21 Responses to 738 And Rising

1. Elliott November 6th, 2008 at 1:07 pm «

   may god have mercy.
2. ThingsComeUndone November 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm «

   Just how good is the reporting in Iraq given that there is a war I would expect some under reporting? Also doesn’t Cholera spread when infected people’s waste spreads to new water supplies and contaminates it?
   I’m surprised the Rebels are not all pooping up stream from the Greenzone.
   How much does it cost to treat Cholera? Can’t Bush squeeze out a few bucks?
• markfromireland November 6th, 2008 at 1:35 pm «

  Yes there’s underreporting. Not necessarily because of the various civil wars being fomented by the occupiers. There usually is underreporting of Cholera. (Note please that I specified laboratory confirmed cases.) There are all sorts of problems getting accurate stats. Some of which I list below as well as replies to points you raise:

  For a start AWD is often used as a synonym for Cholera.
  Iraki doctors are well capable of diagnosing Cholera on clinical grounds alone – and do so. Those cases don’t make it into the statistics.
  Yes Cholera is typically waterborne.
  The greenzone water supply is separate and works. Can’t have all those occupiers and their quisling friends crapping themselves into an early grave now can we?
  ORS (Rehydration) kits are a few cents. I can’t remember right now whether we paid the equivalent of 3 U.S. cents per sachet or 4 U.S. cents per sachet. But you get the idea.
• BargainCountertenor November 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm «

  As with most things, prevention is cheaper than treatment.

  Cholera (and her nastier waterborne cousin, Typhoid fever, Salmonella typhii) are what you get when you don’t keep sewage and drinking water separated.

  Most of the increase in life expectancy in the developed world over the past 120 years or so is attributable to proper attention to sanitation procedures. What’s really sad is that we know this, and won’t do it in Iraq.
• markfromireland November 6th, 2008 at 2:00 pm «

  What’s even worse is that while Cholera is endemic to Irak until the water treatment plants were bombed an outbreak would be between 6 and 30 cases and outbreaks were rare and confined to remote areas without access to water treatment.

  Now it’s a yearly event.

  (And yes you’re entirely correct about the increase in life expectancy in the wealthy world being due to improved sanitation)

  2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene and overcrowding. 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries. Undernutrition is the underlying cause of a substantial proportion of all child deaths. Infants who are fed only breastmilk during the first 6 months seldom get diarrhoea. At six months, in addition to breastmilk, complementary foods with increased feeding frequency and changes in food consistency, quantity, and diversity as the child ages.

  2.2 million per year works out at one death per 14 seconds according to The Rehydration Project which is where the quote above is from. Next to Red Crescent/Cross they’re one of my favourite charities. They do excellent work.
3. ThingsComeUndone November 6th, 2008 at 1:21 pm «

   “It seems like it’s a cheaper alternative to trucking in bottled water, which has a shelf life,” said Rowe, who described himself as a fiscal hawk.

   Once deployed, the machines could reduce the cost of logistical support for supplying water to the troops in Iraq by billions of dollars, said Stuart Roy, spokesman of the DCI Group, Aqua Sciences’ public affairs firm.

   The cost to transport water by C-17 cargo planes, then truck it to the troops, runs $30 a gallon. The cost, including the machines from Aqua Sciences, will be reduced to 30 cents a gallon, Roy said.

   Several systems on the market can create water through condensation, but the process requires a high level of humidity.

   Aqua Sciences’ machines only require 14 percent humidity, Roy said. “That’s why this technology is superior and why they are getting the contracts.”

   http://www.wired.com/science/d…..6/10/71898

   Bush Penny wise Pound foolish I bet he won’t get the Iraqis this tech in the numbers needed.
4. markfromireland November 6th, 2008 at 1:39 pm «

   Weird it does accept the XHTML code for lists in postings but not in replies. How odd….. Anyway:

   1. For a start AWD is often used as a synonym for Cholera.
   2. Iraki doctors are well capable of diagnosing Cholera on clinical grounds alone – and do so. Those cases don’t make it into the statistics.
   3. Yes Cholera is typically waterborne.
   4. The greenzone water supply is separate and works. Can’t have all those occupiers and their quisling friends crapping themselves into an early grave now can we?
   5. ORS (Rehydration) kits are a few cents. I can’t remember right now whether we paid the equivalent of 3 U.S. cents per sachet or 4 U.S. cents per sachet. But you get the idea.

   Somewhat more legible presented that way ….
5. ThingsComeUndone November 6th, 2008 at 2:02 pm «

   I would not trust Bush’s war Profiteer friends to make a first class water treatment system these bozo’s are electrocuting our troops in the shower.
   Water Electricity they don’t mix its basic science a three year old understands from cartoons.
   I wonder if Bush is burying the numbers on our troops getting sick, like he did the shower electrocution numbers, suicides, friendly fire (that football star who was a Ranger), torture, civilians who die in custody
6. ThingsComeUndone November 6th, 2008 at 2:54 pm «

   What do Iraq’s think about Bush giving the Saudi’s Nuclear Reactors?
• markfromireland November 6th, 2008 at 3:04 pm «

  I have no idea – sorry . All the Irakis I know are busy wondering what the hell happens next in Irak.
7. dmac November 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm «

   hi mark-i remember earlier this year that you said this was going to happen. and it did. you also warned about water supplies turning critically scarce.

   thanks for listing the link to the way people can help, at comment 7.
• markfromireland November 6th, 2008 at 3:30 pm «

  It is one of the successes that I truly wish we did not have at “Guides” which is that we’re now known as a major and reliable source of news about Cholera in Irak. Every time there’s an outbreak our traffic goes through the roof.

  Dmac if you click about a bit on that site you’ll come across a recipe for a rehydration preparation. Here’s a happy memory of mine:

  Years ago I got a local charity to get a school campaign started of giving the ingredients for rehydration to school children to take home with them together with water purifying tablets and a large bar of very strong smelling soap. The idea was to use kids to get the message to parents that way.

  It was wildly successful.

  No kids dead of AWD and parents getting the idea that keeping their children in school might be of use after all.

  Happy days
• dmac November 6th, 2008 at 10:53 pm «

  the dichotomy of the site is that i never know when i am going to get images of redemption or images of horror i cannot erase.

  i have enough horror.

  give me a choice. i know you don’t have that choice, and i know it must sound offensive considering what you see.

  educate. let people take it in a dose they can digest.
  i can take a lot, and i am overwhelmed.

  let me send people to the site and see what you are doing and give them that choice.’
  there are ways to package the photographs for people to see what they choose….any they see will help you.

  categorize.

  just sayin’.(anyone who doesn’t get what i am saying hasn’t seen the horrors and gore every day of what has been going on in iraq that gorillas guides documents.)

  to tell you the truth, the swimming pool pictures did more than anything, there were no girls there. but the everyday normalcy of them swimming said a lot.i am female and a swimmer growing up, so the lack of girls said a lot, but the possibility of having no birth-defect free children sure resonates with me. let alone anyone being left alive to run the pool and swim in it.

  ok, done for now.tired and rambling.

  take care.
• markfromireland November 7th, 2008 at 1:12 am «

  You’re right and thanks for seeing that we don’t have that choice. I particularly don’t have that choice as, with great pride, I can say that “Guides” is now completely Iraki owned and operated.

  Not offensive, no, very human, and different things will resonate with different people.

  But you have remember for whom “Guides” is written and by whom.

  If it’s any consolation – most of those images are pretty mild. Our archives, and the archives of some of the human rights groups we collaborate with contain far worse.

  As to music – it varies from person to person. Fatima enjoys what for lack of a better expression I’ll call Arabic classical.
• dmac November 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am «

  now ‘iraki owned and operated’, wow, great pride indeed…congratulations to all of you…

  and i forgot to mention, duh, i was referring to the flickr photo pages site
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/
  , not the main gorillasguides.com site in my 16. there is a difference.completely different reference.

  my best to all of you.
• dmac November 6th, 2008 at 10:56 pm «

  forgot to say–

  i just told a friend that stopped by earlier about the rehydration project

  she knows a few people who care.
8. Pachacutec November 6th, 2008 at 7:16 pm «

   recommended.
9. BooRadley November 6th, 2008 at 7:48 pm «

   Thanks Mark.

   digg
10. dmac November 6th, 2008 at 10:36 pm «

    i haven’t read comments yet–mentioned your post tonight on firedoglake.it got moved off of the front page.. hope it helps.
    http://firedoglake.com/2008/11…..nt-1715966

    and mentioned this song. i sent it to fatima, she sent me a beautiful blessing of an email…….but i am not clear on something when i sent an email back, can they listen to music made from certain instruments? or just not allowed to make music from them?
    i sent one of my favorite songs.of all time. i told her to tell you it was originally written about ireland, and that i grew up hearing about ireland at my dinner table. the beautiful and the ugly. and that the song also applies now.
    as you know, i could have posted this in a private email, but felt it important that it be aired.

    stay strong.
    d

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC4JZHRBfv0
    James Taylor
    Belfast To Boston (God’s Rifle) lyrics

    There are rifles buried in the countryside for the rising of the moon
    May they lie there long forgotten till they rust away into the ground
    Who will bend this ancient hatred, will the killing to an end
    Who will swallow long injustice, take the devil for a country man
    Who will say “this far no further, oh lord, if I die today”
    Send no weapons no more money. Send no vengeance across the seas
    Just the blessing of forgiveness for my new countryman and me
    Missing brothers, martyred fellows, silent children in the ground
    Could we but hear them could they not tell us
    “Time to lay God’s rifle down”
    Who will say this far no further, oh Lord, if I die today.

    has everyone forgotten about ending the war/occupation?

    i haven’t.
11. BooRadley November 6th, 2008 at 11:43 pm «

    mfi, I forwarded this post onto two reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One used to write for the conservative readers about our glorious victories/s. The other writes the soldier obituaries. I am hoping one or both will be able to get something published.
• markfromireland November 7th, 2008 at 12:41 am «

  Thanks it’s appreciated.

  mfi