When a disaster or a war happens, very large estimates of the number of dead quickly emerge in the media. These tend to be propagated by two groups — those seeking money to deal with the problem, and those wanting to blame somebody for it. Thus, on 11 September 2001, some early estimates spoke of up to 40,000 dead, and even the more serious ones referred to 5,000. The actual figure was about 2,800. In Iraq a report in the Lancet, using an extraordinary method of extrapolation from a tiny sample, came up with the figure of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians; yet it seems that the true figure, though bad enough, is a small fraction of that. Now we have the effects of Katrina. As soon as I read last week’s press figure of 10,000 dead, I did not believe it. The disaster is a terrible one, but I found it hard to imagine how so many could have been unable to find refuge. If one questions the figure, however, one is said to be unfeeling. I realise I am running that risk. Now, though we still do not know the final toll, numerous reports suggest far fewer than 10,000. This process of overestimation matters, because the round, high figure is the one that tends to stick in people’s minds, and so it colours history’s approach. I bet that, in later years, people will say that 10,000 people died in Katrina, 5,000 in the Twin Towers, 100,000 civilians in Iraq, though they didn’t. P.S. Many people also mistake the word ‘casualties’, thinking it means dead.
Who are all these Muslim ‘advisers’ to government? Ahmad Thomson comes from the Association of Muslim Lawyers and advises No. 10 Downing Street. He says that Tony Blair’s role in the war in Iraq is part of a ‘Zionist plan’, and he has written a book about how Freemasons and Jews control the Western world and how the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust is a ‘big lie’.
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