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(Note 1)***(This turned out to be a longer post than expected, but it's important that you read the entire thing to understand how deep the deception went on this one)***

(***NOTE 2***, in researching and writing this I've also discovered that these headlines are in fact LIES. Not just because some headlines say "6,000" instead of "nearly 6,000" (5818), but because the Reuters piece clearly points out (if the reader does the math), that AT LEAST 594 (almost 10%) of these civilians "killed" didn't die as a result of violence!!! They died of natural and of other "normal" causes! That's right! So, no Yahoo! News they weren't all "slain" and Reuters and others they weren't all "killed")
(Edit:*I’ve capitalized “AT LEAST” above, so that liberals understand that even under the best set of circumstances for the UN & the media, their lie was only about 10% of the deaths, but it seems much worse. Please read beyond the opening paragraphs!*)

The AP and Yahoo! are up to their old tricks again. They just love misleading headline skimmers with headlines that leave a false impression, but don't quite rise to the level of "lying" (though they've done that before too). Today's example is particularly disgusting. Below is a cropped screen shot of what my eyes were treated to when I pulled up my browser and watched my home page (Yahoo!) load a few moments ago:

That's right: Nearly 6,000 Iraqi civilians slain in May, June

It's clear that the intention of this headline is to leave the reader with the impression that these deaths were collateral damage of U.S. military operations. It's intended to make liberals get excited to have a new number (remember the milking of 2,000 military deaths) to blame evil America for and shout that we're targeting civilians. It's also intended to make folks who are on the fence and even conservatives think "wow, maybe the liberals are right, we are targeting thousands of civilians." Bull!

Before we get to the truth of what this number really is, and how it seems like it might be completely bogus anyway, I have to wonder who chose the headline. Generally when you click one of these headlines on the Yahoo! home page, you're taken to an article with the same headline, usually from the AP or Reuters. Every once and a while, including this case, the AP article actually has a completely different headline. In these cases I always make sure to do a search to see if anyone else is using the headline used on Yahoo!'s home page, to determine if it appears that Yahoo! specifically chose their own headline. In this case they did.

See, usually these AP wire stories that Yahoo! links to already have a headline and it will be the same on Yahoo!'s home page if the story is listed there (honest headlines or not). But this is one of those cases where it seems quite clear that someone at Yahoo! decided to spruce it up a bit, because the actual AP headline reads: Iraq civilian toll spikes to nearly 6,000 (also at The Boston Globe). While I personally find the one Yahoo! used a bit more over the top, they are both VERY misleading, if not down right false.

On to the problem with this "6,000" figure... First of all, I think we can all agree it's intended to appear as if these are the result of "our" war or military. What we're actually talking about, as you'll see if you read the article, is deaths resulting from terrorist attacks and sectarian violence (if that). Wouldn't a more appropriate headline be: Iraq: Insurgents Kill Nearly 6,000 In May/June or even Violence In Iraq Leaves 6,000 Civilians Dead May/June. But those headlines wouldn't lead a casual headline reader to believe that these were killed by the U.S. military, so they just won't do. What was I thinking!?

If the misleading headlines don't piss you off enough (because they occur with such regularity), don't worry it gets much worse! For starters, it appears that this is a figure pulled out of a United Nations report, which makes it questionable enough, but that ain't even the half of it. But before I move on, I do have to give slight credit to Yahoo! Asia News for making clear that this is a UN number in their headline on a Reuters story: U.N. says 6,000 Iraqi civilians killed in May-June, as well as The Sydney Morning Herald who ran the same article, with only a slightly different headline: 6,000 civilians killed in May-June: UN. It's still disturbing that they don't indicate WHO killed these civilians (because as we'll learn, man weren't "killed"), but at least they mention that this is a United Nations claim.

Now, 6,000 civilian deaths is still a pretty explosive and disturbing figure regardless of who killed them, right? Well, maybe most of them weren't killed, but just died the way "normal" people die. Think I'm stepping out on a pretty big ledge there? Follow me for a minute.

Let's first look at how the AP opens this story:

UNITED NATIONS - Nearly 6,000 civilians were slain across Iraq in May and June, a spike in deaths that coincided with rising sectarian attacks across the country, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The report from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq describes a wave of lawlessness and crime, including assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, torture and intimidation.

Hundreds of teachers, judges, religious leaders and doctors have been targeted for death, and thousands of people have fled, the report said. Evidence suggests militants also have begun to target homosexuals, it said.

"While welcoming recent positive steps by the government to promote national reconciliation, the report raises alarm at the growing number of casualties among the civilian population killed or wounded during indiscriminate or targeted attacks by terrorists or insurgents," the U.N. said in a note accompanying the report.

Then we're hit with this:

According to the report, 2,669 civilians were killed in May and 3,149 were killed in June. Those numbers combined two counts: from the Ministry of Health, which records deaths reported by hospitals; and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, which tallies the unidentified bodies it receives.

At this point in reading the article, one is most likely already surprised that this "spike" in deaths, wasn't at the hands of American military. But still disturbed by the level of voilence. But the AP's own "death count" may cause you to think twice:

The report's figures were higher than some other counts, but even the U.N. said many killings go unreported.

According to an Associated Press tally based on its daily reporting, at least 1,511 civilians were killed, in May and June, with at least an additional 289 police and security forces killed.

The AP tally showed that from January through June 2006, at least 4,191 civilians were killed. The minimum number of police and security forces casualties in that period was at least 805 killed. The AP figures do not include insurgents.

Interesting. The AP's figure is only about 26% of the UN's figure (5818). Not only that, but the AP's TOTAL FOR THE YEAR is only 72% of the UN's May and June number. If you read the article and go back to a section I didn't quote, the UN report says that this year's number stands at 14,338. Again, the AP is saying only 4,191 for the year which is only about 29% of how many the UN is claiming for the 2006 total. Hmmm, notice a trend? The AP's count is between 26 and 29% of the UN's count for both the May/June number and the year's total! Just a slight difference right?

Okay, so we see an almost unbelievable difference in the civilian deaths put out by the UN versus what the AP has counted, but what could be the cause?

It was unclear whether the tally from the Medico-Legal Institute included only those who were killed as a result of violence.

Interesting, so the group that gathered these numbers for the report may have included other deaths, unrelated to the violence!? I (sarcastically) wonder if counting deaths from disease, age, car accidents, etc. might account for such a huge difference in the tallies.

As much as I'd like to say it did, it doesn't end there! The Reuters story I mentioned earlier that can be found at The Sydney Morning Herald and Yahoo! News Asia, contains some interesting bits about how the total tally was gathered. Correct me if I'm wrong, but some numbers seem like they overlap, and may be being counted twice. Either way, the conclusion of the article leaves one seriously questioning this UN "report".

First, what the Reuters piece says about the numbers gathered to make that 5818 (I know, doesn't sound as "cool" when it's not 6,000, right?):

Baghdad morgue officials have said they took in 1,595 bodies in June, 1,375 in May and 1,155 in April. Of those, about 80 per cent were victims of violent deaths, they said.

The UN report included all the morgue entries for May and June in its total of violent deaths along with 1,294 deaths recorded in May by the Health Ministry and 1,554 in June.

Add those 4 figures up and you get that 5818 number. (Note: the one figure not in bold and not included refers to April). First of all, in that first paragraph (the morgue stats) we learn that of the 2,970 they counted, only 80% or 2,376 were the result of violence, according to Baghdad morgue officials. Leaving 594 that either died naturally or by some other cause. Wait a minute, 594 is larger than 10% of the original 5818 number (again, not 6,000 anyway). So more than 10% of what the AP reported were not "killed", but died in a "normal" way. Set aside poor reporting, why would the UN even include these numbers in the report?

On two that second quoted Reuters paragraph... It states that the May/June number from the Health Ministry is 2848. I could be wrong, but I would say that those figures probably include some of those at the morgue, no? Doesn't it seem like we're talking about overlapping numbers, being counted twice? I encourage you to reread this, as it may be hard to follow, as well as read the two full articles, and see what you make of it. Pay particular attention to the first line of that second paragraph I just referred to:

(again)

The UN report included all the morgue entries for May and June in its total of violent deaths...

Why would all morgue death's be included in the UN's count of violent deaths? I hope someone bigger takes and runs with this so we can get some answers.

Beyond just my suspicions of overlapping numbers and obvious tinkering proved above, the Interior Ministry in Iraq issued a report based on figures provided by the Health Ministry that gives WAY LOWER numbers:

Health Ministry figures incorporated in a monthly report issued by the Interior Ministry, however, show a lower level of civilian deaths. According to that report, 935 civilians were killed in violence in May and 889 in June.

WHOA! So Iraq's Interior Ministry/Health Ministry number is only 1824!? That's a far cry from 5818, dontcha think? In fact, the Iraq ministries' numbers are only 31% of the UN's. This is especially interesting, considering that the AP's count was 26% of the UN's. The AP's number was just only 313 less than the Iraq count, a much more reasonable and understandable difference.

So the obvious question is - Who do you trust here? Do you trust the UN's conclusions (we've proven were skewed by at least AT LEAST 595 and probably much more), or do you trust two other counts that are relatively close to each other, and greatly contradict the count of the United Nations.

***UPDATE***
Not surprisingly, the New York Times has joined the party to perpetuate the lies and not do the research and at least discover what little old RightWinged.com did. I'm too annoyed to pick apart the Time's piece, because it's just like the others, only worse. But I will briefly pick on a couple. They found a new way to make the lying numbers sound... cooler? You know, to give the liberals just another line to spout off all over the internet. The opening paragraph reads:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 18 — An average of more than 100 civilians per day were killed in Iraq last month, the highest monthly tally of violent deaths since the fall of Baghdad, the United Nations reported today.

Ignoring their own headline, and the fact that they don't mention that these weren't at the hands of the United States military, they should have been able to do the simple math to determine that their opening paragraph IS A LIE! We know that 1,595 was the June number provided to the UN by the Baghdad morgue officials, who said that 80% (1,276) died as a result of violence. Even with the strange choice to add that to the Health Ministry's June figure (1,554) you only get a total of 2,830. If you were to somehow still convince me that this highball number was close to accurate, you still only get 94.33 deaths per day.

Again, I don't think that 94 per day figure is accurate either, but it's approximately 6 (or 6%) less than the NY Times lied and said it was, when they claimed the number was over 100 per day.

The Slimes goes on to report other wildly high death count claims from other sources, and waits until almost the very end of the article, on the second page to throw out this bone before burying it in their backyard:

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site that uses news reports to do its tallies, reported that at least 840 Iraqi civilians died in June, compared with an all-time high of 1,100 the previous month.

Big surprise, right? The NY Times lying again and burying numbers that don't suit their agenda. Sometimes I don't know why I bother, it's not like that DNC manual cares what anyone right of Castro thinks anyway.

***UPDATE***
I just checked on the CIA World Fact Book, and I was surprised to see that Iraq's death rate (5.37 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)) is actually substantially lower than our own in the United States (8.26 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)) I am curious why they have a lower death rate than us, but that's for another day.

What these numbers tell us is that, given Iraq's population of 26,783,383, an average of 394 die a day. Why didn't the media just go all out and run headlines that read: "394 Iraqis Killed Daily"? Hell, by the standards of the UN, Yahoo, Reuters, The NY Times, and the rest of the media I guess we should prepare to splash tomorrow's papers with the headline: "6,754 Civilians Killed In the United States Daily". It would be just as accurate as all of what we've just seen regarding the Iraq civilians.

Anyway, I better get out of the way before I get trampled, as the rest of the media races to get this "story" out there.