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U.S. Military Has Killed 127-238,000 Iraqi Civilians -- as many as half of them Kids

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Dave Lindorff, co-author of "The Case for Impeachment"
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 10/12/2006 - 6:37am.

A just released study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, published in the current issue of the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet [at/via http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13948021 ], reports that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has led to the deaths of between 426,000 and 794,000 Iraqis. This is a substantial increase over the 100,000 dead that the same research group found through 2004, based upon a smaller survey, and it represents an astonishing 2.5 percent of the country's total population.

The grim news was widely -- though not universally -- reported in the U.S. media (my local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, blacked it out), but few news organizations reported the most disturbing finding of the study, which was that 31 percent of those killed were acatually slain by U.S. and "coalition" forces (actually by U.S. forces, since most of the other foreign forces working with the U.S., with the exception of the British, have not played combat roles, and even the British have largely operated in the south where fighting has been much less severe) [see http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13944379 ].

That means U.S. forces have, since the March 19, 2003 invasion, killed between 132,000 and 246,000 Iraqis. It should be recalled that the Pentagon has estimated that the insurgency numbers perhaps 20-40,000 individuals, and they have only succeeded in killing a fraction of them. Assuming generously that the military has succeeded in killing maybe a quarter of the enemy fighters, that would be 10,000 people at most, leaving the U.S. civilian death toll at 122,000-236,000. The Christian Science Monitor, no radical rag, once did a survey and found that U.S. forces were killing civilians in Iraq at a rate of 30 for every enemy fighter slain. At that rate, it would appear, if the peer-reviewed Lancet study is correct, that the U.S. invasion and occupation forces have killed between 127,000 and 238,000 civilians. At least a third and perhaps a half of those killed, various studies of Iraqi casualties have made clear, have been children.

This is the grand war of liberation and democracy that our bloodstained president hails as his legacy!

This is the war that we are told is making America safer.

Just to put things in a little perspective, the Iraqis killed at the hands of our "heroes" in uniform on orders of this great commander in chief represent about one percent of the Iraqi population of 24 million. If a comparable number of Americans were being killed in a war, it would be as if we had lost between 1 million [sic - 1.525 million (300M/24M x 122,000)] and 1.9 million [sic - 2.95 million (300M/24M x 236,000)] people! Imagine Americans referring to any army that did such a thing as a "liberator"! Anyone who thinks that we are making friends this way in Iraq has to be an idiot.

It boggles my mind how the U.S. share of this slaughter could have been kept out of the report offered in the New York Times [at http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13939671 ] or USA Today. (The Times did run some small pie charts that showed in a dark shade the share of deaths caused by U.S. forces, but because no numbers or percentages were provided, and because no such figures appeared in the accompanying story, the impact was greatly diminished [again, see http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13944379 ].) Even NPR, in its 10/11 story on the Lancet figures, tiptoed around the issue of how many of the dead died at the hands of American forces, and the 31 percent figure in the study never made it onto the air, not did any totals. Somehow the idea that a lot of people have died in the wake of the U.S. invasion is okay, but not the idea that people were actually shot dead, bombed, burned or run over by our guys.

What made the Times article, which ran on an inside page, particularly offensive, was a page-one story that ran on the same day, headlined "3rd Iraq Death Has One town Shaken to Core." This piece looked in detail about how the deaths in Iraq of three servicemen from the New York hamlet of Highland, had caused such widespread grief and anguish in a small American town. How on earth could editors give that story -- excellent and poignant as it was in its own right -- such prominence while burying a report about the wholesale slaughter of a people by U.S. forces? Don't the editors realize that every one of those Iraqi deaths was producing the same kind of grief and anger in towns and villages across Iraq?

Americans still haven't grasped the horror that American troops are inflicting upon the Iraqi people, and hiding these numbers -- and the American military's direct responsibility for nearly a third of them -- is an example of why.

The Bush administration has carefully seen to it that Americans will not see the evidence of American deaths and injuries. Coffins are flown in to Dover Airbase, a closed military compound in Delaware, at night. The administration has also blacked out Iraqi deaths by refusing to provide body counts from U.S. military actions, and by preventing reporters from operating in Iraq unescorted.

The Lancet study has burst that veil of secrecy, at least partially, though the U.S. media continues to cooperate for the most part, it appears, in keeping the ugliest truth -- the U.S. civilian casualty rate in Iraq -- out of their reports. If you want that kind of information, you have to go to the Lancet report itself [again, at/via http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13948021 ] or to the British newspapers, like The Guardian, which have it stated clearly.

Dave Lindorff is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office [ http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/264 ]" (St. Martin's Press, June 2006). His work is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

Copyright © 2006 Dave Lindorff

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Comments

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United Nazi States!
Submitted by gmathol on Fri, 10/13/2006 - 12:12am.

The normal American ignores the facts that so many civilians - respectively children have been killed by their Nazi troops in Iraq. Moreover in talkshows were this is mentioned the commentators make joke like announcements, so everybody feels good.

America has to be attacked on its own ground and at least 10 million Americans must die in the same way as through their wonderful Nazi soldiers.

They will never learn! Read a history book which is used in high schools of America - shocking!

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What people don't know however . . .
Submitted by the weazl on Fri, 10/13/2006 - 8:31am.

Is the use of experimental weapons such as lasers and microwaves on Iraqi civilians. An Italian documentary made by the same group who exposed the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah sheds light (no pun intended) on the use of these weapons in Iraq. The video may be viewed here:

http://weazlsrevenge.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-have-650k-iraqis-died-because-our.html [F6 note -- my next post, a reply to this post]

It will be one of the most saddening and shameful videos that you'll ever see.

da weaz

http://www.weazlsrevenge.blogspot.com

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Copyright © 2006 BuzzFlash (emphasis added)

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/470

[F6 note -- see also in particular (items linked in) http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13939671 AND preceding and following]