Torgerson strikes again.
If you've been following the Putting Civilian Deaths in Perspective thread at all, you know that Torgerson is busy doing what he always seems to do when he doesn't like the way an argument is going: he invents a different argument and whacks away at that one instead.
Here's his latest attempt:
Let's review. Your premise that fewer Iraq civilians are dying now than before the war is 100% predicated on the notion that (1) you have numbers for malnutrition before the war, (2) you ignore the much higher malnutrition numbers found right after the war, and (3) after that the infrastructure to calculate malnutrition statistics was destroyed. That's the bottom line, which you apparently refuse to see despite IRIN's interviewing people on the ground with much more knowledge of the situation than you or I contradicting your assumptions. Can you delete posts off of your archive? I hope so, because this 'study' of yours showing that fewer civilians die in war versus peace just may be very very embarrassing for you someday.
Let's take these one by one, shall we?
My premise is partially predicated on the notion that I have numbers for malnutrition before the war.
Well, that's a fact, not a notion. I have Unicef's numbers, which are the only primary-source numbers I've been able to find. By primary-source I mean that everybody else I've found who has published numbers got them from Unicef. Does that mean they can't be wrong? Nah... but they're the only story going, and since Torgerson himself directed me to a couple of articles that rehashed the same numbers, I can only suppose that he accepts them.
My premise is partially predicated on the notion that I can ignore the much higher malnutrition numbers found right after the war [i.e. major combat operations].
Yep. I've been very explicit about my methodology from the start: my post-war civilian death numbers all came from Iraq Body Count, who—as we've discussed—has a vested interest in blaming the coalition for every death they can. If they don't blame us for a death, I think I can safely assume it isn't our fault.
Even so, I'm interested, and I'm willing to expand my model beyond its original scope... provided I find numbers I can use. I can't use the numbers from May 2003 because all I have is a single data point, which gives me nothing to integrate. If I had numbers from, say, a year later, then I could assume a standard model (logarithmic, linear, whatever) and draw some kind of conclusion.
My premise is partially predicated on the notion that, following the end of major combat operations, the infrastructure to calculate malnutrition statistics was destroyed.
Huh? I didn't say that!
What I did say was that I can't find any Iraqi child malnutrition death statistics that aren't more than sixteen months old. I also suggested a reason why this might be the case: that relief organizations have a vested interest in suppressing good news. I didn't say why I think that, but I will now: because they depend on bad news for their funding.
Actually, once the shooting died down, I seem to recall that there were dozens of relief organizations chomping at the bit to get out into the field... after which I imagine that infrastructure became more robust than ever.
But hey, knock yourself out. As I said, if you can find valid data, I'll use it.
The three foregoing notions constitute the entire underpinning of my premise.
Actually, no, they don't. There is a fourth: I believe that the death statistics I have thus far compiled only tell a fraction of the story, and that over time the number of lives saved through the ouster of Saddam Hussein will grow significantly.
As you can see, though, I have not allowed this notion—and that is a notion, not a fact—to contaminate the numbers I have been able to compile. Instead, I've explicitly stated my assumptions and evaluation criteria and fully published my results, along with my raw data and intermediate calculations.
The IRIN article should have caused me to see the light.
About what?
Leave out for a moment that this article, written two weeks ago, quoted 16-month-old data as if it were current. Leave out that the knowledge of “people on the ground“ is typically limited by their horizon. Leave out that it might be perfectly reasonable to blame at least some of the malnutrition deaths since May 2003 on the regime that grew fat on the bones of their elder brothers and sisters.
Here's an exercise for Torgerson and his friends: using the data available in the IRIN article—and anything else they can find—calculate the number of children under five who have died of malnutrition in Iraq since May of 2003. I don't think they can do it, because the data isn't there. It isn't that I don't like the data... I just can't find it.
And so far, neither can they.
Good G-d. And I'm supposed to be embarrassed here?