Iraq: The unaccounted cost
By David Neiwert Tuesday Dec 02, 2008 1:00pmThe wingnut defenders of the Bushian legacy seem eager these days to claim that the recent decline in violence in Iraq somehow means we've obtained "victory" there. Most of the time they point to the relatively few American lives lost in the conflict as evidence somehow that it was worth it.
A few weeks ago I was part of a pre-election panel at my daughter's school along with a couple of local Republicans, each of us giving our view of the issues before voters this year. One of the students asked if we thought the Iraq war was worth it, and the Republicans presented their hopes that in the long run we would indeed see it as worthwhile.
I responded that it clearly had not been worth it, especially in terms of achieving our goals of fighting terrorism and spreading democracy. And the chief fact I pointed to was the magnitude of civilian losses in Iraq -- which brings in the moral component of the equation as well.
When the baseline of civilian casualties in Iraq is 100,000 innocent people dead -- and the actual count may reach as high as a million -- in a war that we provoked under false pretenses, then exactly what kind of victory is that?
And as I pointed out to those students, the "freedom" we've supposedly brought to the Iraqi people is meaningless to all those men, women, and children who have died. And it is irrevocably tainted for the families and friends left behind. Moreover, if you want to discover the real roots of terrorism, they are firmly planted in grotesque injustices such as this.
Yet that accounting has not taken place yet with the American public. Brad Jacobson at Media Bloodhound noticed an AP story the other day that deliberately obscured the reality of the massive civilian casualties we have inflicted on the Iraqi people:
The war has claimed more than 4,200 American lives and killed a far greater, untold number of Iraqis, consumed huge reserves of money and resources and eroded the global stature of the United States, even among its closest allies.
Jacobson goes on to detail:
As MediaBloodhound reported last April, when Opinion Research Business (ORB), a well-regarded non-partisan British polling agency that has conducted studies for the BBC and the British Conservative Party, released its January 2008 follow-up report estimating over 1 million Iraqi deaths since the US invasion -- which both reconfirmed its September 2007 estimate as well as supported prior findings of the 2006 John Hopkins study published in the British medical journal Lancet (650,000 deaths) -- a LexisNexis search showed no US mainstream news outlet carried the story.
MediaBloodhound also pointed out at the time that, writing in FAIR's newsletter Extra!, Patrick McElwee cited an "Associated Press poll in February (2/24/07) that asked Americans how many Iraqis have died received a median response of less than 10,000."
Americans bear a direct moral responsibility for these deaths, especially in light of the eventual realization that the invasion occurred under false pretenses. Our accounting so far has only included the American dead, as if those were the only lives that mattered.
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Was it worth it? Worth what? Thousands of people needlessly killed and for what? That invasion of Iraq was in my opinion not a mistake, but a crime. We don't count the Iraqis we killed but if a sucicide bomber kills some Iraqis, we are told exactly how many are dead and how many wounded.
I mustn't get started on this because I'll go on and on and on.
I agree 100% that this was no mistake but a criminal act. American and international law seem to agree with that also.
One aspect that is also constantly overlooked in the news is the children prostitution of all the refugees.
Millions of refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,... with no means to survive except to prostitute their children. Those regions have become new havens for child predators, and all prostitutes in the regions around Iraq are Iaqi fugitives. since there is an over-supply they are forced to prostitute themselves against very low prices and in brutal and horrible conditions.
Way to go to help setup the biggest brothel for child prostitution, is this also the American Way? O yes right 'mericans are better than that, at least THEIR kids are better than that.
I'd like pro-war republicans to explain me the part of this that is supposed to be a huge succes?
One the most silenced tragedies I think of this war, and the one news talk of about even less...
"The war has claimed more than 4,200 American lives and killed a far greater, untold number of Iraqis, consumed huge reserves of money and resources and eroded the global stature of the United States, even among its closest allies."
I guess we win because the body count is in our favor...?
What an absolute debacle this has been- and it continues, God Have Mercy.
It was about taking control of th Iraqi oil reserves by oil corporations. If you really think there is a shortage of oil, I've got a bridge to nowhere to sell you.
No one has the right to put these poor little angels through hell. No one!!
God have mercy!
David Niewert said, (to the kids)
"And as I pointed out to those students, the "freedom" we've supposedly brought to the Iraqi people is meaningless to all those men, women, and children who have died.
I say here is some more of the American "brand" of freedom that we forced unto the Iraqi people.
...forcing Iraqi farmers to buy and grow GMO seeds from Monsanto.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?contex...
Long article but a good one...I you are an Iraqi farmer you dont have a choice of what seeds you can plant!
just one more thing to add to the "uncounted" cost I guess
It's the same democracy the republicans have been trying to sell us. It's not democracy at all. It's corporate controlled Facism.
We are viewed as consumers, not people. Most politicians, bureaucrats, and pundits believe Americans are free because they have hundreds of different breakfast cereals from which to chose. An American could even choose Eggos, or forgo breakfast completely, now that's freedom.
/snark
They should grow poppies.
GMOPIUM!
and where is the story about the american service deaths attributed to the use of torture??? i heard keith talk about it last night, but that's all i remember...
It usually seems to requiring US shooting, bombing, and killing folks...
and that can get dang expensive, what with the cost of gas and bullets and tanks and stuff...
No, pal: Freedom's not free...
I'm not a crier but I got teary eyed over this. What we did to these people is a modern day Holocaust. They did nothing to deserve this other than have a bad leader and be parked over lots of oil.
You're absolutely correct. And I cried too. Bush and his cronies will never show remorse for this CRIME. All those responsible for starting and prolonging this mess deserved to be jailed or worse...bankrupted.
Iraq, like Vietnam is a story that has been shrouded in propaganda, propaganda of our own making.
To this day people talk about North and South Vietnam. In the one thousand year history of Vietnam there never was a north and a south, except temporarily under the Geneva accords of 1955 which we decided NOT to honor. Instead, we made the division long standing while sabotaging the nation wide elections mandated under the accords.
We imported Ngo Dinh Diem from his exile in New Jersey to take over the south.
Later, in 1963 when he was no longer to our liking we let him fall to coup, which we endorsed.
In 1965 the so called Gulf of Tonkin incidents were fabricated as a pretext leading to our massive escalation.
None of this should have happened.
Because of our treachery, more than two million Vietnamese died, perhaps as many as three million.
Yet show me more than a handful of Americans who know any of this.
So it will go with Iraq, the propaganda is in full bloom.
The Chimperor was a deserter from Vietnam so he knew nothing about the horrors of war.
Even if he did know, he has demonstrated himself to be a sociopath. That speaks for itself.
The American invasion of an agrarian, third-world sovereign state from 1965-1975 that was in the midst of a civil war and that was subjected to the dropping of 9,000,000 tons of bombs and of 48,000,000 litres of agent orange (dioxin, the most lethal poison know to man) in addition to the killing of 2,000,000 Vietnamese and untold carnage and trauma perpetrated on millions of woman, children and the elderly was not a war as Congress has not declared war since 1941. It was a war crime of horrific proportions for which the US has never formally either acknowledged nor expressed sorrow.
that clicking on the video window will open up the you tube in another tab? i like to do this because it is a bigger picture...
but this time, i get this message:
This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community.
To view this video or group, please verify you are 18 or older by signing in or signing up.
the truth hurts...
what is the difference ? bush pushes war in iraq , obama does the same for afganistan! seems to me wether people get killed by american agression in either country its all the samee sameo, i see few jumping obamas ass over his warmongering for a surge in afganistan , guess you have to pick wich corpses you prefer to approve of! and thier wont be a peep from the faithful when obama urges your sons and daughters to enlist to join the push!
Afghanistan is where the mission should have been. We left that country to chase non-existant WMDs in Iraq.
That doesn't mean Obama can't make the same mistakes in Afghanistan - 'surge' doesn't fill me with confidence, because I believe our forces need a clear and achievable mission to be effective.
Beyond that, we need to change how we view security in the face of an active terrorist threat, and my support for Obama doesn't change my opinions about what constitutes good and/or effective security.
A powerful video.
I am truly ashamed of my country and yet I weep for it for we have truly lost the moral high ground we had when we fought the fascists and militarists of Germany, Japan and Italy. No longer will we be seen as the Great Hope, the New World. We have adopted their barberous practices and become what we despised in them.
It's no wonder that our incursion into Iraq has created more terrorists than we ever destroyed. My fears are that this will be visited on us tenfold, and innocent Americans will die because of what this administration did to the WORLD, not just Iraq.
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld and all their toadies need to be indicted and tried at The Hague for crimes against humanity. Maybe then we can hope to rejoin the community of nations.
Chomsky is right in his dissection of the role of propaganda and the M$M in helping to achieve an atmosphere were 'free people' have so little connection to the 1 million+ tragedies that bear our "American" brand.
Violence is the tool dictatorships use to impose their will, and propaganda is the tool of the democracy . . .
... it's honesty. Freedom, purchased or sold on the basis of a lie, is ultimately worthless. It's a delusion that underlies stupidity like Proposition 8. It has significantly contributed to our economic woes in this country. If anything, the hallmark, the legacy of the Bush Administration is this very type of dishonesty.
While the subject of George W. Bush's sobriety has been discussed elsewhere, if you're this dishonest - with yourself, your motives, and in addressing the people you lead, you can't possibly have sobriety of meaningful depth or longevity.
"If there is a price tag on freedom...it's honesty."
Good quote! ...is it original Shadowgm?
(if so I may quote "you" one day)! ...or maybe just plagiarize from you instead...!!
price of freedom = honesty in govt...I like!
Behold! Your tax dollars at work!
Every tax paying American is playing their part in this massive genocide. It's far from over. The MIC is a business, and their product is death. Put yourself in some Iraqi shoes, then imagine that you have a set of balls that work without pills, then imagine you have no Hi-def flatscreen or bluray player... Just imagine what you would do! These Iraqi's are going to hate us for generations. I can't really blame them.
What's just as disturbing and disappointing is the fact that a lot of Democrats and liberals dismiss the Iraqi civilians when they don't mention the numbers in their arguments against the occupation. They always mention the number of American troops that have been killed per month, per year and since the war began, but there is never numbers given about how many Iraqi civilians -- including children -- who are killed each week and each month.
War is always worth it in the 'conservative' mind, as long as it is someone else's children who do the fighting and dying or end up with no limbs or no face or no genitals or insane a combination of the above.
It's always worth it if the 'untold numbers' of slaughtered civilians are swarthy foreigners in a faraway place they couldn't even point to on a map.
One of the defining characteristics of 'conservatives' has always been a limitless capacity to endure the suffering of others.
The root of this war is a clash of cultures- radical western Christianity vs radical eastern Islam- and of course the Christians couldn't care less about the Iraqi civilians who die- because if the Iraqis wh0 die didn't worship jesus, they are somehow seen as less than human...
Just as the radical Muslims see those who don't worship their god as being less than human...
butchered like animals. Weeping for them is the least we can do. There is no apology or reparation that will undo what Bush and his monstrous minions did to the Iraqi people. May they rot in hell as they count their money and hear the screams of the children all their lives.
We've done the same thing in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Cuba, Phillipines, Vietnam, Mexico and anywhere else that American corporations experience "uncooperative" natives.
I live in AZ, a state that was once part of Mexico.
Mexico HAD to be invaded because the Mexican Government would not allow Americans living in Texas their God - given rights.
Their God - given right to own Africans.
Mexico had abolished slavery.
So the US invaded Mexico and took more than half of their land.
Every time I hear about "those damned illegals" I want to kick some redneck.
......detonating unexploded ordinance even today!! Was on CBC Newsworld. Cluster bomblets everywhere.
I would take one night of CBC over a month of CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN and the BBC (although the BBC bests our media any day of the week).
When I was working in Regina, I learned more in three hours of watching the CBC than the average American gets in two years of American television.
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! We're #1.
We should be ashamed of what we have allowed to happen. Our country is no longer a republic and we have a government that does not answer to the will of the people. Now we have something in common with 1933 Germany. We are a nation of cowards.
When Obama changes nothing. Will that be enough for us to realize the enemy we should be worried about is domestic?
Wake up and smell the tyranny!
Worth dying for the almighty dollar. Worth it to the contractors. Not the Iraqi civilians or the 4,500 plus troops beneath the ground.
Merry Christmas, El Presidente. Mission Accomplished.
I always wonder how he sleeps at night...Does he have to get drunk before he talks to a mother of a dead soldier?
9/11. The Iraq War. Enough is enough. Bring our troops home NOW.
"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russell
Heard an ex-marine on C-SPAN the other morning saying that the Iraq war was worth it just for the "sight of the Iraqis holding up those blue fingers" after voting.
Except for the million or so who won't ever get to vote, or anything else, ever.
I'll bet their loved ones are glad we decided when and how to bring 'change' to their nation.
Neo-cons like to call liberals weak because of their stance on Iraq.
I say people who refuse to face the truth are weak, because they don't want to see the dismembered corpses and other consequences of their vile escapades.
Its like denying the fact that Thanksgiving was possible because turkeys had to give up their lives.
...and most all of their relatives will NEVER FORGET. We have raped and pillaged a nation for no just cause, and they will never forget....no more than I would if it were my homeland.
The criminals must pay.
The buck stops with George Bush, but Cheney and the neocons all should pay. These are war crimes and all responsible including some in the media should be held accountable. Calling it "collateral damage" or "civilan deaths" is inhumane, they are all fellow human beings.
want to believe in hell, just so all the Bush war criminals will end up there. I cried for about 1/2 an hour after watching that. Especially the scenes with the children. All those young Iraqis will now grow up wanting to destroy America. And can you blame them?
I think I'm going to go lie down for awhile...
I won't ask the Iraqi's to forgive us because we don't deserve to be forgiven.
Bush, I hope you and your criminal friends rot in fucking eternal hell!
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