I argue that the U.S. establishment has been wildly inflating the 9-11 death toll for warmongering purposes.
FUZZY MATH (July 2, 2002 version)
a T.I.P. (Text In Progress) by
ADRIAN MORE
charles v. campisi, chief of the New York police department's internal affairs bureau:
you've raised more dead in 9 months than Jesus ever did in 3 years.
By July 2, 2002 you had reported a total of 2,823 WTC victims, deep down from your September 24 high of nearly 7,000.
- 1,207 death certificates have been issued, reportedly, by the medical examiner's office: that is, 1,207 victims have been reportedly identified, having been found whole or fragmented;
- 1,518 death certificates have reportedly been issued without a body, reportedly at the request of victims' families;
- 98 people are reportedly missing.
(See the Associated Press web site for figure updates. They make it harder and harder to find data, as their special contribution to the general obfuscation/falsification, but if one seeks hard enough one will find.)
Summing up: according to you, campisi, as reported by the associated press on July 2, 2002, 19:07 ET ('New Procedure May ID WTC Remains', by Sara Kugler):
1,207 + 1,518 + 98 = 2,823 people died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Adding the 189 reported Pentagon dead + the 44 reported Pennsylvania dead, the Sept.11 victims total would be 3,056. So far.
But 3,056 is by no means the final death toll. First, it must be noted that your figure includes the alleged "19 hijackers", who ought to be separated from their victims. Therefore the reported VICTIMS are 3,037, not 3,056.
Second: according to the AP, Feb.8, 2002, 18:12 ET, "The toll is likely to drop slightly as investigators make changes." That's because your cops, campisi, are hypermeticulous. Or maybe because they're under orders to go as slow as it gets? Why haven't you brought the matter to closure yet after 10 MONTHS?
Third, "seven foreign countries still need to confirm their missing-persons lists, which could cause the death toll to drop." Who are those seven "snails"? You're in no hurry to push them, right campisi?
According to your own data, campisi:
1,207 identified dead + 1,518 declared dead by a death certificate = 2,725 confirmed WTC dead.
It is NOT correct/logical to add the "98 missing" to the WTC victims total, as campisi does (that's how he gets his total of "2,823": 2,725 confirmed dead + 98 missing = 2,823).
It is not correct because you yourself, campisi, have said, as reported by the Associated Press, March 7, 20:33 ET, that:
- of the "158" (then) allegedly still missing, only "SOME ...[ARE] ALMOST CERTAINLY DEAD [my caps]";
but: "SOME [ARE] PERHAPS MISTAKENLY ON THE LIST [ my caps]";
and: "SOME [ARE] POSSIBLY TRYING TO FAKE THEIR DEATHS [my caps]".
Moreover:
"The police department ESTIMATES AT LEAST 60 PERCENT OF THE 158 STILL CLASSIFIED AS MISSING DID DIE... WHILE THE REST REQUIRE FURTHER INVESTIGATION [caps mine]."
That's to say, you campisi have no proof yet (after 10 months!) allowing you to classify those "98" as victims.
So why did you add them to the July 2 "official count" of WTC victims - if not to artificially inflate that count?
Putting it simply: your "official count" is (at least in part) a lie, campisi. Because it includes "98 missing" of whom you yourself said that a big chunk are mistakes or fakers, and you only "estimate" that the rest did die but you can't prove it.
Again: the (provisory) confirmed WTC total is 2,725. 2,725, NOT "2,823"!
Plus Pentagon + Pennsylvania: 2,725 + 189 + 44 = 2,958 alleged Sept.11 dead.
Minus the "19 hijackers" = 2,939 officially confirmed 9-11 victims.
2,939 confirmed Sept.11 victims - NOT 3,056 (the AP-reported "official count" of yours as of July 2, 2002, 19:07 ET, AP).
And if and when you'll come up with proof that the "98 missing" are really dead, I'll add them to the total. NOT NOW!
So the PROVISORY confirmed official total is now (July 2, 2002) 2,939 without the "19 hijackers". That is, unless even the identified-victims and certified-dead-without-a-body totals have been tampered with/falsified/inflated. Ain't nothing one should NOT be skeptical about with professional smugs the likes of you.
As early as late October, everyone else who conducted an independent count of WTC victims, from USA Today to the New York Times to the Red Cross and the Associated Press, had come up with victims totals under 3,000 (International Herald Tribune, October 26,2001, p.3), while you were still touting close to 4,800 dead.
Your WTC totals, campisi, which are the only ones most people have been fed by the mass media, have as-slowly-as-possible slimmed down from a sensational 'nearly 7,000' in late September (full-blown headlines) to the much less than 3,000 of today (no headlines).
Sloppy work at best. Yet most effective in brainwashing worldwide TV-fed public opinion into believing the lie of 5 or 6 thousand Sept.11 dead.
Once more: according to you, campisi, the total confirmed death toll of September 11 at all three sites (New York, Pentagon, Pennsylvania) would be 2,939 by now.
Why haven't you released a list of names for all victims?
And why haven't you given news organizations access to your full list of victims?
Just how reliable is your list?
Just how reliable are you?
At least you've been faintly whispering (though not always, not nearly enough) from the beginning that your figures were in a state of flux due to "duplications"/"errors" and were/are likely to drop further.
But the following liars are more than a match for you, as shown by a Nov.21,2001 New York Times report:
www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/nyregion/21NUMB.html
colin powell had the straightface to repeat the 5,000-dead lie in a Nov.19 Louisville speech, although you, campisi, had made officially known WEEKS earlier that the Sept.11 toll had dropped well below 5,000. Actually, by Nov.19 it stood at little over 4,000. You're busted colin, you spouter of lies.
The 2nd certified liar is general richard b. myers , chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who during November briefings repeatedly bleated the "5,000" myth.
The 3rd certified liar is don imus, the radio talk show host, who topped everyone else by inventing "6,000" WTC dead on larry king live, saturday Nov.17.
The list is long. Too long. Longer than anyone can bear. Overblown casualty lists printed by massmedia whores will always "create a helpful wave of national indignation" - a time-honored dirty trick.
See, campisi, these are not trivialities, or morbid curiosity. How can Bush possibly be waging a "proportionate" war (as he and Blair driveled all over the media after Sept.11: see for example International Herald Tribune, Oct.6, 2001,p.1: "Blair...Calls for 'Proportionate' Strikes"), if the death toll is still uncertain? How many people does Bush have the right to murder back? 2,939 (your PROVISORY confirmed total)?
This "proportionate" war has long since become savagely disproportionate: in only 10 days in November, 6,000 Talibans and Qaidas were killed, according to U.S. and French experts (International Herald Tribune, November 19, 2001, p.8). If this is true, then the total death toll of over 9 months of war since Oct.7 is much higher than 6,000, considering:
- the fighters killed outside those 10 days;
- the refugees who starved and froze to death;
- the ever-increasing "unintended victims" (who amount to "certainly hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocent Afghans", according to the International Herald Tribune, Feb.11, 2002,p.1, continued on p.8; who amount to "at least 3,767 civilian casualties from Oct.7 to Dec.6", according to Marc Herold of New Hampshire University, as reported ibid.; who amount to "1,000 to 1,300 deaths" according to Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives, as reported ibid.: that is, only until before Feb.11).
Maybe it's time to declassify your victims list, campisi - lest more and more unpatriots should start thinking you are a liar who's been fabricating inflated figures all along to whip Americans up into a war frenzy.
War ought to be the first casualty of the Truth.
July 2, 2002 edition. I wrote the first version on September 24, 2001.
ADRIAN MORE
poet/songwriter-singer/essayist
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