25.10.08

U.S. Perpetuates Mass Killings In Iraq

U.S. Perpetuates Mass Killings In Iraq
Saturday, July 19, 2008 4:49 AM

By Peter Phillips


The United States is directly responsible for over one million Iraqi deaths since the invasion five and half years ago. In a January 2008 report, a British polling group Opinion Research Business (ORB) reports that, “survey work confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003…. We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000”.


The ORB report comes on the heels of two earlier studies conducted by Johns Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal that confirmed the continuing numbers of mass deaths in Iraq. A study done by Dr. Les Roberts from January 1, 2002 to March 18 2003 put the civilian deaths at that time at over 100,000. A second study published in the Lancet in October 2006 documented over 650,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the start of the US invasion. The 2006 study confirms that US aerial bombing in civilian neighborhoods caused over a third of these deaths and that over half the deaths are directly attributable to US forces.





The now estimated 1.2 million dead, as of July 2008, includes children, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, cab drivers, clerics, schoolteachers, factory workers, policemen, poets, healthcare workers, day care providers, construction workers, babysitters, musicians, bakers, restaurant workers and many more. All manner of ordinary people in Iraq have died because the United States decided to invade their country. These are deaths in excess of the normal civilian death rate under the prior government.





The magnitude of these deaths is undeniable. The continuing occupation by US forces guarantees a mass death rate in excess of 10,000 people per month with half that number dying at the hands of US forces— a carnage so severe and so concentrated at to equate it with the most heinous mass killings in world history. This act has not gone unnoticed.





Recently, Dennis Kucinich introduced a single impeachment article against George W. Bush for lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. On July 15 The House forwarded the resolution to the Judiciary Committee with a 238 to 180 vote. That Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s threat to the US is now beyond doubt. Former US federal prosecutor Elizabeth De La Vega documents the lies most thoroughly in her book U.S. Vs Bush, and numerous other researchers have verified Bush’s untrue statements.





The American people are faced with a serious moral dilemma. Murder and war crimes have been conducted in our name. We have allowed the war/occupation to continue in Iraq and offered ourselves little choice within the top two presidential candidates for immediate cessation of the mass killings. McCain would undoubtedly accept the deaths of another million Iraqi civilians in order to save face for America, and Obama’s 18-month timetable for withdrawal would likely result in another 250,000 civilian deaths or more.





We owe our children and ourselves a future without the shame of mass murder on our collective conscience. The only resolution of this dilemma is the immediate withdrawal of all US troops in Iraq and the prosecution and imprisonment of those responsible. Anything less creates a permanent original sin on the soul of the nation for that we will forever suffer.





Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored a media research group. He is the co-editor with Dennnis Loo of the book Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

HOW TO SAY?

Lord, how to say that which I feel?
My words seem all inadequate:
Corporate grief no one may heal
But single lies eradicate.

Untruth appears so deeply rooted
Within the souls of those who harm
It cannot be at all refuted
Save lie by lie the false disarm.

The task too great for any man
Then by my truth I stand or fall:
This war, and facets of one plan
Dishonest, I dishonest call.

It is immoral, from the start,
Based on deception, spurred by greed
So rooted in the human heart
Fools care not whither they proceed.

It was a sin against the peace,
Defilement of my Lord the Christ,
But as the Almighty always sees
He knows the way are lies devised.

I can do little, Lord, but strive
In my imperfect words, to say
That wars excuse no man alive
Committing murder by the way.

It is indecent, what was done,
And utterly I disapprove:
Crimes against peace are not much fun,
Collective guilt nor none remove.

Lord, how to say that which I feel?
It is the grief of simple man.
I live, and watch my brethren steal
Enforced on travesty no ban.

.

Kathryn said...

Thank you for taking the time to share that with myself and any other readers. That being said, I am posting it on Facebook as well.

A couple of my blogs have a direct feed to FB, I am not sure this one does.

Thank you again- very well said.