Brekend Nieuws | Forum | Brits Nieuws | Het Nieuws van de V.S. | Het Nieuws van de wereld | Politiek Nieuws | Nieuws sc.i-technologie | Oorlog & Het Nieuws van het terrorisme | Het Nieuws van sporten | Multimedia | Vastgestelde Homepage

Dinsdag, 24 Juni, 2008

Door Juan Cole | De Amerikaanse televisie houdt van natuurrampen. De Birmaanse cyclonen die wel kunnen weg gedragen hebben 200.000 mensen boden de camera's hoog drama aan.

De vloed in Wisconsin, Iowa en Missouri langs de Rivier van de Mississippi, die duizenden huizen heeft tenietgedaan, is zorgvuldig gedetailleerd uur tegen uur.

Maar Amerikaanse televisie is weinig geinteresseerd in de massieve ramp blithely bezocht op Irak door Washington. Oh, is er het occasionele menselijke renteverhaal. Angelina Jolie’ s bezoek vonkte een krantekop of twee. Kort.

Onderhand, de zomer van 2008, bovenmatige sterfgevallen van geweld in Irak sinds Maart 2003 moet minstens miljoen zijn. Deze conclusie kan worden genomen meer dan unidirectioneel. Er is niet veel controverse over het in de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap. Zowat 310.000 van die werden waarschijnlijk gedood door de troepen van de V.S. of door de Luchtmacht van de V.S., Met de massa stervend in bomaanvallen door de vechtersstralen van de V.S. en helikoptergunships op dicht bevolkte stad en stadskwarten.

In absolute aantallen, die als het bombarderen van aan dood iedereen in Pittsburgh, Pa zouden zijn. Of Cincinnati, Oh.

Slechts, zijn de V.S. 11 keer meer dichtbevolkt dan Irak, zodat zouden 310.000 Iraakse corpses 3.4 miljoen dode Amerikanen evenaren. Zo proportioneel zou het als het firebombing van aan dood iedereen in Chicago zijn.

Het één miljoen aantal omvat niet alleen op oorlogbetrekking hebbende sterfgevallen maar alle moord voorbij wat u van de basislijn van 2000-2002 zou verwacht hebben. Namelijk als kregen de stammenruzies uit hand en doodden heel wat mensen omdat de politie Baath werd gedemobiliseerd of ontwapend en kwamen zo niet meer tussenbeide, gaan die sterfgevallen in de mengeling. Al Sunnis doodde in het noorden van Provincie Hilla (‘ driehoek van death’) toen de clans Shiite die van het gebied door Saddam worden verplaatst kwamen de veiligheidskopie om hun landbouwbedrijven terug te winnen worden omvat. Ontvoer gedode slachtoffers toen het losgeld niet aankwam op tijd worden omvat. En, natuurlijk, zou het sectarische, etnische en militiegeweld, zelfs als Iraaks op Irakees, tellen. En het hasn’ t enkel hete vlekken zoals Bagdad, Basra, Mosoel en Kirkuk. Het tarief van bovenmatige hevige dood is mooie norm over Arabisch Irak geweest.

Zoals voor de Irakezen gedood door Amerikanen, als de 24 burgers 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.’

See More:Iraq World News 

Have Your Say: The Real State of Iraq
Please note, only selected comments will be published.

Or discuss this report in our new forums

RSS TrackBack URL

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Contributions & Guests . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Loading ...

ADVERTISEMENTS

SITE MAPS

7/7 Afghanistan Alternative Energy Art BBC Big Brother Bilderberg Biometrics Bush CIA Climate Change Cover Up Cults Culture Database State David Hicks David Ray Griffin Democrats Demos Drugs Education EU False Flag FBI Fraud Free Speech Freemasons G8 Globalization Guantanamo Health News History ID Cards Internet Iran Iraq Israel Law Marches MI5 MI6 Microsoft Military MoD Money Music NASA Neocons NSA Oil Pakistan Podcast Police State Propaganda RFID RINF Rumsfeld Science Secrecy Security Slavery Space Sports Spying Stephen Lendman Technology Terrorism Tony Blair Torture TV UK News UN USA News Video Voting Warfare White House Wolfowitz World News Yahoo
2003 - 2005 Archives | 2005 - 2007 Archives | 2007 - 2008 Archives | Current Archives | Past Version