The Soros Factor in America

[JaJae]

Remember the study that came out that said 650k civilian Iraqis had died in Iraq? It came out in 2006. I'm sure everyone can remember it because it was repeated over and over again until everyone in the world was able to remember the number and recite it in their sleep.

Well what they didn't disclose was that Soros funded half of it. And on top of that, it was completely bogus.

No news of this in the US just yet, but here is an article from the Times (UK).
Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study - Times Online

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.

This is just another instance of our media eating up these false reports on Iraq and feeding it to us. Celebrities, pundits and media alike recited this numbers as factual.

The actual numbers are still staggering, but the propaganda needs to stop. This is unacceptable. There is no viable reason this study wasn't questioned from the onset. I guess when you're told what you want to hear it's better to leave it unchecked.

I have a very negative opinion of George Soros. I think he's a horrible human being. I don't think our media should be taking cues from his wallet.

[bheld]

Now that you're finally starting to doubt the validity of studies based on who supplies the funding, let's talk about global warming...

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by bheld

Now that you're finally starting to doubt the validity of studies based on who supplies the funding, let's talk about global warming...

Not that global warming has anything whatsoever to do with the thread topic, but both sides of the global warming project are funding by interest groups.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by bheld

Now that you're finally starting to doubt the validity of studies based on who supplies the funding, let's talk about global warming...

zing

to talk about your point, the number 650,000 meant nothing to me, I think I heard the number but there is a lot going on in Iraq and the world, I really doubt any fellow voters I know even knew the number, or could accurately guess...and to be completely honest, even cared

and 150,000 is a lot of people, if that's your number I'm saying that's horrible...we had overwhelming technology in the invasion, and afterwards we were responsible as occupiers

Soros donated what, 50k pounds? Staggering...

[ballz2wallz]

Not only that, but it wasn't even an accurate study.

Over the past several months, National Journal has examined the 2006 Lancet article, and another [PDF] that some of the same authors published in 2004; probed the problems of estimating wartime mortality rates; and interviewed the authors and their critics. NJ has identified potential problems with the research that fall under three broad headings: 1) possible flaws in the design and execution of the study; 2) a lack of transparency in the data, which has raised suspicions of fraud; and 3) political preferences held by the authors and the funders, which include George Soros's Open Society Institute.

[David Octavius]

Ok so 150K people have died since the invasion..over 2 million have fled the country..Sunni Iraqis still fighting Shia Iraqis and in some cases Sunni fighting Sunni and Shia fighting Shia and an infrastructure still in ruin..oh yea that's not a disaster at all

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by David Octavius

Ok so 150K people have died since the invasion..over 2 million have fled the country..Sunni Iraqis still fighting Shia Iraqis and in some cases Sunni fighting Sunni and Shia fighting Shia and an infrastructure still in ruin..oh yea that's not a disaster at all

As long as your argument is factual I have no problem with it. But creating false "research" for propaganda and political reasons is taking the argument too far. There is absolutely no reason the media shouldn't have uncovered and disclosed the source of the report, nor should they have accepted it with blinders on.

If your sources and data are factual we can debate, discuss the issue. But when one side is unknowingly building their argument on a pile of lies, there's a problem. Soros is not a neutral party, nor is his research media worthy. This is like saying Michael Moore conducted a study on Iraq and we should all just use and trust his numbers. At the very least it should be disclosed where the numbers came from. Anything less than that is promoting huge media bias and propaganda.

I am not saying the deaths in Iraq aren't tragic or there have been far more than there should have been. The war has been mismanaged from the start and it's an atrocity that our leadership allowed it to be handled the way it was. However, that does not make it acceptable for Soros or our media to handle the situation the way they have.

[Scrum]

So where is the proof that the numbers in this study are wrong? Is the only proof the fact that Soros helped to fund it?

I also like the use of the word "consensus".

[7960]

Originally Posted by Scrum

So where is the proof that the numbers in this study are wrong?

This survey, like the earlier Lancet study, found that violence became a leading cause of death in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. The WHO team used the same method of extrapolation to calculate total death rate as the Lancet group did, but their average estimate of violent deaths is 151,000--far lower than the Lancet's 601,000.

Brownstein declined to comment on the Lancet study, noting only that the WHO study's sample size--five times larger than that of the Lancet study--makes it "more robust, all things being equal." But some researchers are not as forgiving. "This study is a slaughter of the Lancet study," says Michael Spagat, an economist at Royal Holloway, University of London, in the U.K. "Serious problems with that study have been evident for a long time, but this confirms it."

Study Revises Iraq's Death Toll -- Bohannon 2008 (109): 1 -- ScienceNOW

Using the same methodology they came up with about 1/4 as many deaths.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by bheld

Now that you're finally starting to doubt the validity of studies based on who supplies the funding, let's talk about global warming...

Did you miss this part:

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

[motivez]

While 151,000 is a much lower number than 600,000.. it's still atrocious and unacceptable, and could have been completely avoided.

And let's not forget that a large swath of Iraq's educated society has already fled the country, and millions more are refugees elsewhere..

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

And let's not forget that a large swath of Iraq's educated society has already fled the country,..

that happened before we got there.

[David Octavius]

Originally Posted by motivez

While 151,000 is a much lower number than 600,000.. it's still atrocious and unacceptable, and could have been completely avoided.

And let's not forget that a large swath of Iraq's educated society has already fled the country, and millions more are refugees elsewhere..

Yes a large number of educated and skilled left since the invasion - its a fact. There are many that left before yes, but most were still there until 2003 when the shit hit the fan.

How can a country that has lost its infrastructure, its educated masses and no unity ever turn itself around in just a few years? And how can our politicians not take responsibility for having a hand in this?

[7960]

Originally Posted by David Octavius

Yes a large number of educated and skilled left since the invasion - its a fact. There are many that left before yes, but most were still there until 2003 when the shit hit the fan.

How can a country that has lost its infrastructure, its educated masses and no unity ever turn itself around in just a few years? And how can our politicians not take responsibility for having a hand in this?

They're leaving now because they CAN. How can anyone blame them for leaving when the fact is we freed their country and gave them the opportunity?

[bheld]

Originally Posted by 7960

They're leaving now because they CAN. How can anyone blame them for leaving when the fact is we freed their country and gave them the opportunity?

We gave them an opportunity to do things OUR way, which involved opening up their country to be looted by foreign companies. We negated all of their democratic advances at the start of the occupation and it wasn't until it was clear that we were going to fully control Iraq and that it would not be a free democracy that the insurgency started in full.

[7960]

Originally Posted by bheld

.... it wasn't until it was clear that we were going to fully control Iraq and that it would not be a free democracy that the insurgency started in full.

The insurgency started the day we got there.

[bheld]

Originally Posted by 7960

The insurgency started the day we got there.

Call it how you see it but things didn't go to shit until about a year later.

[bheld]

Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey | International | Reuters

Now a survey says 1 million dead.

[avsp]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Remember the study that came out that said 650k civilian Iraqis had died in Iraq? It came out in 2006. I'm sure everyone can remember it because it was repeated over and over again until everyone in the world was able to remember the number and recite it in their sleep.

Well what they didn't disclose was that Soros funded half of it. And on top of that, it was completely bogus.

No news of this in the US just yet, but here is an article from the Times (UK).
Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study - Times Online


This is just another instance of our media eating up these false reports on Iraq and feeding it to us. Celebrities, pundits and media alike recited this numbers as factual.

The actual numbers are still staggering, but the propaganda needs to stop. This is unacceptable. There is no viable reason this study wasn't questioned from the onset. I guess when you're told what you want to hear it's better to leave it unchecked.

I have a very negative opinion of George Soros. I think he's a horrible human being. I don't think our media should be taking cues from his wallet.

ON UK TV from the get-go the Lancet study was questioned, even though as a respected medical journale it was given the benefit of the doubt to some extent. Eitheer way it was nearly always 'lancet says that 650,000 deaths ...' & only very rarely '650,00 deaths ... '

Much criticism centred around why Lancet was getting involved in such a study.

The study now is widely regarded as flawed & the Iraq bodycount figures are usually the ones cited.
Iraq Body Count

Possibly IBC initial closeness to Salam Pax aided their credibility with the BBC

I see this as a victory by the media.

FWIW it remindes me of the whole JAMA/JFK fingy from a few years back
also wasnt the original report much earlier than 2007 & quoted Iraqi death figures of around 100,000?

[David Octavius]

How many Iraqi casualties (not just deaths) are there? I believe we have close to 30,000 American casualties since 2003, by AP count.