29153: Kondrat (Comment): The Lancet Study (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Peter Kondrat <kondr8@gmail.com>


A very interesting phenomenon, this coverage of the Lancet study on the
death and destruction wrought by the coup against Haiti's elected president
in 2004:

Maybe I missed something, but when I googled "Lancet study Haiti" it seems
there was very little coverage of the report itself, and its findings. When
it was reported that one of the authors of the report apparently had ties to
Lavalas, the media were all over the story like green on grass. Yet, as has
been pointed out elsewhere on Corbett, no one has challenged the data
collected in this study, nor has anyone challenged (to my knowledge) the
methodology used in collecting the data. All we get is more unsubstantiated
charges, and guilt-by-association pandering, the kind of off-the-cuff
"analysis" that even finds its way onto Corbett from time to time. Does it
matter who counts the bodies, as long as you can check their math?

So now the question for all those coup-backers on Corbett (come on, stand
up, we know who you are) is this: was the elimination of your Bogeyman
Aristide worth 8000 deaths, and many more thousands of woman and children
assaulted and psychologically scarred for life? Can you explain the
real-politik rationale for that? And that is without mentioning the untold
damage to the nation's psyche, the blow to the thousands of kids who haven't
been going to school . . . So at best, don't those coup-supporters have to
tally up the dozens (OK, we can give you all benefit of every doubt, and say
"hundreds") of alleged victims of Aristide's goons, against the thousands
who perished under the US puppet governments? Are you ready to stand up and
say, like Bush and Cheney (and not many others these days) say of those who
are slaughtered in Iraq, "These people died for a noble cause"?

Can we hear some of those coup-supporters weigh in on this? And see if you
can avoid the name-calling, it does not serve anyone.

Peter Kondrat