Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Body Count

[Loose Canon, "100,000 Iraqi Civilians Dead," Bruce Schimmel, Nov. 4, 2004] highlights not only the humanitarian crisis spurred on by the Iraq war but also the way in which the Bush administration has made us unequivocally less safe. If the attacks on 9/11 sent our country into a collective rage that the administration was able to spread to a country that had not—and could not—attack us, what should we expect the reaction of the Muslim world to be when our actions cause 33 times as many casualties?

Andrew Everett
via e-mail

I notice [the background information for] your column comes from the Lancet, the English medical journal. You should know that the story is quite shaky. The author of the study, Les Roberts, based it on interviews with 988 families in 33 neighborhoods. He simply multiplied the results which gave him a range of 8,000 to 194,000 deaths. Then, he averaged the figure to arrive at the total of 100,000. If you have taken any college course on statistics, you will see that you can't do things that way. The statistical sample is too small, and it is based on self-reporting with no corroborating data such as death certificates.

This figure, as has been pointed out, would require 180 civilian deaths per day since the start of the war. Has there been any one day when that many civilians have been killed? I can appreciate a well-argued anti-war stance, on many, many grounds, but you do yourself a disservice when you base it on spurious information.

Dr. Michael J. Lewis, Williams College
Williamstown, Mass.

Schimmel responds: It's true, I should have pointed out the shaky statistical basis. Still, the point remains: If this little research team from Johns Hopkins can gather information about how many civilians are dying, then the U.S. government can, too. And it is—to my mind—immoral, if not illegal, for an occupying army to ignore (what is idiotically called) "collateral damage."

We Will Survive

Just when I felt defeated, I picked up City Paper and suddenly felt like you were in my corner. I'm learning to survive thanks to [Cover Story, "Your Bush Victory Survival Guide," Nov. 4, 2004]. I especially liked Natalie Hope McDonald's take on civil rights. It is that bad, isn't it? Thanks for the laughs despite the pain.

Jim Stingler
Newtown Square

Even after Fahrenheit 9/11 and Vote For Change, President Bush still won by 3 million votes. The "slackers"—the people your paper caters to—never even bothered to show up at the polls. Only one in 20 18- to 24-year-olds showed. They're too busy playing video games and listening to rap CDs to care. Don't blame the people who showed up in long lines for hours in the rain to vote for Bush. Blame the ones who didn't vote against Bush. The radical left has hijacked the Democratic party. That's why Kerry lost. America has spoken. Get used to it.

P.S. Obama? Please!

Kevin P. Kenna
Philadelphia

Correction

[Naked City, "Hammer Time," Mike Newall, Nov. 4, 2004] reported that the $600,000 Dave Schultz made over his career was nearly half of what the NHL's lowest-paid player made last year. The NHL's minimum salary is $150,000.