War Crimes: the Iraq Living Conditions Survey

Deluded right-wingers refuse to believe the Lancet survey ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T
1B-4DV11P2-13&_user=1496926&_coverDate=11%2F26%2F2004&_alid= ...
)indicating more than 100,000 Iraqis died from violence in 2003, most
of that violence dished out by yahoo American soldiers with trigger
fingers who apparently believe they are doing the Iraqis a big favor by
destroying their country and killing them. From my perspective here in
a medium-sized town in New Mexico, it would appear a whole lot of
Americans are also yahoos because I see dozens of “Support Our Troops”
magnetic ribbons affixed to cars and trucks every time I venture out
into traffic. It doesn’t take an Einstein to conclude that “supporting
our troops” translates into supporting mass murder and crimes against
humanity. In short, these people are either deluded-completely unaware
of what is going on in Iraq, thanks to their dependence on corporate
news-or they support vicious mass murder.

Now comes a report indicating “Iraqis’ living conditions have
deteriorated and pose challenges for development efforts two years
after the U.S.-led invasion,” according to the Iraq Living Conditions
Survey ( http://ipsnews.net/new_notan.asp?idnews=28665
), conducted by the United Nations. “Nearly one-fourth of Iraqi
children aged between six months and five years are chronically
malnourished, meaning they have stunted growth, the report says. Among
all Iraqi children, more than one in 10 suffer from general
malnutrition, meaning they have a low weight for their age. Another
eight percent have acute malnourishment, or low weight for their
height.” Moreover,

In some areas of the country, acute malnourishment reaches 17
percent and stunting reaches 26 percent, the report says. Both infant
and child mortality rates appear to have been steadily increasing over
the past 15 years. At present, 32 babies out of every 1,000 born alive
die before reaching their first birthday.

In addition, 37 percent of young men with secondary or higher education
are unemployed and just 83 percent of boys and 79 percent of school-age
girls are enrolled in primary school.

(...)

Homes also took a major hit from the latest war, the study says.
Military damage to dwellings in the north of the country averages 25
percent of all rural households and in provinces such as Sulaimaniya,
49 percent of all rural homes were damaged.

(...)

Some 47 percent of urban households but only three percent of rural
ones have a sewage connection. More than 80 percent of urban households
are able to reach secondary schools, health centres, pharmacies, and
police stations within 30 minutes while only 60 percent of urban
households can reach a pharmacy or police station in that time.

Rural households tend to be more overcrowded and more frequently have open sewage nearby.

Overall, about eight out of every 10 Iraqis get water piped to their
dwelling but in rural areas, only 43 percent of households have that
service, according to the report.

Piped water is widely available but much of it is unsanitary and one-third of all Iraqi households receive an unstable supply.

(...)

Key facilities have been neglected for years under economic policies
described as misguided and as a result of international sanctions,
which cut Iraq off from most trade throughout the 1990s. Infrastructure
also been damaged by three wars, the most recent of which was followed
by severe looting and vandalism. The report concludes that refurbishing
these systems is one of the biggest challenges to rebuilding Iraq.

An earlier estimate on malnutrition in Iraq, presented by Jean Ziegler,
the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s special expert on the right to food,
was as scathing, as Jonathan Fowler ( http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/cons
equences/2005/0330malnutrition.htm ) reports:

Overall, more than a quarter of Iraqi children don’t get enough to
eat, Ziegler told the 53-nation commission, which is halfway through
its annual six-week session. The U.S. delegation and other coalition
countries declined to respond to his presentation, which compiled the
findings of studies conducted by other specialists. In reporting the
7.7 percent malnutrition rate for Iraqi youngsters, the Norwegian-based
Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science said in November that the
figure was similar to the levels in some African countries.

Of course, the above mentioned “economic policies” were imposed by the
United States with the help of the United Nations. Most Americans did
not know about this and many who did blamed the medieval siege of Iraq
on Saddam Hussein. Most Americans do not realize that their
government-with their mindless consent (they voted for Bush Senior,
Clinton, and Bush the Junior, many with nitwitted enthusiasm)-is only
different from the Nazi government of Germany by a matter of degree (or
put differently, the Nazis killed more people in less time than the
government of the United States, with the consent of the people who
were “Good Germans” and are “Good Americans” ). According to Philip
Bradbury ( http://www.unitedstatesgovernment.net/8million.htm
) of Insight Magazine, the U.S. government has killed at least eight
million people between 1952 and 2001 (add another hundred or so
thousand since 2001), whereas the Nazis, according to R.J. Rummel (
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM#* ) Democide: Nazi
Genocide and Mass Murder), slaughtered nearly 21 million people (other
historians dispute this number).

Rummel would term the murder of nearly 2 million Iraqis “politicide,”
or “the murder of any person or people by a government because of their
politics or for political purposes,” as is certainly the case in Iraq
and Afghanistan (Rummel includes politicide under the rubric of
“democide,” ( http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.CHAP2.HTM ) or the “murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.”

Call it what you will-democide, politicide, plain old mass murder-every
single American, myself included, is directly responsible for this
horrific carnage.

Of course, it is little solace that I don’t drive around with a yellow
mass murder ribbon on my car while millions of either clueless or
downright vicious Americans do. Malnourished Iraqis don’t make such
distinctions.

Sooner or later, though, all of this will come to a screeching halt, as
the war machine will run out of lucre or other nations, seriously
concerned about the violent insanity of the United States, will put an
end to it through economic boycott. I’m afraid a lot of Americans will
suffer mightily in the future-and not the distant future, either. In
the meantime, a lot of Iraqis (and Syrians, Iranians, possibly Saudi
Arabians and North Koreans) will suffer needlessly as the U.S. war
machine breaks down and begins its atrophic descent.