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Submitted by DrewHendricks on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 10:04am.
The Lancet has published a study, entitled:
» Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. The study was authored by four people from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore Maryland, and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. It found that in the pre-invasion period (during which an embargo had held sway for more than a decade) the mortality rates were 5.5 per 1000 people per year. The mortality rate post-March 2003 was found to be 13.3 people per 1000. "We estimate that as of July 2006, there have been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2.5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire." The ranges of the estimates varied from at least 392,979 excess deaths to as many as 942,636 excess deaths, overall. That means the estimates are just estimates - the study used cluster sampling, surveying 1,849 households contaiing 12,801 people in 47 clusters. Other estimates based on media reports of specific casualties have resulted in a high figure (Iraq Body Count) less than 7.5% of this study's median estimate. It is my personal opinion that this lower figure is due to the Iraqi media's inability to cover the conflict, due to the collapse of security engendered by the invasion and the resistance to the invasion.
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Genocide
Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 10:59am.Let's bring Bush to justice.
Not really...
Submitted by DrewHendricks on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 5:41pm.The death rate is high, but genocide is the intentional murder or attempted murder of an entire population or ethnic group. This is not what has happened in Iraq. It is, however, what happened here in North America from 1492 until the present with most of the Native American tribes. That is genocide. We're not that far along in Iraq - yet.
Is it a war crime? The simple number is not a war crime. The manner of death for many of these people might be. There certainly are incidents we can point to as individual war crimes. The invasion itself, being illegal, would constitute criminal conduct for the entirety of its prosecution, but the war crime of genocide specifically cannot be sustained (in Iraq) with any evidence I have seen yet.
We also have to keep in mind that Iraqis die for being in cahoots with the US, and also in inter-tribal conflict which is facilitated by the chaos of warfare. There are also direct deaths such as the targeted killings of specific leaders, which can be laid at the feet of the actual US military. But there are many more, probably tens of times more, indirect deaths from lack of sanitation and lack of law enforcement which results in murders outside the warfare one would expect in any invasion.
War is a flame that consumes - all that can be predicted is that it will consume. It is difficult to tell it what to eat - it has no loyalty.
What the US and Britain hope to do is get the Shi'a to fight the Sunni and get the same conflagration going in S.E. Iran, so the oil fields will come under our control without making a whole invasion there. The "civil" war in Iraq cannot be understood in any other context than the international oil context.
There is something to be said for the destabilization theory of control - that modern empire does not seek control, it seeks destabilization and conflict which results in justification of measures otherwise unthinkable. Genocide might be part of the plan further down the road - control of the surface water in the Tigris / Euphrates is one of those sources of genocidal control. Take a peek at the map of US bases in Iraq sometime...
"The greatest hoax played on the masses is that their individual voice is nothing amidst the cacophany of world events." - enpen, an Olyblogger (2006)
I have not been sure if the
Submitted by Mike on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 6:53pm.It's hard to know if he is an imbecile or if we misunderestimating him. Either way, the parade of failures is starting to overcome the spin machine. They have just built up too much in the way of confident statements that just never work out for the American people to buy it anymore.
Clearly we need to remove the foreign policy and war planning from the hands of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush. Bush has run every business he ever operated into the ground, so I am not at all surprised at his performance as Prez. It's tough being president he says. Time to head to Crawford, clear some brush, ride that bike. Stay away from the pretzels and libations.
I'm going to take a stab in
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 11:27am.I'm going to take a stab in the dark and bet that many these deaths are only indirectly related to US action (e.g. invading the country) and that the direct result of a large percentage of deaths in Iraq stem from sources other than US forces.
I don't think that exactly meets the "genocide" criteria.
The Deaths are Related to US Invasion/Occupation
Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 11:44am.These deaths occurred because the USA waged an immoral, illegitimate, unjustifiable, illegal, (etc.) aggressive war on Iraq.
Right
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 12:54pm.But genocide?
Also, you can't say "unjustifiable," because there are justified reasons. Simply because they're imperialistic in nature does not mean there is a lack of justification, it's simply a justification which many do not agree with.
You're right
Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 2:09pm.There were no national security justifications for the war. The ones which Mr. Bush, et al. proferred have been shown to be fraudulent.
We literally do not know a
Submitted by Jade on Mon, 10/23/2006 - 12:20am.Killing 300,000 of your own
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Mon, 10/23/2006 - 6:05am.Killing 300,000 of your own people during peacetime is significantly different than 400,000 dying during armed conflict.
what Iraq are you lookin' at?
Submitted by enpen on Mon, 10/23/2006 - 7:14am.Which is to say, that the comparison between U.S. and Saddam Iraq are more similar than different. Of course, the quality of life, average life expectancy and childhood mortality rates were all considerably better under the rule of the ruthless dictator Rumsfeld compared to Hitler. Imagine, we even said he was horrible because he had the audacity to torture people in prisons like Abu Ghraib! God damn we're good people to bring such glorious liberation to the Iraqi people. All hail America!
"If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!"
Killing 300,000 of your own
Submitted by Phil Owen on Mon, 10/23/2006 - 11:55am.We are in the process of discovering how easily Iraq could fall into civil war. Tell me, what if Iraq needed a dictator to prevent a civil war? Maybe Saddam was necessary? It would be a horrible and cruel irony if, at the end of Saddam's trial, one million or more Iraqi's had died from the invasion/occupation/civil war, and Saddam got to walk the hall to the hangman's noose sneering at us all and saying, "I told you so."
300,000 people dying over a 25 year period is indeed different than 400,000 dying in a three year period.
what if Iraq needed a
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Mon, 10/23/2006 - 1:28pm.what if Iraq needed a dictator to prevent a civil war?
They do.
Maybe Saddam was necessary?
He was.
300,000 people dying over a 25 year period is indeed different than 400,000 dying in a three year period.
When 300,000 people are dead because of formal government policy versus 400,000 due armed conflict, I think there's an enormous difference. You have to examine each (War and Peace) separate from each other when you're discussing the amount of casualties. The amount of casualties from armed conflict can only be put into its proper perspective by examining the death toll from other armed conflicts, not while a nation is at stability (Peace).
History
Submitted by DrewHendricks on Tue, 10/24/2006 - 12:39am.But tell that to the residents of South Dakota, and they would have laughed at you. Tell that to the widow and survivors of the three men killed on the Pine Ridge reservation on June 26, 1975 and the people who went before Federal Courts for that incident (including Leonard Peltier, still in prison for all this time) and they would laugh at you, too.
Short answer is there is no such thing as "peace time" for the folks who resist any dictatorship. There was none for Saddam's opponents, and there was none for the folks who resisted the Whites' oppression on the Rez.
For how many decades were these human beings subjected to theft of their children, re-education camps and religious indoctrination of their children, and rape of their persons and their land? And all of this from the 1800's through the present. It has yet to stop.
There is no such thing as "peace time" when you live in our culture.
There are, instead, periods of relative resistance we call "wars" (or now, "terrorism"). And other periods we call "peace," where there is no organized resistance and the killing still goes on.
Saddam Hussein's nation-state fought one of the longest and bloodiest ground wars in modern human history, for eight years, against Iran. The United States, during this time, supplied him with intelligence and support - not in general terms, but specifically by sending Donald Rumsfeld to meet with him and shake his hand over a weapons and intelligence deal. It was in this context that he supressed his domestic population - and also before, and after that "hot" war. There was no peace for those who were out of power.
"The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435 000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400 000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85 000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75 000), toxic agents (55 000), motor vehicle crashes (43 000), incidents involving firearms (29 000), sexual behaviors (20 000), and illicit use of drugs (17 000)." LINK .
Are we at peace now? Are we being killed, maimed, poisoned, coercively educated, and raped under government policies aimed at ensuring the safety of the continuity of government? I'd point at the above figures and ask which of these activities are actively supported by governmental structures and policies, in our own "peace time."
Tobacco? Subsidized.
Motor vehicles? Subsidized.
Allopathic medicine and nutrition, leading to many preventable deaths? Mandatory for many.
Let's deal with the mote in our own eye before we seek Saddam's faults. Let the Iraqis try him.
"The greatest hoax played on the masses is that their individual voice is nothing amidst the cacophany of world events." - enpen, an Olyblogger (2006)
Not to defend a dictator or anything...
Submitted by Phil Owen on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 11:52am.American Collusion with Hussein Crimes
Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 2:12pm.whatever
Submitted by enpen on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 5:26pm."If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!"
a guessing game
Submitted by enpen on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 5:22pm."If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!"
here's a Q&A with Johns
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 1:45pm.here's a Q&A with Johns Hopkins University professor Gilbert Burnham, author of the study published in The Lancet:
This does not count the
Submitted by Mike on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 3:29pm.They hate us for our freedoms, do I have that right? We will greeted as liberators. We know where the weapons of mass destruction are, they are north, south, east, and west of Baghdad.
It's a unjustifiable war of aggression.
Two words: war crimes.
sanctions work
Submitted by enpen on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 5:32pm."If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!"