Collateral Genocide in Iraq

This was posted on Daily Kos last week:

I follow the news on Iraq closely, and I blog about it regularly on the blog Iraq Today, which is a follow up to the blog Today in Iraq. This blog has been around since June 2003, and I have been either a daily reader since then, and started blogging at these blogs in 2005. Doing a blog on Iraq means I read lots of sources of information on Iraq, and I have developed a reasonable idea of what sources are good, which ones are bogus, and which ones are questionable.

I know, beyond doubt, what is happening today in Iraq is genocide.

Today, there are at least a half-million excessive deaths in Iraq since the US invasion in March 2003. The actual death toll maybe between one million and two million. And, it continues to go up. There are about two million refuges outside the country of Iraq, and another two million internally displaced. Their homes are still being invaded.

Their children are still being killed by US forces.

Their homes are still being destroyed by airstrikes.

They often live in tents with no water, electricity, jobs, health care or education for the children.

AND FOR WHAT, FOR WHAT, IS THIS BEING DONE?

And today I read a report called “Collateral Genocide” written by Mike Ferner at Online Journal.

He starts his report by discussing what constitutes a genocide:

Two elements are necessary to commit the crime of genocide: 1) the mental element, meaning intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, and 2) the physical element, which includes any of the following: killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; or forcibly transferring children to another group.

Considering that such clear language comes from a UN treaty which is legally binding on our country, things could start getting a little worrisome -- especially when you realize that since our government declared economic and military warfare on Iraq we’ve killed well over one million people, fast approaching two.

He does a short review of what the US-inspired UN sanctions did to Iraq, and that alone would probably qualify for a genocide. But the purpose of this diary is to present some of the facts of what is happening now in Iraq. The water is not drinkable. The unemployment rate is sky-high (this article claims it is three times higher than the great depression). Electricity is available for an hour a day, or maybe on a good day three or four hours a day. Sometimes, there is no electricity for days at a time. The summer temperature is over 110 degrees on a regular basis. The hospitals are not functioning very well. There is often no medicines, no gaze, no sheets for the beds, and sometimes no beds. Patient lie on the floor, the dirty bloody floor. The entire population is overwhelmed with grief and has PTSD.

Mr. Ferner has translated the data for Iraq into US population figures:

Reflect for a minute on the grief brought by a single loved one’s death. Then open your heart to the reality of life if we suffered casualties comparable to those endured by the people of Iraq.

• In the former cities of Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia every single person is dead.
• In Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina and Colorado every single person is wounded.
• The entire populations of Ohio and New Jersey are homeless, surviving with friends, relatives or under bridges as they can.
• The entire populations of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky have fled to Canada or Mexico.
• Over the past three years, one in four U.S. doctors has left the country.
• Last year alone 3,000 doctors were kidnapped and 800 killed.

In short, nobody “out there” is coming to save us. We are in hell.

He finishes by saying this:

Of course our government didn’t intend to commit genocide, it just sort of happened. The Iraqis kept getting in the way while we were trying to complete the mission. Mistakes were made as we were building democracy, but surely no genocide was intended. After all, we are the international deciders of what is and what isn’t genocide, and we know full well that intent is a requirement.

It was only “collateral genocide” and lord knows we did our very best to avoid it.

Did they really do their best to avoid it? I am not that charitable to the bush/cheney administration and the democrats that enable them. It seems to me that they do not care one bit about the suffering of the Iraqi people, to the point that our military is trying to start up a jobs program for Iraqis (by re-opening government run factories) and our State Department insists should remain closed – because they have a different idea of what path Iraq’s economic development should follow. I frankly see NO concern from any of our elected officials about the health care crisis that is engulfing Iraq – with the latest being that the cholera infections have started early this year. Iraqi children are dying by the truck-load – from diarrhea, pneumonia, and birth defects. I have lost track of where I first read this information, but it is without a doubt sickening that our country is letting children CONTINUE to die from easily treated diseases in Iraq.

There is one Representative who is working on Iraq Refugee problems, and that has been written about here at Daily Kos. The vast majority of our elected officials, and the vast majority of Americans, do not know or care about the genocide that they have caused in Iraq.

On the Iraq Today blog, you can find reliable information and comments, and a link to helping Iraqi refugees, who are in dire need of your help.

MAY MERCY COME AND WASH AWAY WHAT WE’VE DONE.