deaths

tragedy of our time

antarchi — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:14:09 -0600

"I think it is one of the great tragedies of our time that so many people have died, so many people have been displaced and so many people face famine as a result of the events of Darfur."

Gordon Brown, September 2007

* * *

It is, most certainly. According to (that well-known trusted source) the BBC, 'Some 200,000 people have been killed and 2m displaced in Darfur since 2003.' The BBC devotes video, audio and textual reports accompanied by photos to the protests being held today, with the message 'don't look away'. Gordon Brown is played over and over again on the World Service, sounding sober and sympathetic, in control.

What a tragic contrast with the total lack of attention given last week to a new poll by ORB, a respected polling company used and normally quoted by the BBC. A google search for 'bbc iraq poll orb' brings up just 2 polls quoted by the BBC: one asked British parents whether they would be happy for their son to join the army, and the second asked whether British troops were winning or losing the war. But the ORB poll that asked Iraqi citizens how many of their household had died since the invasion as a result of the violence has been almost totally ignored, as far as I can see.

That poll, conducted in August of this year, suggests that there have been 1,220,580 Iraqi deaths since the invasion in 2003. That is over a million deaths since the already sanctions-crushed Iraqis were invaded by the world's greatest military power (and its poodle).

The figure of a million roughly tallies with an estimate from Just Foreign Policy, based on the Lancet study (last October) and 'a rate of increase derived from Iraq Body Count'. Just Foreign Policy also reckon the death count is just over a million: 1,044,607 (to date). And the figure also tallies roughly with an estimate by Gideon Polya, a scientist and writer, in February of this year. He too used the Lancet study as a basis, and estimated that by February 2006, there had been over a million victims as a result of the invasion. 600,000 of those needless deaths, he estimates, were children under 5.

If 200,000 deaths and 2 million displaced is one of the great tragedies, what is a million deaths (or more) and 4 million displaced? What is it when those deaths have come about as a result of a pre-planned invasion, built on fabricated reasons and a deliberate policy of false propaganda? What is it when the invading poodle, the British Ministry of Defence states publicly that it "does not maintain records that would enable a definitive number of [Iraqi] civilian fatalities to be recorded."? And what is it when the British media keeps silent about 1 million deaths, pointedly ignores them, and presents the man who wrote the cheques for war as sober, sympathetic, in control?

Well - what would it be, if it had been Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China or Iran who had invaded, unprovoked, through deceit, and for selfish gain, causing a million needless deaths?

* * *

"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."

Harold Pinter, from his Nobel Lecture 'Art, Truth and Politics'

9-11 victims

antarchi — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:51:38 -0600

On September 11, 2001, while the world lamented the deaths of innocent people in the United States, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation reported that the daily mortality rate continued: 36,615 children had died from the effects of extreme poverty. This was normal in the age of 'economic growth'.

keep our heads down

antarchi — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:28:33 -0600

When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, leading to the deaths of around 200,000 people in one of the bloodiest operations in post-war history, Britain in effect supported Jakarta at the UN. Declassified files show that the British planned before the invasion not to condemn the Indonesians and that 'If there is a row in the United Nations... we should keep our heads down and avoid taking sides'. Between 1975 and 1982 there were 2 Security Council Resolutions and 8 General Assembly resolutions condemning the invasion... London abstained on, or voted against, all the General Assembly resolutions, while it provided arms to Indonesia and deepened air, trade and diplomatic relations.

they were hanged as war criminals, while I went free

antarchi — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:30:08 -0600

On 27 July 1943, the RAF killed 50,000 people in Hamburg. Reflecting on this barbarity, nuclear physicist Freeman Dyson who was then a clerk for Arthur "Bomber" Harris wrote that the Nazis "had sat in their offices, writing memoranda and calculating how to murder people efficiently, just like me. The main difference was that they were sent to jail or hanged as war criminals, while I went free." Eighty percent of all the bombs in World War II fell in the last ten months of the war during which the British, for instance, decided to bomb residential areas with the argument that this would foreshorten the war. The US borrowed this logic at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but only after the USAF firebombed Tokyo on 8 May (General Curtis LeMay who directed the operations, said "we knew we were going to kill a lot of women and kids when we burned that town. Had to be done"). On 13 February 1945, the RAF killed 100,000 in Dresden; on 6 August 1945, the USAF killed 100,000 instantly in Hiroshima (another 100,000 died over the course of the next year).

you know that innocent people will die

antarchi — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:07:09 -0600

when you plant a bomb in a discotheque, the death of bystanders is deliberate; when you drop bombs on a city, it is accidental. We can ease our conscience that way, but only by lying to ourselves. Because, when you bomb a city from the air, you know, absolutely know, that innocent people will die.

death by invasion

antarchi — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:12:38 -0600

6-7 million people perished

antarchi — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:24:25 -0600

Over 60 years ago 6-7 million people perished in Bengal and in the neighboring provinces of Bihar, Orissa and Assam in 1943-1945 when the price of rice doubled and then finally quadrupled - those living on the edge who could not afford to buy food simply perished under the merciless scorched earth policy of the racist British colonial administration of British-occupied India

we could not see torn bodies

antarchi — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:04:38 -0700

We might think that at least those individuals in the U.S. Air Force who dropped bombs on civilian populations were aware of what terror they were inflicting, but as one of those I can testify that this is not so. Bombing from five miles high, I and my fellow crew members could not see what was happening on the ground. We could not hear screams or see blood, could not see torn bodies, crushed limbs. Is it any wonder we see fliers going out on mission after mission, apparently unmoved by thoughts of what they have wrought.

139,000 dead. 10 million people homeless

antarchi — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:10:00 -0700

In 1991, a cyclone hit the coast of Bangladesh, coinciding with high tides that left 10 million people homeless and killed 139,000. Most of these people were living on mudflats in the deltas. People continue to live there in large numbers because they have nowhere else to go. But if sea levels continue to rise, many peasant farmers will have no land left. As many as 70 million people could be affected in Bangladesh, and a similar number in China. Millions more Egyptian farmers on the Nile delta also stand to lose their land.

magic number 30,000

antarchi — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:26:35 -0700

"How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis." [George Bush, December 2005]