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