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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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June 24th,
2008 - The Real State of Iraq |
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By Juan Cole RINF.com June 24, 2008 American television loves
natural disasters. The Burmese cyclones that may have carried off as many as
200,000 people offered the cameras high drama. The floods in Wisconsin,
Iowa and Missouri along the Mississippi River, which have wiped out thousands
of homes, have been carefully detailed hour by hour. But American television is
little interested in the massive disaster blithely visited upon Iraq by
Washington. Oh, there is the occasional human interest story. Angelina
Jolie’s visit sparked a headline or two. Briefly. By now, summer of 2008,
excess deaths from violence in Iraq since March of 2003 must be at least a
million. This conclusion can be reached more than one way. There is not much
controversy about it in the scientific community. Some 310,000 of those were
probably killed by US troops or by the US Air Force, with the bulk dying in
bombing raids by US fighter jets and helicopter gunships on densely populated
city and town quarters. In absolute numbers, that
would be like bombing to death everyone in Pittsburgh, Pa. Or Cincinnati, Oh. Only, the US is 11 times
more populous than Iraq, so 310,000 Iraqi corpses would equal 3.4 million
dead Americans. So proportionally it would be like firebombing to death
everyone in Chicago. The one million number
includes not just war-related deaths but all killings beyond what you would
have expected from the 2000-2002 baseline. That is, if tribal feuds got out
of hand and killed a lot of people because the Baath police were demobilized
or disarmed and so no longer intervened, those deaths go into the mix. All
the Sunnis killed in the north of Hilla Province (the ‘triangle of death’)
when Shiite clans displaced from the area by Saddam came back up to reclaim
their farms would be included. The kidnap victims killed when the ransom did
not arrive in time would be included. And, of course, the sectarian, ethnic
and militia violence, even if Iraqi on Iraqi, would count. And it hasn’t been
just hot spots like Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk. The rate of excess
violent death has been pretty standard across Arab Iraq. As for the Iraqis killed by
Americans, like the 24 civilians in Haditha, the survivors are not going to
be pro-American any time soon. The US can always find politicians to come out
and say nice things on a visit to the Rose Garden. But the people. I don’t
think the people are saying nice things in Arabic behind our backs. The wars of Iraq– the
Iran-Iraq War, the repressions of the Kurds and the Shiites, the Gulf War,
and the American Calamity, may have left behind as many as 3 million widows.
Having lost their family’s breadwinner, many are destitute. Although it is very good
news that the number of Iraqis killed in political violence fell in May to
532 according to official sources, the number was twice that in March and
April. And,it should be remembered that independent observers have busted the
Pentagon for grossly under-reporting attacks and casualties. If someone shows
up dead and they aren’t sure exactly why, it isn’t counted as political
violence, just as an ordinary murder. Attacks per day are measured by whether
the mortar shell scratches any US equipment when it explodes. If not, it
didn’t happen. McClatchy estimated a year and a half ago that attacks were
being underestimated by a factor of 10. By the way, isn’t is a
little odd that the death rate fell in the month of the Great Mosul Campaign?
I conclude that either it can’t have been much of a campaign or someone is
cooking the death statistics. But over 500 a month dead in
political violence is appalling enough. The Srebenica massacre in 1995 killed
8,000. At the average rate of death in Iraq this winter and spring, a similar
massacre will have been racked up in 2008. In the Northern Ireland troubles
over 30 years, about 3,000 people died, and it was widely considered a bad
situation. That death toll is still being achieved every 6 months in Iraq
according to the official May statistics. And, of course, by the rule
of 11,that death toll would be like nearly 6,000 Americans dying in political
violence every month, or 72,000 a year. (Note that this 72,000 figure would
only be political deaths, since it does not include criminal homicides). The
annual total murder rate in the US is about 16,000, including political
violence, what little there is. The US is one of the most violent societies
on earth, and Iraq in May makes it look like a pacifist convention. In these situations,
typically 3 persons are wounded for every one killed. In Iraq, I suspect it
is higher, because US bombings and guerrilla bombings are such a big part of
the violence. But let us be conservative. That would mean 3 million
Iraqi wounded in the past five years. Equivalent to 33 million
Americans wounded, that is, the entire state of California crippled or in
bandages. As for the displaced (i.e.
homeless), they amount to a startling 5 million persons. There were 1.8
million internally displaced in January of 2007, and by December it had risen
to 2.4 million. There are 2.3 million externally displaced, 2 million of them
in Jordan and Syria. In fact 5 million displaced
persons is almost the entire population of nearby countries such as Jordan or
Israel! 5 million is about the number of Jews in Israel, for instance. In
absolute numbers, that is how many Iraqis are living in some other country or
some other province, having lost their homes. Some 1.4 million Iraqis are
stuck in Syria, many becoming increasingly penniless. Another 500,000 to
800,000 have been displaced to Jordan, which has now closed its borders to
them. Please read this excellent piece of reporting, which points out that
the US has done diddly squat for these millions of people upon whom it has
visited a world class catastrophe, neither allotting meaningful amounts of
aid nor admitting more than a token number as immigrants. Sweden has admitted
40,000 Iraqis, nearly 4 times what the US even plans to. Please write the
Senate and the Congress and demand that something be done for these, our
victims. 40% of Iraq’s middle class
is outside the country. Very few of the refugees
abroad have returned, only a few thousand. Only 12% of the returnees say they
are going back because they think it is safe now, according to UN border
polls. The refusal of the refugees
to return makes me suspicious of the good news stories about security
improvements in Iraq. There is an Arabic proverb that “The people of a house
know best what is in the house.” 2 Shiite brothers who
returned home to Baquba an hour northeast of Baghdad were just kidnapped and
killed by Sunnis. 5 million displaced Iraqis
would be like 55 million displaced Americans, or the equivalent of everybody
in California and New York combined American commentators
peculiarly lack a social dimension to their analyses. So if PM Nuri al-Maliki
sends some troops up to Mosul and the guerrillas there lie low for a while,
that is “progress” and “good news.” Well, maybe it is, I don’t know. I do know that the
apocalypse that the United States has unleashed upon Iraq is among the
greatest catastrophes to befall any country in the past 50 years. It is a
much worse disaster over time than the Burmese cyclone or the Mississippi
floods. You won’t see it on
television very much these days. Even if it gets better, it
won’t get better very fast for all those millions wounded, widowed, orphaned,
and displaced; as for the 1 million dead, as they say in Arabic, God have
mercy on them (Allah yarhamhum). Maybe it will get better sooner for the
politicians in the Green Zone. They are the sort of people that the think
tanks in Washington seem to care about. McClatchy reports political
violence in Iraq on Saturday: ‘Baghdad - Around 1 p.m. a bomb
planted in the car of the office manager of the Iraqi minister of Higher
Education and Scientific Research exploded in Al Tobchi neighborhood injuring
three including the minister’s office manager. - Around 4 p.m. a bomb
planted in a civilian car exploded in Al Nidhal Street injuring two Iraqi
employees of a local LG Company branch. - Around 5 p.m. a bomb
planted in a police vehicle exploded in Al Andalus square injuring two
policemen. - Police found two dead
bodies throughout Baghdad; one in Al Baladiyat, one in Mansour. Diyala - Police found the bodies of
two brothers, Ali and Mohamed Zaid, in Al Tahrir neighborhood in Baquba ... Kirkuk - Around 8 a.m. a car exploded
in central Kirkuk injuring the two passengers in the car. Police said they
suspect the two passengers were planning a car bomb attack. The two suspects
are under investigation, police said.’ External link: http://rinf.com/alt-news/contributions/the-real-state-of-iraq/3952/ |