WASHINGTON -- Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.34,000 a year is probably more accurate, given the 2004 Johns Hopkins study which showed that over 100,000 Iraqis had died in the first year and a half of war.
When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.
[...]The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans' tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll by tens of thousands.
Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.
Which you read about only on the blogs.
Or the Lancet study of 2006 which showed upwards of 650,000 dead Iraqis. Again, you barely heard about this in the paper or on your nightly news, but you read about it on the blogs.
Here's the shocker:
Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.Amazing. Simply amazing.
I guess it has something to do with the low expectations of having the same story hammered into your head, day after day. You start to think they're all the same story being rehashed and retold.
But they're not.
We're committing genocide. Remember: you read that charge here first.
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