** *Iraqi Holocaust: 2.3 Million Iraqi Excess Deaths* *By Gideon Polya* 21 March, 2009 *Mwcnews.net* <http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29360/42/> http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210309.htm
*M*arch 20, 2009 marks the 6th anniversary of the illegal, utterly unjustified, war criminal invasion of Iraq by US, UK and Australian forces. Post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 2.3 million and refugees total 6 million in a continuing Iraqi Holocaust and Genocide. After the defeat of Nazi Germany in the 1939-1945 World War 2 conflict (that commenced with the Nazi German invasion of Poland in September 1939), the defeated Germans adopted a post-war and post-Holocaust protocol that can be summarized by the acronym CAAAA (C4A), specifically Cessation of the killing, Acknowledgment of the crimes, Apology, Amends and Assertion “never again to anyone”. Unfortunately, unlike the Nazi Germans, the pro-Zionist, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, imperialist war criminals of the US Alliance are comprehensively violating the 5-point CAAAA (C4A) protocol by continuing the war in Occupied Iraq; refusing to acknowledge the horrendous carnage; declining to apologize; refusing to make amends; and making it clear that they will continue and indeed expand war in Occupied Afghanistan and the North West Provinces of Pakistan. On the occasion of this 6th Anniversary of the war criminal US Alliance invasion of Iraq, decent people ask: what has been the human cost of this unjustified and illegal war? 1. 1.3 million violent post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths. The prestigious US organization Just Foreign Policy has a steadily updated counter that currently estimates that 1.32 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the US invasion of Iraq. In their words: “The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then ... The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency [ORB] in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US-led invasion. This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it.” [1]. 2. 1.0 million non-violent post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths (non-violent avoidable deaths). In wars and occupations people die violently (from bombs and bullets) and non-violently from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease. Non-violent excess deaths can be estimated from the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected if the country were at peace and under sensible governance. Using data from the UN Population Division (2006 Revision data) one can calculate that the non-violent post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths total 1.0 million. [2, 3]. 3. 0.6 million post-invasion under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths. UN Population Division data indicate that post-invasion under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths total 0.6 million with 90% of these deaths being avoidable. The “annual death rate” is 2.2% for Occupied Iraqi under-5 year old infants as compared to 1.6% for Occupied Palestinian under-5 year old infants, 6.5% for Occupied Afghan under-5 year old infants and 10% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 (for which crime Japanese generals were tried and hanged). [3]. 4. Post-invasion Iraqi refugees total 6 million out of a population of 28 million. According to the eminent BRussells Tribunal, the number of internal refugees within Iraq and Iraqi refugees outside Iraq total 6 million out of a total population of about 28 million. [3, 4]. 5. 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi violent and non-violent excess deaths constitute an immense war crime. There being no justification for the invasion, the violent Iraqi deaths are clearly war crimes, and so too are the post-invasion non-violent deaths from deprivation. Thus under Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, an Occupier is obliged to supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites to the conquered subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. However, consulting the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that the “total expenditure on health per capita” in Occupied Iraq is $124 as compared to $6,714 for the occupier country, the US. [5, 6]. 6. 4.2 million violent and non-violent Iraqi excess deaths and 1.8 million under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths under war and Sanctions 1990-2009. Using UN Population Division data one can estimate that there were 1.7 million non-violent excess deaths and 1.2 million under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths under Sanctions and bombing (1990-2003). It is estimated that about 0.2 million Iraqis were killed in the Gulf War (1990-1991). Thus with 2.3 million violent and non-violent Occupied Iraqi excess deaths (2003-2009), excess deaths under Sanctions and war (1990-2009) total 1.9 million + 2.3 million = 4.2 million. Under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths under Sanctions and war (1990-2009) total 1.2 million + 0.6 million = 1.8 million. [2, 3]. 7. 4.2 million Iraqi excess deaths (1990-2009) versus 5-6 million Jewish deaths (1941-1945). The 4.2 million Iraqi violent and non-violent excess deaths under US Alliance Sanctions, war and occupation in the period 1990-2009 is of the same order of magnitude as the carnage of the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust. Leading historian of World War 1, World War 2, the Jewish Holocaust and Churchill, Professor Sir Martin Gilbert, has estimated that 5-6 million Jews died in the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust, with 1 in 6 dying of deprivation, out of a total population of 8.2 million Jews in Nazi-occupied European countries. [7]. 8. 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi excess deaths and 6 million Iraqi refugees constitutes an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide (UN Genocide Convention). Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The 4.2 million Iraqi excess deaths (1990-2009), 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi excess deaths and 6 million Iraqi refugees certainly constitutes an Iraqi Holocaust and also an Iraqi Genocide according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention. [8]. 9. US Alliance deaths in Occupied Iraq total 4,577 giving an Occupied Iraqi/Invader military death ratio of 503. In contrast to the 2.3 million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq, US Alliance deaths in the Iraq War total 4,577, this yielding an Occupied Iraqi/Occupier military death ratio of 2.3 million/4,577 = 503 – this death ratio being about 50 times greater than the reprisals death ratio of 10 ordered by Adolph Hitler in March 1944 and executed with the Nazi murder of 335 Italian men and boys in the Ardeatine Caves Massacre in retaliation for the killing of 33 German soldiers . [9, 10]. 10. US-bankrupting Iraq War accrual cost totals $3 trillion (Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz). 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist and Vice-President, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, has estimated that the Iraq War has come with an accrual cost of $3 trillion and has bankrupted the US, thus significantly contributing to the US and consequent global financial meltdown. [11]. 11. Just reparations for 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi excess deaths (at a US EPA valuation of $6.9 million per person) total $16 trillion. The latest US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) valuation of US lives on a risk avoidance cost basis is $6.9 million per person. If we accept the great words of the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal”, then 2.3 million post-invasion excess deaths correspond to reparations of 2.3 million persons x $6.9 million /person = $15.9 trillion or about US$16 trillion. [12]. The Bush War on Terror is in reality an horrendous War on Women and Children and, more specifically, a war on Arab, Muslim, Asian and non-European Women and Children. One can estimate from UN Population Division data that annual under-5 infant deaths among America’s Muslim “slaves” in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 3,000 + 98,000 + 314,000 = 415,000, this corresponding to 415,000/0.7 = 593,000 non-violent excess deaths annually or about 50,000 per month. In the mere 2 months after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, non-violent excess deaths of America’s “slaves” in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories have totalled about 100,000. One is reminded of the late Harold Pinter’s famous Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech in which he castigated Obama’s predecessors in the War on Terror, Bush and Blair: “We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.” As Harold Pinter says, “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought” - and therefore it is just that Obama as well as Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. Months ago on election night, Ralph Nader queried whether Barack Obama would become an Uncle Sam and act in the interests of the American people or become an Uncle Tom, and be slavishly beholden to the warmongering American Establishment. After 2 months we have our answer in blood. With 100,000 dead Muslim “slaves” under his belt already in just 2 months of his Administration, Obama can be seen more as a Simon Legree, the brutal slave owner who had poor, good Uncle Tom beaten to death in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. The only thing that can stop the continuing active and passive mass murder in Obama’s American Empire will be resolute Sanctions and Boycotts against the US and the war criminal , democratic Nazi countries of the US Alliance. [1]. Just Foreign Policy: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html . [2] Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007): http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya . [3]. UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ . [4]. BRussells Tribunal, Le Feyt Declaration (2008): http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ . [5]. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm . [6]. WHO: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ . [7]. Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London). [8]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow /genocide/convention.html . [9]. Coalition casualties in Iraq: http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx . [10]. Ardeatine Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeatine_massacre . [11]. Australian ABC Lateline interview with Professor Joseph Stiglitz, “Award winning economist says America has bankrupted itself with the Iraq war”: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2236161.htm . [12]. Gideon Polya, MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23939/42/ . *Dr Gideon Polya,* MWC News Chief political editor, published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality --- *Other articles by this author * <http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya> ++++++++++++ *Baby Food and Pasta Are “Weapons of Mass Destruction”* *By: Ali Baghdadi *([email protected] Chicago) If you were told that the U.S. government banned baby food from reaching Iraqi infants, and that the Israeli government prevented pasta from entering besieged Gaza, you most likely would immediately dismiss these two statements as a dirty “joke” or an outright “lie”. Sadly, it is not a joke or a lie. It is real and documented. It can be easily researched and verified. It is difficult to believe that “civilized” countries that care for animals, spend millions of dollars to feed them and groom them, support their rights, and punish people that mistreat them, could allow their governments to be cruel to fellow humans. To be blunt, this contrast in dealing with animals and humans can be simply characterized as “split personality”. It must be dealt with. Not only had it destroyed the only Iraqi infant milk formula plant during the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S. government also prevented Iraq from importing baby food to feed millions of its malnourished children for thirteen years of economic sanctions designed to topple the late Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. Likewise, in the aftermath of its recent barbaric Gaza invasion that fair minded Jewish historians and intellectuals condemn as genocide, the Israeli government stopped emergency relief shipments of pasta from reaching the tiny strip in order to bring down the Hamas government which, according to former President Jimmy Carter, came to power through free and democratic elections. What a tragedy! For thirteen years, baby food was among a list of more than a million items that Washington forbade Iraq from importing. No logical or rational explanation was provided. For thirteen years, did the U.S.government consider Iraqi infants as potential “terrorists”, who may convert this food to poison gas and seriously threaten American cities. The list of sanctioned items included ambulances, hearing aids, eyeglasses, paper, pens, pencils, toothbrushes, toothpaste, epilepsy medication, soap, shampoo, and even toilet paper. The amount of food and medicine allowed into Iraq was no more than about a third of what the country usually imported to meet the needs of its people prior to the unjustly imposed sanctions. The twenty million Iraqis had virtually become a herd of sheep whose minimal requirements had been reduced to foodstuffs, a few medicines and some essentials that the Sanctions Committee residing in New York determined. As confirmed by the World Health Organization and the U.N. Children Fund, and many other organizations, the slow genocide due to starvation and health hazards caused the demise of more than one and a half million innocent Iraqis, mostly children. The same cruel and savage policy and behavior have been repeated in Gaza. The tiny strip has been under Israeli siege for almost two years. Nothing can enter Gaza by sea, air or land without Israeli approval. Most of the humanitarian food and medical supplies donated to relieve some of the pain and suffering inflicted by Israel against the people of Gaza have not been allowed to enter. For seven weeks, an international aid organization, Mercy Corps, has been trying to send 90 tons of pasta to feed the 1.5 million starving people of Gaza, but to no avail. According to U.N. aid workers, “ Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid”. "We're at the end of our rope,.. "This is just ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd," commented David Holdridge, the head of the emergency relief efforts for Mercy Corps. “When the delivery of aid is restricted to an argument of pasta vs rice, then the situation becomes a little ridiculous. No security reasons justify a blockade on pasta," Sammay Mshasha, a spokesman for UNRWA commented. Ironically, pasta is not the only “weapon of mass destruction” that Israelbans from reaching Gaza, the largest open concentration camp on the globe. The list is too long. It includes everything from lentils, tomato paste and fruit juice to paper, textbooks and crayons. Healthy educated Palestinian children are viewed as a threat to the continued illegitimate existence of the Jewish settler state. The list also contains construction material, steel, cement and glass. Approximately, 15,000 buildings were destroyed as a result of 22 days of Israeli carpet bombing. More than 50,000 men, women and children are left homeless. In addition, agricultural supplies that include seedlings, fertilizers, and piping which are essential to revive the economy that Israel destroyed are banned. Medicine and medical equipment, as well as spare parts for water and sewage treatment plants are severely curtailed. Senator John Kerry, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, became aware of the pasta “episode” during his fact finding mission to Gazain the aftermath of the Israeli genocidal attack. Only after the U.S. senator, protested, and demanded an explanation for the ban, did Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, give the green light for the pasta to enter into Gaza. U.S. Representatives Brian Baird and Keith Ellison, who also toured Gaza, expressed similar complaint, and criticized Israel's "idiosyncratic and arbitrary" inhumane policy. "When have lentil bombs ++++++++ *[image: guardian.co.uk home]* *Intelligence made it clear Saddam was not a threat, diplomat tells MPs* http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/20/saddam-hussein-iraq-war-legality *• Government left 'paper trail' in build-up to war • More facts still to come to light, says former envoy* --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Nor can Goodness and Evil be equal. Repel (evil) with what is better; then the enmity between him and you will become as if it were your friend and intimate! 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