- What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents
or "terrorists"? Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war
on terror" is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.
-
- When does "collateral damage" so dwarf combatant
deaths that war becomes genocide?
-
- Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis
their lives. That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies and conducted
by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists.
These are deaths over and above the pre-invasion mortality rate. Bush's
illegal invasion raised Iraq's mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000
people per year to 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is
published by the distinguished British medical journal, The Lancet, and
is available on the journal's online site (October 11).
-
- The study uses a scientific method known as "cluster
sampling." In 87% of the deaths, the researchers requested death certificates,
and more than 90% of the surveyed households produced the death certificates.
Violence accounted for 601,000 deaths and disease and destruction of civilian
infrastructure accounted for 54,000 deaths. The violent deaths are attributed
to gunshot wounds, coalition air strikes, and car bombs.
-
- Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Gilbert Burnham
says, "We're very confident with the results." Columbia University
epidemiologist Ronald Waldman says the survey method used is "tried
and true" and that "this is the best estimate of mortality we
have."
-
- When asked about the report, President Bush stated:
"I don't consider it a credible report." Bush, of course, is
not reality-based, and he knows that any unfavorable news is "enemy
propaganda." That's what the neocons who pull his strings tell him,
and that is what he believes.
-
- What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents
or "terrorists"?
-
- Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on
terror" is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.
-
- Bush's invasion has also spawned sectarian conflict
or civil war, although the Bush regime denies it. Even Bush is smart enough
to know that "bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq" is not
compatible with setting off a civil war in Iraq. Since Bush, the faith-based,
believes that he is bringing "freedom and democracy to Iraq,"
he cannot accept the fact that he has started a civil war.
-
- Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are not the
only innocent victims of Bush's illegal aggression. The New York Times
(October 11) reports that Department of Veterans Affairs documents show
that about one in five US soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan
have suffered at least partial disability.
-
- To date more than 100,000 US troops who are veterans
of these wars have been granted disability compensation. Although the US
cannot put on the ground in Iraq more than 150,000 troops at one time,
1.5 million troops have served so far and 567,000 have been discharged
of which 100,000 are receiving disability payments.
-
- Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for
America, says that the current rate of injuries will produce 400,000 American
veterans suffering 30% to 100% disability. Apparently, one of the severe
forms of disability is post-traumatic stress, which does not count as a
physical wound.
-
-
- What is America's reward for Bush's illegal wars that
have killed 655,000 Iraqis, an uncounted number of Afghanis, and disabled
as many as 400,000 US troops?
- What is America's reward for Bush's illegal wars that
have killed 655,000 Iraqis, an uncounted number of Afghanis, and disabled
as many as 400,000 US troops?
-
- According to the US National Intelligence Estimate and
to practically every Middle East expert, Bush's invasions have radicalized
the Muslim Middle East, created legions of recruits for extremists, undermined
America's puppet rulers, imperiled Israel, and destroyed America's reputation.
-
- We are talking about over one million casualties that
have no other cause than blatant lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice,
the bloodthirsty neoconservative cabal that occupies Bush's subcabinet,
and their corporate media propagandists, especially The Weekly Standard,
Fox News, National Review, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
The Bush regime deceived America and the world with its lies that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that would be turned against the
West by terrorists. By giving speeches that continually mentioned Iraq
in the same context as 9/11, the Bush regime created the widespread impression,
still prevalent among Americans, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
-
-
- What kind of government would destroy the lives through
death or disability of over one million people for no valid reason?
- What kind of government would destroy the lives through
death or disability of over one million people for no valid reason?
-
- The same kind of government that fires its own lawyers
for doing their constitutional duty. Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift
was assigned the task of bringing Salim Hamdan to a guilty plea before
the unconstitutional military tribunal that President Bush created for
Guantanamo detainees. Instead, Cmdr. Swift did his duty and defended his
client, winning in the US Supreme Court. The Bush administration retaliated
by blocking Cmdr. Swift's promotion, which killed his military career and
sent the chilling message to all US military and government attorneys that
constitutional scruples are career-enders in the Bush regime. Anyone who
stands for the US Constitution is against Bush and his neocon regime.
-
-
- The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime
proceeded. First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity from
the government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You
are with us or against us"--a formulation that leaves no place for
duty to the US Constitution.
- The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime
proceeded.
-
- First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity
from the government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You
are with us or against us"--a formulation that leaves no place for
duty to the US Constitution. Patriotism is redefined from loyalty to country
and Constitution to loyalty to the government's leader.
-
- Americans are too inattentive and distracted to be aware
of the grave danger that the neoconservative Bush regime presents to American
liberty and to world stability. The neoconservative drive to achieve hegemony
over the American people and the entire world is similar to Hitler's drive
for hegemony. Hitler used racial superiority to justify Germany's right
to ride roughshod over other peoples and the right of the Nazi elite to
rule over the German people.
-
- Neoconservatives use "American exceptionalism"
and "the war on terror." There is no practical difference. Hitler
cared no more about the peoples he mowed down in his drive for supremacy
than the neoconservatives care about 655,000 dead Iraqis, 100,000 disabled
American soldiers and 2,747 dead ones.
-
- When Bush, the Decider, claims unconstitutional powers
and uses "signing statements" to negate US law whenever he feels
the rule of law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar
to Hitler, the Fuhrer, who told the Reichstag on February 20, 1938: "A
man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of his
people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or to a particular
democratic conception, but solely to the mission placed upon him. And anyone
who interferes with this mission is an enemy of the people."
-
- "You are with us or against us."
-
- Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
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