Last night I had the opportunity to do some research on how many Iraqi civilians died as a consequence of the bush I / Clinton sanctions on Iraq. Most of my focus was on the number of children this country's policies killed in Iraq. Children. I think they're included in what is politely called "collateral damage." Well, it turns out it's pretty difficult to pin down an exact number. The best data seemed to indicate the sanctions killed between 250,000 and maybe as many as 350,000 children. How many innocent adults died will be left for others to research.
This morning, I recalled an incident that occurred back in 2002 where Israelis bombed an apartment house to kill a well known leader of Hamas. I remembered that bush condemned this incident and I went looking for some documentation about it. It turns out that about 14 innocent civilians were killed including a few children. When asked about the fact that US bombings in Afghanistan (we hadn't invaded Iraq yet) also killed innocent civilians, the administration responded:
"It is inaccurate to compare the two, because the United States, because of an errant bomb, a mistake in a mission, has occasionally engaged in military action that very regrettably included losses of innocent lives," Mr. Fleischer said.
Of course, while it may be true that we may have dropped "errant bombs" on civilians (oops, sorry about that) and that this is different than intentionally bombing civilians, the same cannot be said for the sanctions. The sanctions killed more than a quarter of a million children in Iraq and perhaps that amount again, or more, innocent Iraqi adults. While this is not an "either-or" situation, bush's hypocrisy nevertheless boggles the mind.
As a total aside, the final paragraph of
the article stated the following:
In his most important statement on the Middle East, Mr. Bush reversed policy on June 24 and declared that the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, had to be replaced before there could be real progress toward peace in the region — a goal the White House has repeatedly said it embraces and will work to achieve.
The date referenced in that excerpt, June 24, was June 24, 2002. So, no "real progress" until Arafat was gone. Well, Arafat died November 11, 2004, almost three years ago. The White House not only has NOT made "real progress", it's NOT clear they've even tried. What a totally pathetic administration. Everything has been Iraq and "terror" and nothing has been about diplomacy and working for "real progress."
But I digress. Not included in the numbers of Iraqi deaths from the sanctions is the number of innocent Iraqis killed as a consequence of the US invasion of Iraq. And that number is rapidly approaching the ONE MILLION mark. The US, under both republicans and Democrats, has taken a country of relative wealth and prosperity, a country that provided many opportunities for women, and a country that was run by a secular although undemocratic government, and we've turned it into a killing field and a cauldron of hell.
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/11/2454/Just Foreign Policy has attempted to update the Lancet estimate in the best way we know. We have extrapolated from the Lancet estimate, using the trend provided by the tally of Iraqi deaths reported in Western media compiled by Iraq Body Count.
Our current estimate is that 974,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. The web counter and fuller explanation are
here.ONE MILLION innocent civilians deaths on top of those killed by the sanctions we imposed. Is it any wonder they hate us? Is it any wonder the whole world hates us? We used to send our young people all over the world in the Peace Corps. Now we send our military and the Blackwater contract killers. Should we blame the entire mess on bush or is there something larger that needs to be addressed???
We're all guilty until we make it stop.
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