The American military, which officially withdrew from Iraq on Dec. 15, has added yet another multi-coloured feather in its blood-red cap.
The US, without sufficient legal or moral grounds, devoured 4.6 million in Iraq, 5.6 million in Afghanistan, 1.5 million in Palestine, 2.2 million in Somalia, and 50,000 in Libya. (The figures include war-related deaths.)
Time the war-mongers, the war victims and the fence-sitters drew a lesson from the bloodshed, which does not, and has not, served any noble cause. The fact, invented by Mr. George W. Bush, brings the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction under sharper focus.
Several political commentators and analysts have shed light on the not-so-stale subject. Was the US-Iraq war a mere toxic cocktail of neo-conservative thinking or an itch for unilateralism or an essay in forcing the world to adopt the western thinking and lifestyle or remind the world that the real boss is the United States.
AMERICAN IMAGE
Today the image of America is not that of a peaceable and peace-loving, broad-minded, large-hearted noble country. The US image is that of a bully, a goon, a thug, or, to be charitable, that of an unreasonable person, capable of manufacturing lies or excuses to have a fight with you, without any rhyme or reason. It is hard to believe that Jefferson and Lincoln were born in the United States.
Not 4,407 but 4,500 American soldiers were killed in the US-led Alliance of the Willing and the Iraqi forces. According to a study of Dr. Gideon Polya, an eminent author and journalist, “Since 1990, Iraq has suffered “4.6 million war-related deaths, 1.7 million violent deaths, 2.9 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation, 5-6 million refugees, 2.0 under-5 infant deaths, 90% avoidable and due to egregious US alliance war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention. However, the mainstream media of the western Murdocracies and Lobbyocracies have resolutely refused to report the carnage of 2-decade US war on Muslims in an ongoing process of utterly repugnant genocide complicity, genocide ignoring, genocide denial, holocaust complicity, holocaust ignoring and holocaust denial.”
That the western media underplays the excesses against Muslims has been appropriately reported by the upright presspersons and agencies: the ABC’s “Tens of Thousands” or “100,000 Plus” dead Iraqis enormously underestimates the death toll. Thus the eminent US Just Foreign Policy organisation estimates on the basis of expert medical epidemiology that post-invasion violent deaths total 1.5 million, and comments: “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 US-led invasion of March 2003”.
HALLIDAY RESIGNATION
The readers may recall that Mr. Dennis Halliday was the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from Sep 1, 1997, until 1998. He resigned after 34 years with the UN, including being US Assistant Secretary General over the sanctions imposed on Iraq, characterising them as genocide.
One may ask here what genocide is. 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) deliberating 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.
Conscientious media persons are blunt when they aver that Mr. Obama is “currently the world’s No.1 violent extremist, the world’s No. 1 killer of children and the world’s No. 1 holocaust denier because he absolutely ignores the horrendous human cost of the US’ invasions, occupations and devastation in the Muslim world.”
COMMON KNOWLEDGE
It is common knowledge that in 2003 the US, UK and Australia illegally invaded and conquered Iraq. The concerned have calculated that the under-5 infant mortality was 1.2 million for Iraq since 1991; 0.2 million for Iraq since 2003 invasion; and 0.9 million for Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. The US, UK and Australia are clearly complicit in horrendous avoidable mortality and infant mortality in a swathe of invaded Asian countries in the post-1950 era.
Yes! The jihadist violence has taken roughly about “5000 western civilian lives over the last 20 years, with most of the victims dying on 9/11 (about 3000) and the remainder including murdered Israeli civilians and the victims of atrocities such as in Madrid, Lockerbie and Bali. However, this jihadist violence has had immensely bloodier consequences through the historically and dishonestly promoted War on Terror that has been associated with post-invasion avoidable deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan that total 1.6 million.”
The point is what the US now proposes to do to quench its thirst for human blood? Our thinking rather the world thinking is the next target would be Iran.
It looks as if the entire Muslim area – West Asia and North Africa – are the primary areas of US bloody interest for three reasons: one, because the would-be victims are Muslim and secondly because there is oil wealth in those areas and thirdly because this might ensure the security of the transplanted state called Israel, to whose interests the US remains chained, of course inexplicably.