Not surprisingly, the publication by the Lancet of new estimates suggesting that over 600 000 people have died (mostly violently) in Iraq, relative to what would have been expected based on death rates in the year before the war, has provoked violent controversy. A lot of the questions raised about the earlier survey, estimating 100 000 excess deaths in the first year or so appear to have been resolved. In particular, the lower bound estimate is now around 400 000, so that unless the survey is rejected completely, there can be no doubt about catastrophic casualties.

One number that is striking, but hasn’t attracted a lot of attention is the estimated death rate from air strikes, 13 per cent of the total or between 50 000 and 80 000 people. Around half the estimated deaths in the last year of the survey, from June 2005 to June 2006. That’s at least 25 000 deaths, or more than 70 per day.

Yet reports of such deaths are very rare. If you relied on media reports you could easily conclude that total deaths from air strikes would only be a few thousand for the entire war. The difference between the numbers of deaths implied by the Lancet study and the reports that shape the “gut perceptions” that the Lancet must have got it wrong are nowhere greater than here. So are the numbers plausible?
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The news that North Korea has exploded an atomic bomb is easily the worst we’ve had since the end of the Cold War. Any hostile power with atomic weapons is orders of magnitude more dangerous than anything Al Qaeda can throw at us, and of course increases the likelihood that AQ will end up getting access to bombs. It also seems very likely that Iran will soon have its own bomb.

There’s no easy way this could have been stopped, but a bit more attention from the Bush Administration might have helped.

The biggest problem though is the general acceptance, which has emerged in the past 10 to 15 that any major power that wants nuclear weapons is entitled to have them, unless it’s a ‘rogue state’ like North Korea. Of course, in these circumstances, everyone excluded from the club is more eager than ever to join. More importantly, getting a serious co-ordinated efforts to stop proliferation, since no one really takes the Non-proliferation Treaty seriously any more. We’re about to undermine it by exporting uranium to India, and in doing this, we’re only recognising the realities. India and Pakistan, among others, are less blameworthy than the existing nuclear powers, which have made it clear that they have no intention of fulfilling the commitments they made, under the Non-Proliferation treaty to eventual disarmament. Particularly for Britain and France, doing so would have no strategic consequences, but would entail an admission that they are, and have been for decades, middle-sized countries of no particular importance, and not Great Powers. How can represenatives of these countries keep a straight face while pointing to the dangers of proliferation?

All that said, there are some hopeful signs. The only way to bring any real pressure to bear on the North Korean government is through China and, for the moment, the rhetoric coming out of Beijing suggests that they might do something.

I missed this piece by Gene Healey at the time, but it’s well worth a read. Healey a libertarian points out that the neocons don’t merely support lots of particular wars, they are pro-war on principle. Tim Lambert made the same point a while back.

Along the same lines, Spencer Ackerman at The New Republic on the Right’s Vietnam syndrome

The passage by the US Congress of a bill that among other things abolishes habeas corpus for terrorism suspects, allows interrogation methods that would normally be classed as torture, and allows the President to declare legal residents of the United States to be enemy combatants has produced a predictably partisan divide. All but two Senate Republicans voted for the Bill (Lincoln Chafee opposed and Olympia Snowe did not vote), and most pro-Republican bloggers seem to have backed it with marginal qualifications.

Those of us who fear and distrust the Bush Administration naturally find it easy to see what harm could be done with powers like this. The Administration’s supporters, on the other hand, seem confident that only the likes of David Hicks and Jose Padilla have anything to fear.

So, for those who support the bill, it might be useful to consider the standard thought experiment recommended to all who support dictatorial powers for a leader on their own side. Think about what the other side might do with these powers.
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French Newspaper L’Est Republicain has published a report, citing sources in the French security services who claim that Osama bin Laden is dead of typhoid, having been unable treatment by virtue of his isolation.

« Selon une source habituellement fiable, les services saoudiens auraient désormais acquis la conviction qu’Oussama Ben Laden est mort. Les éléments recueillis par les saoudiens indiquent que le chef d’Al-Qaïda aurait été victime, alors qu’il se trouvait au Pakistan le 23 août 2006, d’une très forte crise de typhoïde ayant entraîné une paralysie partielle de ses membres inférieurs. Son isolement géographique, provoqué par une fuite permanente, aurait rendu impossible toute assistance médicale. Le 4 septembre 2006, les services saoudiens de sécurité ont recueilli les premiers renseignements faisant état de son décès. Ils attendraient, d’obtenir davantage de détails, et notamment le lieu exact de son inhumation, pour annoncer officiellement la nouvelle ».

Via ABC News

This Nature editorial reports the alarming news that six international health workers face execution in Libya on bogus charges of spreading HIV. As the editorial points out, despite the absence of any real improvement in its human rights record, Libya is being treated as a Beacon of Light by both the US and EU because it has backed off its previous support for terrorism and WMDs. It should be made clear to the Gaddafi regime that murdering aid workers is on a par with terrorism as a crime against the international community.

More from ScienceBlogs

I’ve been sent the following, which appears to reflect the views of a lot of people in Thailand (or at least among the educated classes in Bangkok), welcoming the coup that displaced PM Thaksin. The author is an academic at Thammasat university, and he is writing a message addressed to foreign students

My own views of Thaksin, whose career I’ve followed reasonably closely, are similar to those of the author – I would have welcomed his removal by constitutional processes. On the other hand, like John Howard, I would have hoped that Thailand, and our region in general, had got past the point where military coups were part of the political process.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, I hope for a peaceful outcome and a quick return to democracy.
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Tim Blair is always keen to correct any errors I’ve made, and jumps in on the latest revelations in the long-running Plame-Wilson scandal. My response is over the fold, but I thought it might be a good idea to check on some of his earlier corrections. One of the first is this one from May 2004 when Tim noted my observation that “the anniversary of Bush’s declaration of victory looks as good a time as any to date what seems increasingly certain to be a defeat [at least for the policies that have been pursued for the last year]” and suggested that I should “Try Footy Tipping”.

Given, the implication that I’m not much of a tipster, I thought it might be a better idea if I organised a tipping competition, allowing Tim and others to do better than me. The obvious topic is the date of the victory in Iraq, which I foolishly suggested, back in 2004, that Bush might not actually deliver. To get a definite winner, I’ll specify some rules corresponding to a conservative interpretation of the desired outcome of US victory culminating in a “democratic, stable and prosperous” Iraq. So here are the conditions
A No more than 30 000 US troops in Iraq
B A democratic government with control over the entire country
C Stability defined as no more than 100 deaths in a month from insurgency, civil and sectarian strife, kidnapping and so on
D Prosperity defined as restoration of 1990 levels of income per person and electricity supply per person

To enter, just nominate the first month, during Bush’s remaining term in office, when all four conditions will be satisfied, or vote “Not under Bush”. One nomination per person, please. Only comments nominating a date will be accepted.

To forestall disputes, I’ll offer a second competition, allowing entrants to nominate three of the four conditions and a month for their fulfilment.
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The tragedy in Darfur is approaching a crisis point which could lead to genocide on a huge scale. The inadequate peacekeeping force sent by the African Union is about to reach the end of its mission, and the Sudan government is refusing to allow its replacement. Russia and China forced a requirement for Sudan’s agreement into a UNSC resolution on the subject, and so far efforts to secure that agreement have gone nowhere. Even if they are successful, there’s no guarantee that an adequate force will be found.

No one comes out of this terrible story with much credit. China has followed its usual policy of backing dictatorships, and Russia has joined in. The US and, even more, the Europeans have been intermittent, at best, in their attempts to do anything. The Sudanese government has made brutal war on its own people. The Darfur rebels, who seemed to be in a strong position earlier this year, rejected a peace deal that might have prevented the disaster that is now approaching.

But condemnations all around don’t help anything. Sunday 17 September is the Global Day for Darfur, and we should all support it as best we can. I haven’t been able to find out anything happening in Australia, but we can at least provide help to the victims through charities such as CARE or MSF.

Passion of the Present has more, as does Jeff Weintraub.

Five years after the terrorist attacks on New York, the best that can be said about our situation is that it could be worse. The response from our elected leaders, and particularly the Bush Administration, has been comprehensively bungled, or worse, undermined by the pursuit of private and political advantage, and pre-existing political agendas, at the expense of a concerted attack on those who are trying to kill us. Incompetence and worse has been rife at every level from the tactical (the failure to catch bin Laden when he was surrounded) to the operational (the various stages of the Iraq occupation, starting with a Provisional Administration hired from Republican job message boards) the strategic (the whole Iraq war) and the moral (the many crimes that have blurred the difference between us and the terrorists). All of these things have squandered our resources, while acting as a recruiting banner for our enemies.

The only thing that has prevented things being even worse is the gratuitous bloodthirstiness of our enemies. Brutal attacks in Muslim countries, executions of innocent people shown on video, and the continuous suicide-terror attacks on ordinary people going about their daily business have shown their true nature, and discredited radical Islamism among many who remain deeply hostile to the US and the Bush Administration. As I mentioned a year ago, in countries like Indonesia , the Iraq war has been highly unpopular, but the great achievement of JI has been to make themselves even more unpopular.
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