Iraq Death Toll Rivals Rwanda Genocide, Cambodian Killing Fields

[babylonsister]

Iraq Death Toll Rivals Rwanda Genocide, Cambodian Killing Fields

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted September 17, 2007.

A new study estimates that 1.2 million Iraqis have met violent deaths since Bush and Cheney chose to invade.

According to a new study, 1.2 million Iraqis have met violent deaths since the 2003 invasion, the highest estimate of war-related fatalities yet. The study was done by the British polling firm ORB, which conducted face-to-face interviews with a sample of over 1,700 Iraqi adults in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Two provinces -- al-Anbar and Karbala -- were too dangerous to canvas, and officials in a third, Irbil, didn't give the researchers a permit to do their work. The study's margin of error was plus-minus 2.4 percent.

Field workers asked residents how many members of their own household had been killed since the invasion. More than one in five respondents said that at least one person in their home had been murdered since March of 2003. One in three Iraqis also said that at least some neighbors "actually living on street" had fled the carnage, with around half of those having left the country.

In Baghdad, almost half of those interviewed reported at least one violent death in their household.

Before the study's release, the highest estimate of Iraqi deaths had been around 650,000 in the landmark Johns Hopkins' study published in the Lancet, a highly respected and peer-reviewed British medical journal. Unlike that study, which measured the difference in deaths from all causes during the first three years of the occupation with the mortality rate that existed prior to the invasion, the ORB poll looked only at deaths due to violence.

The poll's findings are in line with the rolling estimate maintained on the Just Foreign Policy website, based on the Johns Hopkins' data, that stands at just over 1 million Iraqis killed as of this writing.

These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the great crimes of the last century -- the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields" during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/62728/

[aquart]

1. Now can we call George the Butcher of Baghdad?

Isn't it time?

[babylonsister]

5. Please! Be my guest! nt

[superkia]

9. Dont forget he wasnt alone, that could be dangerous!

HERE IS THE MEDIA'S AND MANY OTHERS FAVORITE CANDIDATE IN 2002 BEFORE VOTING FOR THE WAR AND FUTURE FUNDING:

And perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation.

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people, even his own family members, to maintain his iron grip on power. He used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and on Iranians, killing over 20 thousand people. Unfortunately, during the 1980's, while he engaged in such horrific activity, he enjoyed the support of the American government, because he had oil and was seen as a counterweight to the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.



Notice that oil was even a factor back in the 80's and she knew it was.Sounded like it was Powell speaking about Saddam. She wasnt alone on this either, only one of the candidates, Dennis Kucinich, voted against it and said the war was for oil, like Greenspan is now coming out and saying!

We now have an honest candidate speaking for the people and we are ignoring him?

I HOPE AMERICANS WAKE UP TO WHATS GOING ON BEFORE THE PRIMARIES?

[Junkdrawer]

2. Let me state the obvious: Something is going on in Iraq and we're not being told....

And that "something" may be an old colonial genocidal tactic euphemistically called "Pacification".

Over a year ago, I posted this:

Pacification: I think BushCo may well have a very definite plan for Iraq.

NOTE: The following is just a guess based on many, many events that seem to suggest it as a possible BushCo strategy. It is extremely brutal and I hope I'm wrong.

Pretend that you have absolutely no morals whatsoever and that your goal is to capture and exploit the world’s largest underexploited oil reserves - Iraq. You don’t want to start the pumping while your Saudi business partners still can meet demand, so let’s say your time frame to start pumping is 5 to 10 years out. Your problems are:

1.) The population of the country is 65%+ Shia, many with links to Iran and many more decidedly Anti-American.
2.) Immediate installation of a Pro-American puppet regime would be opposed, not only by Iraqis, but also by most of the world, especially Iran, Russia and China.
3.) Oil fields and pipelines are easy sabotage targets for any well-manned insurgency.

So invading with a sufficient force to bring post-invasion stability brings a Shiite regime with a pro-Iranian tilt. Joy, just what you don’t want. So what do you do? Try this little three phase plan:

Phase I:
Invade with a force sufficient to overcome Saddam’s weakened defenses, but insufficient to create stability. Leave plenty of weapon caches lying about because you want an insurgency. Why? Because an insurgency provides cover for:
1.) The expulsion of the U.N.
2.) The expulsion of unfriendly media
3.) The building of permanent military bases
The insurgency also creates the core of a brutal, professional colonial army – something you’ll need for Phase III.

Phase II:
Instigate a civil war and then retreat to the bases you built in Phase I. You can, at this point, talk about an “orderly withdrawal” because you really just need a small core of provocateurs to keep the civil war raging. This is when the real killings occur – the pacification if you will. The idea is to reduce the population of anyone who will oppose your later occupation. The magnitude of the killings during this phase will be so severe that there will actually be cries for your return, both at home and within the international community. See Bosnia.

Phase III:
Remember those military bases and the brutal, professional colonial army you built during Phase I? Now is when you use them to bring about your actual goal: a puppet government propped up by a brutal military presence. You can refer anyone who complains at this point to the atrocities of Phase II and suggest that your forced stability is the lesser of two evils. Oh, by the way, you can pump the oil now.

Well, there you have it. As I said, I hope I’m wrong.

[tnlurker]

7. This sounds like exactly what they are doing

Unfortunately I think you nailed it.

[G_j]

3. a sad K&R

[southern_belle]

4. k & r

[IndyOp]

6. Bush’s “surge” has escalated ethnic cleansing.

Shiites have cleared the western half of Baghdad of thousands of Sunnis, who once dominated the area. Newsweek reports:

The surge of U.S. troops — meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital — has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. … Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually “has increased the to some extent.”

The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization and the U.N. reported last month that the “number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February.” Despite the mass exodus of large numbers of Iraqis from conflict zones, the Iraqi health ministry reports there still have been more civilian deaths this month than in previous months.

The National Intelligence Estimate confirmed that where some “conflict levels have diminished,” it was due to ethnic cleansing. The new report by an independent 20-member military commission headed by Gen. James Jones puts this reality in a stark visual presentation. See the chart below (from p. 34 of the Jones report):




http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/06/sunni-shia-baghdad/

[babylonsister]

8. I'm really glad I'm not easily depressed , because after

reading stuff like this, I can see how depression can be overwhelming. :(