I never thought I would have anything negative to say about Bill Moyers, but when he ended his special, “On Buying the War” last night, with the comment that last year 35,000 civilians were killed in Iraq, my heart sank.
The portion of the special that I heard was generally informative and a good contribution to the national dialog, but why did he have to end it with an estimate offered by an administration that almost never tells the truth about anything. If the best estimate we have is that over 650,000 excess civilian deaths have occurred as a result of the war, then certainly a lot more than 35,000 Iraqis died last year. It's my understanding that the Lancet has been making these kinds of estimates for about 100 years and is considered the best in the business at doing so.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
Moyers just threw out that 35,000 number with no explanation. What a way to undermine and discredit what was otherwise was a great effort.
Gee Whiz Bill, please explain yourself.
I tried to post what I wrote above to The Blog on the PBS website on 4/26/07 but my entry was not published (at least not yet). http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/
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