attacking Pilger is all there is.

Not everyone shares your mean, distorted view of Pilger and many are not interested in your biased diatribes against him.

His worth as a human being is far greater than yours!

Get a life!

David,

I would respectfully suggest that, over the years here on OLO, Pericles has made innumerable positive and balanced contributions, from which I have always learnt something. But I'm sure he can defend himself against your slings and arrows.

The paranoid approach of Bilger/Arjay (could it be that they are one and the same?!) is easy: you make an outrageous assertion and there are bound to be fools out there who will be inclined to believe it. But reality, truth and evidence are something else.

For example, here in SA, it is gospel that Aboriginal people were 'herded onto Missions'. If one is inclined to believe, then one does. But the problem with that is that not only is there no proof of such a process, but, with one full-time employee in the 'Aborigines Department' (the Protector), servicing up to eighty rationing points, and the simple fact that the population on Missions rarely ever rose above 20 % of the state total Aboriginal population, it clearly never happened.

I've typed up eight thousand of the Protector's letters (1840-1912) and it is fairly clear from them that the Protector didn't even have any intention, let alone the muscle, to 'herd people onto Missions'. One Mission actually collapsed simply because it couldn't get enough people to move to it.

Similarly, it was illegal to drive Aboriginal people from their lands: their land-use rights were protected in a specific clause in every pastoral lease. Not ownership rights, land-use rights. The Protector provided boats and fishing gear for people on most of the waterways, even Cooper's Creek, to 'keep people in their own districts'.

But in our open society, you are free to believe whatever Bilger-rubbish you like.

Cheers,

Joe
www.firstsources.info

It would have added to our understanding of public ability to miscalculate if, when "ComRes interviewed 2,021 British adults online from 24th to 27 th May 2013. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults aged 18+", asked these two questions:

"Q.1 How many Iraqis, both combatants and civilians, do you think have died as a consequence of the war that began in Iraq in 2003? Please just give your
best estimate, and

Q.2 What percentage of Iraqi deaths as a result of the war do you think were civilian ie non combatants? Please give a percentage from 1-100. Please just give your best estimate."

they had added a third:

Q.3 How many Iraquis do you think would have died since 2003 if there had been peace?

Then factored that response into their tables.

Joe not only Bilger rubbish as you say but every other bit of rubbish you read daily, which they want you to believe, once again David G you are correct.

Consider it the anger of betrayal, David G, if it will help.

>>Periclueless, you are doing a real job on Pilger. Why? Does that make you feel powerful, divine?<<

Nothing to do with either power or divinity. I did in fact try earlier to put my observations in the context of my own long-standing relationship with Mr Pilger's works...

>>...my personal starting position, by the way, is evidenced by the handful of Pilger's books on my bookshelf; I was not always so clinical in my appraisal.<<

These books are (in chronological order) Heroes (1986), A Secret Country (1989), Distant Voices (1992) and Hidden Agendas (1998). Until the last of these, I was happy to take his content at face value, and was quite angry. About half way through his Introduction to Hidden Agendas - which described how the book was "devoted to slow news" - I started to question the total authority with which Pilger presented his cases. From that point on, I have made a habit of checking his sources a little more closely, ultimately leading to my personal conclusion that the man became over the years increasingly careless of facts, and what previously was exposure of iniquities, is now mere polemic.

Which is the reason for my stated conclusion:

>>In a very real way, it is extremely sad. The world needs someone to occasionally hold it up to an unflinching mirror. By gradually reducing himself to insignificance, Pilger has actually done us a profound disservice.<<

In the absence of a credible Pilger or Pilger-alike (in an investigative capacity), what we appear to be left with is not forensic analysis of wrongdoing, but wide-ranging and vapid conspiracy theories. That is of benefit to no-one.

This is irrelevant, by the way:

>>What have you contributed to making our world a better place? On your C.V., what injustices have you fought against? On my C.V. are many issues<<

Congratulations. But neither my nor your personal virtues makes one jot of difference to the credibility of Mr Pilger, or the accuracy of his journalism.

DavidG. Pericles has done us a service, in the information he supplies in respect of this author. It is helpful information to someone able to receive it and consider it objectively.

Pilger spoke on the ABC a day or so ago. He spoke in support of one of his favorite lies, the baseless “stolen generation”. He also disclosed that he has made a film, supporting the ridiculous notion of a treaty with the aboriginals.

This is the toxic pest which you represent to us as having “humanity”. You appear to have no understanding of the meaning of the term, David.