Iraqi Genocide & Iraqi Holocaust (1990-)
Iraqi Genocide & Iraqi Holocaust (1990-).
This site is an Alphabetical Compendium of authoritative, humane statements informing people about the ongoing, US Alliance-imposed Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide that as of December 2010 was associated with post-1990 and post-2003 violent and non-violent avoidable deaths totalling 4.5 million and 2.6 million, respectively, and refugees totalling 5-6 million – an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) which states: “In the present Convention, 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) Deliberately 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.”
Iraqi history 1900-2011.
The following is taken from Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ [updating additions are in dquare brackets]. In the 19th century and pre-WW1, Turkish provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra; 1914-1918, WW1, dismemberment of the Turkish Empire; British invasion in 1914; 1920, Arab revolt suppressed; Treaty of Sèvres made Iraq a British League of Nations Mandate; 1921, Kingdom under Faisal I; 1924, Iraq Assembly reluctantly agreed to British bases and British legislative veto; 1925, first oil concession; 1926, Iraqi government; 1930, 25-year alliance with Britain; 1932, British mandate terminated; Iraq joined League of Nations; 1933, Christian Assyrian revolt suppressed; Faisal I died; 1934, oil exports began; 1941, al-Gaylani ousted pro-British regent for infant Faisal II; defeated by the British; 1943, Iraq declared war on Axis countries; 1948, British demand for extension of the 1930 alliance was rejected by the Iraqi parliament; 1948, member of the Arab League; involved in Israel-Arab war; 1955, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq formed pro-US Baghdad Pact; 1958, Kassem military coup, Faisal II killed; mid-1950s onwards, major Kurdish demands for autonomy; 1962, Kurds seized much of northern Iraq; 1963, coup dominated by socialist, pan-Arabist Ba’ath party; 1968, coup installed Bakr, followed by purges; 1979, accession of Saddam Hussein followed by purges; extremely repressive régime; 1980-1988, Iran-Iraq War; Western weapons and poison gas used by both sides; huge death toll; 1988, poison gas used on Kurdish Halabja; 1990, Iran-Iraq diplomatic relations; 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait; sanctions imposed; 1991, US-led Gulf War; deaths; hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees; Kurdish de facto independence protected by UK-US airpower; 1991, renewed threat to Kuwait; weapons inspection; 2001, 9/11 atrocity prompted US threats (1990-2003 excess mortality and under-5 infant mortality 1.7 million and 1.2 million, respectively; [0.2 million Gulf War violent deaths]); 2003, after extensive UK-US PR build-up involving major lies about Iraqi weapons, Iraq was invaded by US-led Coalition and occupied; no “weapons of mass destruction” found; continuing resistance; Sunnis excluded from Kurdish and Shi’ite dominated indigenous political process; massive death toll (2003-2006 post-invasion excess mortality and under-5 infant mortality 0.5 million and 0.4 million, respectively; post-1990 and post-2003 violent and non-violent avoidable deaths totalling 4.6 million and 2.7 million, respectively, and refugees totalling 5-6 million – an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention).
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Britain (pre-1950); UK, US, Coalition countries (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: UK, US, Coalition countries; post-1950 [1950-2005] excess mortality/2005 population = 5.283m/26.555m = 19.9%; post-1950 [1950-2005] under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 3.446m/26.555m = 13.0%.
Violent deaths, non-violent avoidable deaths, infant deaths and refugees in Iraqi Holocaust & Iraqi Genocide (1990-2011).
As of 20 March 2011, the 8th anniversary of the illegal US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003, excess deaths from the Iraq War since 2003 include 2.6 million violent and non-violent excess deaths of Indigenous Iraqis (4.5 million since 1990; see:
http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010
) and post-2003 US Alliance deaths total 4,758 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).According to the 2006 Revision UN Population Division data, medical literature data, and other authoritative sources, the Iraqi Holocaust has been associated with 1.2 million post-invasion non-violent avoidable deaths; 1.4 million violent post-invasion deaths; and 0.8 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to gross US Coalition violation of the Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demands that an Occupier supplies food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it.” In addition, avoidable deaths under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million, violent deaths in the Gulf War totalled 0.2 million and under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions totalled 1.2 million. Iraqi refugees (both inside and outside Iraq) total 5-6 million.
The ongoing Iraqi Holocaust (1990-2011) involves 1.6 million violent deaths, 2.9 million non-violent excess deaths, 4.5 million violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.0 million under-5 infant deaths, 1.8 million avoidable under-5 year old infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees – an Iraqi Genocide according to the UN Genocide Convention definition of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group“(see:
http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010
). The Iraqi Genocide - still continuing under Nobel Peace Laureate Obama - is of a similar magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).The recent US and US Puppet Iraqi Régime assertions, as reflected in 2008 Revision UN Population Division data, would have us believe that nearly 2 decades of Sanctions, Bombing, War and violent Occupation imposed on Iraq resulted in a steady decline in under-5 year old infant mortality, general death rate and avoidable death rate in Iraq - the US under Obama and the US Puppet Iraqi Régime are involved in horrendous Iraqi Holocaust commission, Iraqi Holocaust denial, Iraqi Genocide commission and Iraqi Genocide denial (see Gideon Polya, “9 January 2010 Formal Complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) re US Alliance Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Muslim, Aboriginal, Biofuel and Climate Genocides”: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 ). .
Since 1990 the US Alliance has imposed Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that “In the present Convention, 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) Deliberately 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.”
Horrendous global deaths from the US Alliance so-called War on Terror.
US president launched the so-called War on Terror in October 2001 by the invasion of Afghanistan a month after the 9-11 atrocity (3,000 people killed). The pathologically dishonest Bush Administration (see: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/ ) alleged that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity but its “official version” of 9/11 had no Iraqis or Afghans involved in the atrocity and indeed the official FBI Most Wanted website does not accuse Osama bin Laden of involvement in 9/11: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm .
Further, the discovery of unexploded nano-thermite high explosive in all samples of World Trade Center dust examined by Professor Niels Harrit and colleagues (Chemistry Department, 9-Nobel-Laureate University of Copenhagen) (see Niels Harrit et al, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2, pp.7-31: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM ) clearly implicates the US Government itself in the 9-11 atrocity (most likely with surrogate Israeli involvement) (see: “9 January 2010 Formal Complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) re US Alliance Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Muslim, Aboriginal, Biofuel and Climate Genocides”: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 ).
While Muslim non-state terrorists are allegedly responsible for the deaths of 7,000 Western civilians in the last 40 years (this including 2,000 Israelis violently occupying Palestinian lands and ignoring the most probable US and Israeli responsibility for the 3,000 people murdered on 9/11), the violent and non-violent excess deaths associated so far (2009) with the Bush wars (1990-2009) now total 9-11 million of which post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan total 2.5 million and 4.5 million, respectively (for a detailed accounting see “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead [9-11 million] in Bush wars [1990-2009]”.
1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
UN GENOCIDE CONVENTION. "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group"
UN Genocide Convention.
“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948.
Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
Article 4
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
Article 5
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.
Article 6
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
Article 7
Genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition.
The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.
Article 8
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.
Article 9
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article 10
The present Convention, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall bear the date of 9 December 1948.
Article 11
The present Convention shall be open until 31 December 1949 for signature on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State to which an invitation to sign has been addressed by the General Assembly.
The present Convention shall be ratified, and the instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
After 1 January 1950, the present Convention may be acceded to on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State which has received an invitation as aforesaid.
Instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Article 12
Any Contracting Party may at any time, by notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, extend the application of the present Convention to all or any of the territories for the conduct of whose foreign relations that Contracting Party is responsible.
Article 13
On the day when the first twenty instruments of ratification or accession have been deposited, the Secretary-General shall draw up a proces-verbal and transmit a copy of it to each Member of the United Nations and to each of the non-member States contemplated in Article 11.
The present Convention shall come into force on the ninetieth day following the date of deposit of the twentieth instrument of ratification or accession.
Any ratification or accession effected subsequent to the latter date shall become effective on the ninetieth day following the deposit of the instrument of ratification or accession.
Article 14
The present Convention shall remain in effect for a period of ten years as from the date of its coming into force.
It shall thereafter remain in force for successive periods of five years for such Contracting Parties as have not denounced it at least six months before the expiration of the current period.
Denunciation shall be effected by a written notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Article 15
If, as a result of denunciations, the number of Parties to the present Convention should become less than sixteen, the Convention shall cease to be in force as from the date on which the last of these denunciations shall become effective.
Article 16
A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any Contracting Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General.
The General Assembly shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such request.
Article 17
The Secretary-General of the United Nations shall notify all Members of the United Nations and the non-member States contemplated in Article 11 of the following:
(a) Signatures, ratifications and accessions received in accordance with Article 11;
(b) Notifications received in accordance with Article 12;
(c) The date upon which the present Convention comes into force in accordance with Article 13;
(d) Denunciations received in accordance with Article 14;
(e) The abrogation of the Convention in accordance with Article 15;
(f) Notifications received in accordance with Article 16.
Article 18
The original of the present Convention shall be deposited in the archives of the United Nations.
A certified copy of the Convention shall be transmitted to all Members of the United Nations and to the non-member States contemplated in Article 11.
Article 19
The present Convention shall be registered by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the date of its coming into force.”
[1]. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html .
9-11 TRUTH MOVEMENT. 9/11 Truth Movement statement on the Iraqi Holocaust on 7th anniversary of illegal invasion
The 9/11 Truth Movement is “comprised of 9/11 survivors and family members, building professionals, scientists, first responders, pilots, firefighters, police, scholars, lawyers, journalists and other media professionals, artists, politicians, intelligence and military personnel, whistle blowers, dedicated activists, citizens and many more. Every year since September 11, 2001, millions of people from around the world take time to investigate the discrepancies of the Bush Administration’s official story including reports such as the 9/11 Commission Report and the FEMA and NIST reports. As doubts grow and important questions remain unanswered, more people join the 9/11 truth movement each year… The questions we ask are serious. 9/11 has been used as a pretext for wars resulting in the death of far too many innocent men, women and children. It has also become the reason for unconstitutional laws like the PATRIOT ACT and other bills that were forced onto a blind and manipulated U.S. Congress. To ensure the word justice has a meaning for the generations to come, we demand a new and real independent 9/11 investigation” (see: http://world911truth.org/911-truth-network ) .
9/11 Truth Movement statement on the Iraqi Holocaust on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the illegal and war criminal invasion of Iraq (2010): “The Iraqi Holocaust. Today, March 20th, 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. When we fight for 9/11 truth, we fight for peace and justice. May our work bring some hope to those who still suffer from this illegal war. Spread this article far and wide.The following succinct letter is being sent to media world wide on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the US alliance invasion of Iraq. It is the 7th anniversary of the illegal and war criminal invasion of Iraq by US, UK and Australian forces on 20 March 2003. What has been the human cost? As of 20 March 2010 post-invasion violent deaths in Occupied Iraq total 1.4 million (according to the eminent US Just Foreign Policy). Post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.8 million and post-invasion non-violent excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.1 million (based on 2006 revision data from the UN Population Division), this being identical to an independent estimate from under-5 infant deaths. Gulf War violent deaths totalled 0.2 million and excess deaths and under- 5 infant deaths under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million and 1.2 million, respectively. In the period 1990-2010 Iraqi violent deaths totalled 1.6 million, non-violent excess deaths from deprivation totalled 2.8 million, under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention) totalled 2.0 million and refugees totalled 5-6 million. This is an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as per Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (cf WW2 Jewish Holocaust, 5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation). STOP THE ILLEGAL WAR. PROSECUTE WAR CRIMINALS.” [1].
[1]. The 9-11 Truth Movement, “The Iraqi Holocaust”, World for 9-11 Truth, 20 March 2010: http://world911truth.org/the-iraqi-holocaust/ .
9 January 2010 Formal Complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) re US Alliance Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Muslim, Aboriginal, Biofuel and Climate Genocides
9 January 2010 Formal Complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) re US Alliance Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Muslim, Aboriginal, Biofuel and Climate Genocides.
The following detailed formal complaint was sent on 8 January 2010 to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over various US Alliance involvements in ongoing genocidal atrocities against Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Muslims, and Australian Aboriginals, and against the Developing World in general through the worsening Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide.
Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo,
Information and Evidence Unit,
Office of the Prosecutor,
Post Office Box 19519,
2500 CM The Hague, The Netherlands.
Dear Sir,
Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re various US Alliance, NATO, EU, Australia, New Zealand and UK involvement in Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Muslim Genocide, Aboriginal Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide.
A. Introduction.
1. Holocaust is the destruction of a large number of people. The term was first applied to a WW2 atrocity by Jog in 1944 (Jog, N.G. (1944), Churchill’s Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay)) in relation to the “forgotten” man-made Bengal Famine (6-7 million Indians - many of them Muslims in a "forgotten" WW2 Muslim Holocaust - deliberately starved to death by the British, 1943-1945). It was subsequently applied to the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) which was part of a horrendous WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed in the Nazi German Lebensraum genocide).
2. Genocide is very precisely defined in International Law as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” as set out by Article 2 of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention: “In the present Convention, 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) Deliberately 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”
(see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/
genocide/convention.html ).
3. Key to this internationally agreed, legal definition of genocide is “intent”. Thus the “intent’ of a serial killer is not abolished by his refusal to confess or otherwise explicitly declare “intent” – it can be clearly established simply by the evidence of sustained, remorseless actions leading to serial deaths. Likewise, for example, the sustained, remorseless actions (and inactions) of the British caused the deaths of 6-7 million Indians in the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust (see the transcript of the 2008 BBC broadcast involving myself, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and other scholars: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot
/bengalfamine_programme.html ); and the sustained British deprivation of its Indian subjects in the 2 century British Indian Holocaust (1.5 billion excess deaths, or about 1.8 billion if including those in the Native States, and about 20% of them Muslims) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26713/42/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/31306/42/ ).
Any interpretation that denies sustained, remorseless actions (and inactions) leading to “destroy[ing], in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” as evidence for genocide simply states, as a corollary, that any country, group or government can sustainedly and remorselessly effect such destruction provided it does not confess to any “intent” to do so.
4. Violent deaths and non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease. As spelled out in great detail in my book “Body Count. Avoidable mortality since 1950” (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ ) and in a March 2009 article on Occupied Afghanistan excess deaths (see “Obama’s Afghan War “: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29546/42/ ), non-violent avoidable deaths (non-violent excess deaths, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that did not have to happen) for a country in a given period is the difference between the observed mortality and the mortality expected for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics.
Whether a civilian person dies from bombs or bullets or from deprivation, the end result is the same and the invader and occupier culpability the same. Indeed in the WW2 Jewish Holocaust 5.6 million Jews died, with 1 in 6 dying from deprivation (see Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London).
Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).
5. A note on the calculation of non-violent avoidable deaths – example, Occupied Afghanistan.
For Occupied Afghanistan in 2005-2010, annual crude death rate in “deaths per 1,000 of population per year” was 19.7 as compared to an average of about 4 for “good” high birth rate Developing countries (e.g. for peaceful, only partially-occupied, impoverished Syria it is 3.4) (see UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2 ).
Accordingly, the “avoidable death rate” for Occupied Afghanistan in 2005-2010 (mid-2005 to mid-2010) is19.7-4.0 = 15.7 deaths per 1000 of population per year .
The average population of Occupied Afghanistan in 2005-2010 was (24.507 million + 29.117 million)/2 = 26.812 million (see UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2 ).
Accordingly, the avoidable deaths in Occupied Afghanistan in the period 2005-2010 = 15.7 avoidable deaths per thousand population per year x 26,812 thousand population x 5 years = 2,104,742 = about 2.1 million.
Application of the same analysis to the period October 2001-December 2009 yields an estimate of 3.4 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan.
6. Active and passive killing and active and passive genocide.
The outstanding bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and the University of Melbourne) has stated that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do” (see: Singer, P. (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (Ecco Press, New York), ppxv-xvi).
An analogy of “passive genocide” in British-ruled Bengal and in the Genocides involving Australia and the US Alliance can be found in the treatment of severely disabled new-born infants. Professor Peter Singer, arguably the most influential living philosopher, has controversially argued for the humane “active euthanasia” of severely disabled infants. At present many experienced hospital doctors will administer pain relief but not sustenance to such infants by way of “passive euthanasia”. However, according to Singer: “Doctors who deliberately leave a baby to die when they have the awareness, the ability, and the opportunity to save the baby’s life, are just as morally responsible for the death as they would be if they had brought it about by a deliberate , positive action.” (see: Kuhse, H. & Singer, P. (1985), Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (Oxford University Press, Oxford)).
The active massacre of Australian Aboriginals in the period from Invasion in 1788 until the late 1920s can be described as “active genocide” but the continuing Aboriginal Genocide through sustained policies of deprivation is no less deadly “passive genocide” and the same analysis can be applied to the Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Muslim Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide in which Australia is also complicit. As outlined below, Australia and the US Alliance countries have grossly violated International humanitarian conventions in deliberately failing to provide life-sustaining requisites to their overseas Subjects.
Natural Law prohibits causing the death of others either actively or passively. International Law prohibits the deliberate killing of civilians either actively or passively (see section (7) below).
7. Geneva Convention and war criminal US Alliance failure to supply life-sustaining requisites to Subject Peoples.
While annual per capita medical expenditure on Indigenous Australians is similar to that for the non-Indigenous Australians, it has been estimated that this expenditure needs to be at least doubled because of the huge morbidity and the remote location of many Aboriginal communities (a personal communication from a medical doctor expert in Aboriginal Health says that it should be tripled). While Australia has been prepared to spend up to 6 million dollars each time to save individual solo yachtspersons who have deliberately placed themselves in danger, it has remorselessly refused to meet its obligations towards Indigenous Australians with a consequent huge excess death rate (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15140/42/ ).
WHO data reveal that the “annual total per capita medical expenditure” (2004) permitted by the US Coalition is $124 (in Occupied Iraq) and $29 (in Occupied Afghanistan) as compared to vastly higher amounts in various US Alliance Occupier countries: $3,122 (Australia), $3,554 (France), $3,328 (Germany), $2,623 (Italy), $3,383 (Netherlands), $2,447 (New Zealand), $2,784 (UK) and $6,714 (the US) (see WHO: http://www.who.int/en/ ; see also: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ). One can now understand why there is such horrendous infant mortality in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan as reported by UNICEF (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) and as summarized below.
In the case of Gaza (described by Catholic Church justice minister, Cardinal Renato Martino, as Israeli’s Gaza Concentration Camp), this part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been under military-applied blockade for 3 years. It can be estimated that 3,600 Occupied Palestinian infants die avoidably every year due to Israeli violation of the Geneva Convention.
The sheer criminality of this failure to supply life-sustaining requisites to Subject people is made clear in Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ):
Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.
The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.
Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.
In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory.
Of course, under international humanitarian conventions Australia has an obligation to supply such requisites to its own citizens as well as to its Subjects through invasion, conquest and forcible occupation of other countries. However it is noteworthy that no Treaty was ever signed by the invading Europeans with the conquered Indigenous Peoples of Australia.
B. Various US Alliance, NATO, EU, Australia, New Zealand and UK involvement in Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Muslim Genocide, Aboriginal Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide.
Details of various US Alliance, NATO, EU, Australia, New Zealand and UK involvements in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Muslim Genocide, Aboriginal Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide, that are the evidential basis of my formal complaint to the International Criminal Court, can be found in a series of carefully researched and extensively documented websites, the contents of which are summarized below together with a summary of national culpabilities. These websites also include documented statements from leading scholars and writers who use the terminology of “holocaust” and “genocide” in relation to these atrocities.
1. Palestinian Holocaust, Palestinian Genocide (0.3 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 0.2 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, 7 million refugees): http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .
Details. In 1880 there were 500,000 Indigenous Arab Palestinians and 25,000 Jews (50% immigrants) in the Holy Land – today there are 5.5 million Indigenous Palestinians in the Holy Land and some 5.5 million Palestinian refugees elsewhere and excluded from their Homeland, which is occupied by 5.5 million Jewish Israelis backed by the US, UK, Canada, the EU and Australia. 1.5 million Israeli Arabs are second class citizens under race-based laws. 4 million abusively imprisoned Occupied Palestinians have essentially no human rights – while the World looks on. In the 2006 Occupied Palestinian Territory elections conducted under Occupier guns, Hamas won 76 seats out of 132 but these Hamas MPs are now overwhelmingly either dead, imprisoned or hiding in the Gaza Concentration Camp and regarded as “terrorists” by the US, UK, Canada, the EU and Australia. UN data reveal that each year Israel is responsible for 3,600 Occupied Palestinian under-5 year old avoidable deaths, 5,700 Occupied Palestinian non-violent avoidable deaths and about 800 violent Occupied Palestinian deaths. The Palestinian Genocide has been associated with 0.3 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 0.2 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, and 7 million refugees. In December 2008- January 2009 the Israelis killed 1,400 Gazans (40% of them children) in reprisals for zero (0) Israeli deaths from Gaza missiles in the previous year. The Palestinian Genocide continues despite numerous UN General Assembly and UN Security Council Resolutions, notably UN Security Council Resolution 252 prohibiting land and property seizure, notably in Jerusalem
Culpability. The ongoing Palestinian Genocide is effected by the race-based, nuclear terrorist, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, colonial state of Israel with US, UK, EU, New Zealand, Canadian and Australian complicity through support that is variously financial, military, diplomatic and/or legislative. Thus the US is a major provider of military aid to Israel and its Security Council veto and support for Israel means that Israel can defy all UN Resolutions with impunity. At the other extreme, Australia has declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization (noting that Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats in the 2006 Occupied Palestinian Territory elections with the US- and Israel-backed Fatah winning 43), permits free passage to Israeli war criminals, makes Muslim religious zakkat alms-giving obligations to Gaza potentially criminal, and has made financial donations towards the ongoing Palestinian Genocide tax deductible.
2. Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide (4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.4 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, 3-4 million refugees plus 2.5 million NW Pakistan Pashtun refugees):
http://sites.google.com/site/afghan
holocaustafghangenocide/ .
Details. As of mid-December 2009, it is estimated from the latest UN Population Division data that in Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths total 3.4 million; post-invasion violent deaths total 1.1 million (assuming expert US-Australian advice that the level of violence has been 4 times lower in the Afghan War than in the Iraq War); post-invasion violent and non-violent avoidable deaths total 4.5 million; and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 2.4 million (90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes in gross violence of the Geneva Convention – Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War demand that an Occupier must supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm ) but according to the WHO (see: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) the “total annual expenditure on health per capita” permitted in Occupied Afghanistan is $29 as compared to $6,714 in Occupier US and $3,122 in Occupier Australia).
There are 3-4 million Afghan refugees plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees generated in NW Pakistan by the war policies of Obama – this carnage involving 4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess Afghan deaths constitutes an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/
sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
The bottom line in any comparative analysis of violent wrongdoing is consequential death. The current "annual death rate" is 7% for Occupied Afghan under-5 year old infants under the US Alliance - as compared to that of 4% (for Poles under the Nazis in WW2), 5% (French Jews under the Nazis and the Nazi-collaborator Vichy régime in WW2), 13% (Australian POWs of the Japanese in WW2) and 19% (Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe) (see “Polish Holocaust (1939-1945)-Afghan Holocaust (2001-)”: http://gpolya.polls.newsvine.com/_news/
2009/09/02/3218030-polish-holocaust-1939-
1945-afghan-holocaust-2001-?groupId=1191 .
Culpability. The ongoing Afghan Genocide is effected by the US Alliance in Occupied Afghanistan and NW Pakistan, this US Alliance involving primarily the US, NATO (notably France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the Netherlands), the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
3. Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide (2.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 0.9 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, 5-6 million refugees; 1990-2009, 4.4 million violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.1 million under-5 infant deaths): http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .
Details. As of December 2009, deaths from the Iraq War since 2003 include 2.5 million violent and non-violent excess deaths of Indigenous Iraqis (4.4 million since 1990; see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34979/42/ ) and post-2003 US Alliance deaths total 4,689 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).
According to the 2006 Revision UN Population Division data, medical literature data, and other authoritative sources, the Iraqi Holocaust has been associated with 1.1 million post-invasion non-violent avoidable deaths; 1.4 million violent post-invasion deaths; and 0.9 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to gross US Coalition violation of the Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demand that an Occupier supplies food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it.” In addition, avoidable deaths under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million, violent deaths in the Gulf War totalled 0.2 million and under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions totalled 1.2 million. Iraqi refugees (both inside and outside Iraq) total 5-6 million.
The ongoing Iraqi Holocaust (1990-2009) involves 1.6 million violent deaths, 2.8 million non-violent excess deaths, 4.4 million violent and non-violent excess deaths, 1.9 million avoidable under-5 year old infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees – an Iraqi Genocide according to the UN Genocide Convention.
Culpability. The ongoing Iraqi Genocide is effected by the US Alliance, most notably the US, UK and Australia (but with involvement of other countries as well). In addition it is estimated that Australian AWB violation of the UN Oil for Food Program under Sanctions had the effect of killing up to about 20,000 Iraqi infants (see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2006/03/08/
124591-australian-greens-senator-exposes-human-
cost-of-awb-iraq-kick-back-scandal-21000-iraqi-infant-deaths ).
4. Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide (billions of avoidable deaths from deprivation and violence in the pre-war European colonial era (1.8 billion avoidable deaths in the British Indian Holocaust, about 20% of them Muslims); 6-7 million Indian deliberately starved to death by the British in the WW2 Bengali Holocaust, the 1943-1945 man-made Bengal Famine, this killing many Muslims and constituting a “forgotten” WW2 Muslim Holocaust; 0.6 billion Muslim avoidable deaths from deprivation in the post-war colonial and post-colonial era, 1950-2005; 9 million violent and non-violent excess deaths in the Palestinian Holocaust, 1948-2010, Iraqi holocaust, 1990-2010, and Afghan Holocaust, 2001-2010; 3 billion Muslims predicted to perish in the Climate Genocide of non-Europeans due unaddressed, man-made global warming, as detailed in section 7 below) : http://sites.google.com/site/
muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .
Further details. Muslims have been subject to horrendous mass murder events, such as the mass murder of the people of Jerusalem by the Crusaders on 15 July 1099 - more than 70,000 dead bodies of Muslim children and women were found in the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem alone. In the13th century the Mongols under Genghis Khan killed millions in Iraq and adjoining. regions. In 1492 millions of Muslims (and Jews) were killed or expelled from Spain, putting an end to the brilliant civilization of Moorish Spain. Millions of Muslims were killed in subsequent centuries due to expansion of the Russian Empire in Asia, the British Empire in Asia and Africa, the French Empire in Asia and Africa, the Spanish Empire in Asia and Africa, the Portuguese Empire in Africa and Asia and the Dutch Empire in South East Asia (principally in what is now Indonesia). For detailed and documented account of these atrocities see Gideon Polya, “Body Count, Global avoidable mortality since 1950) (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007) (for details of the book see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) .
Culpability. Those responsible for the colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial carnage have been European colonial powers. As detailed below in section 7, 73% of post-1751 additional atmospheric CO2 pollution is due to European countries, principally the US, the UK, and other European countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and EU countries also variously complicit in the ongoing Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Genocides.
5. Aboriginal Genocide (Indigenous population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after the invasion in 1788, mainly through violence, dispossession, deprivation and introduced disease; systematic genocidal 20th century policy involving the removal of perhaps 0.1 million children from their mothers; 9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably each year due to egregious neglect): http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .
Details. Australian Aborigines suffered Genocide at the hands of the European invaders in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Indigenous population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after the invasion in 1788, mainly through violence, dispossession, deprivation and introduced disease. The last massacres of Aborigines occurred in the 1920s. Throughout much of the 20th century there was a policy of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their mothers, a systematic genocidal policy involving the removal of perhaps 0.1 million children. This practice ended in the 1970s. However the continued deliberate deprivation of Aboriginal Australians amounts to a White Australian policy of passive genocide.
The “annual death rate” (2003 figures) is 2.2% (for Aboriginal Australians) and 2.4% (for Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory) – as compared to 0.4% (what it should be), 2.5% (for pre-drought sheep in paddocks of Australian sheep farms), and 0.7% (for White Australians). This is happening in one of the richest countries of the world because of deliberate neglect – Australian Aboriginal health services are funded at 50% of what they should be; many Australian Aborigines live in Third World conditions; the “annual under-5 infant death rate” is over 3 times higher for Aborigines than that for White Australians; 1 in 5 Australian Aborigines have diabetes (mostly type 2 diabetes) which has huge attendant problems such as cardiovascular complications, kidney problems and blindness; and the Australian Aboriginal life expectancy is about 20 years less than that for White Australians.
Indeed Monash University diabetologist Professor Paul Zimmet stated recently in relation to the world-wide diabetes epidemic "If we don't do something, there is a real chance that Australia's indigenous community will be wiped out by the end of the century. The world needs to act now if we're to deal with this problem, which threatens to consume world economies and bankrupt health systems. We are dealing with the biggest epidemic in world history."
Culpability. The Aboriginal Genocide is being deliberately, knowingly and remorselessly effected by White Australia, notwithstanding utterly hypocritical declarations of non-racism and love for Indigenous Australians. No Treaty was been signed by the UK or Australia with any of the originally about 500 Indigenous Australian Peoples (260 languages). The Australian Federal Court has found that Aboriginal Genocide is not punishable under National Law although it violates International Law to which Australia is a signatory.
6. Biofuel Genocide (billions of people in the Developing World, many of them Muslims, threatened by Biofuel Famine from huge food price rises due to legislatively mandated use of food to generate biofuel for transport in the US, UK, EU and other places): http://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/home .
Details. Biofuel famine from global food price rises due to competition between cars and people is threatening biofuel genocide of billions of people in the Developing World. As estimated from the latest UN Population Division data, already 22 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease and this is clearly impacted by enormous cereal grain price rises
(see: http://sites.google.com/site
/biofuelgenocide/food-price-rise-1 ).
Culpability. Major culpability for the Biofuel Famine and Biofuel Genocide rests with countries which have variously legislatively mandated use of food-derived biofuel in transport vehicles, notably the US, UK, EU, and Australia (as well as some other countries).
7. Climate Holocaust, Climate Genocide (man-made global warming increasingly impacts the current 22 million annual avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; estimates from top UK climate scientists Dr James Lovelock and Professor Kevin Anderson point to 10 billion avoidable deaths this century due to unaddressed global warming, this including 6 billion infants, 3 billion Muslims in a near-terminal, 21st century Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis): http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
Details. The carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere is already at 390 parts per million (ppm) and CO2 concentration is increasing at about 2 ppm per year; global average temperature is already about 1oC above the pre-industrial and is now increasing at about 0.25 oC per decade. Top climate scientists say that we must reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration to about 300 ppm for a safe and sustainable environment for all people and species (see: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org ).
Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. Already 22 million people die avoidably every year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease – and man-made global warming is already clearly worsening this global avoidable mortality holocaust. However 10 billion avoidable deaths due to global warming this century yields an average annual avoidable death rate of 100 million per year for the 21st century.
Culpability. Collective, national responsibility for this already commenced Climate Holocaust is in direct proportion to per capita national pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases (GHGs). Indeed, fundamental to any international agreement on national rights to pollute our common atmosphere and oceans should be the belief that “all men are created equal”. However reality is otherwise: “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included) (see: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19422 ). Major culpability rests with the US Alliance, NATO, EU, Australia, New Zealand and UK.
C. Summary.
This document represents a formal complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re various US Alliance, NATO, EU, Australia, New Zealand and UK involvement in Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Muslim Genocide, Aboriginal Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide.
The leaders of the US Alliance countries variously involved in these genocidal atrocities notably include George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, George Bush Junior, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Stephen Harper, John Howard, and Kevin Rudd. However a plethora of public servants, military leaders and other national leaders are also involved.
In addition, one notes the overwhelming majority of academics, public servants and journalists who are “accessories after the fact” in relation to these ongoing genocidal atrocities through inaction, ignoring and obfuscation of the immense realities documented above. Thus the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the most liberal and ethical of the Mainstream media in Australia but a Search of the “entire ABC site” reveals a scant and inexplicit 9 items in relation to the term “Aboriginal Genocide”, 3 items relating to the term “Aboriginal Holocaust” and essentially zero (0) items in response to searches for the terms “Palestinian Holocaust”, “Iraqi Holocaust”, “Afghan Holocaust”, “Muslim Holocaust”, “Biofuel Holocaust”, “Climate Holocaust”, “Palestinian Genocide”, “Iraqi Genocide”, “Afghan Genocide”, “Muslim Genocide”, “Biofuel Genocide” and “Climate Genocide”.
I understand that the International Criminal Court may be prepared to make initial investigations of formal complaints by individuals (such as this complaint) but will only act to the fullest extent of its remit in response to formal complaints by National Governments.
The overwhelmingly most devastating future prospect is that current deaths from global warming will remorselessly expand to a 10 billion victim Climate Holocaust and Climate Genocide this century from insufficiently addressed man-made global warming. Countries at major risk from sea level rises due to climate change include island nations in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (some of which face total extinction) and countries with mega-deltas in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia (of which some face catastrophic loss of agriculture and massive population displacements). Such Nations will be receiving copies of this formal complaint and are urged to transmit formal complaints to the International Criminal Court. Formal complaints to the ICC are no doubt to be expected from Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan after the war criminal occupying forces and their Indigenous puppets depart.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia
Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/
ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot
/bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see “Truth , Beauty & Saving the World – Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats”:
http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeacepl
anetmotherchild/truth-beauty-saving-the-world .
ABDULSALAM, Fatih. "US and those running the country" responsible for Iraqi Holocaust
Fatih Abdulsalam is a novelist of Iraqi origin. He resides in London and is a newspaper columnist. He has a Ph.D. in modern literature. His novels include The Discovery of Zaggoura (2000), When the WhaleÂ’s Back Blazes (in Arabic, 1993), and A Suburb for Birds' Memories (1987). His short stories include "The Milk of Oxen" (1999), "The Male of the Mulberry" (1993), "Newton the Sheikh" (1986), and "End of Night. Beginning of Day" (1982). The author has also written books of literary criticism, including Addressing Literature in a Countryside Personality (2001) and Dialogue in Stories (1999) (see: http://www.amazon.com/When-Whales-Blazes-Fatih-Abdulsalam/dp/1587361558).
Fatih Abdulsalam writing about the ongojng Iraqi Holocaust (2010): "Arab media’s main concern today is the formation of the new Iraqi government. Otherwise, Iraq would have been a totally neglected topic, particularly by television news and current affairs. Arab television’s main target is paying attention to superficial events. As Iraqi factions squabble over posts, assassinations have taken a new dimension in the country, turning into a phenomenon world has never seen before. The number of Iraqis being assassinated every day is probably ten times as much as that of the early years of U.S. occupation of the country which started in 2003. There is lack of responsibility towards what is happening in Iraq. The U.S. and those ruling the country are the first to blame for this lack of responsibility. Why all this silence towards what is happening inside Iraq? The Arabs are totally reticent. It seems the Arabs would not care even if non-Iraqis are going to form the new government. But it is totally wrong to pay lip-service to what is happening in Iraq. The repercussions of the Iraqi crisis will certainly carry a torrent of hell that will also burn countries. Just image one single day of killings that take place in Iraq. It is of course very difficult even to imagine such a situation. Only Iraqis have demonstrated that they are the type of human beings capable of tolerating these conditions. But for how long? It might not be possible even for Iraqis to bear their own holocaust for ever while their rulers look on from their lofty stands." [1].
[1]. Fatih Abdulsalam, "The Iraqi Holocaust", Azzaman, 4 October 2010: http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-10-04\kurd.htm .
AHMED, Nafeez Mosaddeq. “The Iraqi Holocaust: 90 years of imperial genocide”
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of “Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq” (New Society, 2003) and executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development (www.globalcrisis.org.uk) in London. He teaches globalisation, empire and international relations at Brunel and Sussex Universities in the UK (see: http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_iraqi_holocaust_90_years_of_imperial_genocide/ ).
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, “The Iraqi Holocaust: 90 years of imperial genocide” (2007): “We hear a lot about the “new” imperialism these days. Indeed, it’s become somewhat of an intellectual fad. Pundits, political commentators, and even professors have been busy debating the “new” Anglo-American empire. The one that spontaneously burst into existence sometime after 9/11, probably around the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Volumes of academic verbiage along with pages of distilled analytical wisdom are poured into efforts to try and understand whether this “new” empire is good or bad for the world. Occasionally, we get a little bit of criticism of the failures of Bush and his neoconservative ideologues. Consistently left out of the debate is, of course, the existence of an overwhelmingly enormous Elephant occupying the Living Room of intellectual freedom.
What is this Elephant, and from whence does it come?
This Elephant symbolises that rather difficult subject matter known as the Brute Facts of History, the absence of which is what permits mainstream commentators to pontificate endlessly in a manner that serves not to illuminate, but to obscure.
Ignoring the Brute Facts of History, unfortunately, is integral to Western political culture. It permits a war for oil and power based on genocide to be paraded as exporting democracy and protecting security; it allows the systematization and globalization of mass death to be legitimized as necessary violence in the service of life itself. Western political culture survives on such methods of misinformation. For suppressing History is precisely how Western imperial power legitimizes its violence.
It is this systematic incapability to practice serious, sustained self-critique and self-reflection that prevents our societies from envisioning what we have been doing in Iraq as it truly is. For what we have perpetrated, and continue to perpetrate, is no less than a protracted 90-year Holocaust.” [1].
[1]. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, “The Iraqi Holocaust: 90 years of imperial genocide”, New Left Project, 15 December 2007: http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_iraqi_holocaust_90_years_of_imperial_genocide/ .
ALI, Tariq. "[It] would, if some other country were doing it, be labelled genocide"
Tariq Ali (born 21 October 1943) is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, commentator and author of numerous books (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ali ). .
Tariq Ali on the Fifth Anniversary of the March 2003 US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq (2008): “Now we know the exact costs of war and occupation. It has cost the United States and its allies three trillion dollars to kill one million dead Iraqis, wound a million more and drive two million Iraqis out of their country as refugees. The human cost of this war would, if some other country were doing it, be labelled genocide. The leaders who went to war would be tried as war criminals, but this is the war of 'western civilization' against Islamo-barbarians, Islamo-fascists and all the other names given to the new enemy. Abusing, defaming, killing Muslims is now calmly accepted in Euro-American culture. The people who do this have institutionalised the judeocide of the Second World War as the only universal crime. As long as you denounce that crime, you can commit your own crimes today. This is the world we live in. This is the world of double-standards. Why the surprise when those under fire refuse to accept these standards. A modest proposal. Perhaps the Nobel Prize Committee should institute a new award: the Nobel Prize for War Crimes.”. [1].
Tariq Ali, Statement on the Fifth Anniversary of the March 2003 US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq, Brussells Tribunal, Messages to the People (March 2008): http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm .
AL-KUBAISY, Omar. Eminent Iraqi Cardiologist's Speech in the European Parliament on Occupied Iraq horror
Dr Omar Al-Kubaisy is an eminent Iraqi cardiologist (see: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/AlKubaisy180309.htm ).
Dr Omar Al-Kubaisy, Speech in the European Parliament (18 March 2009):
“BISMILLAH AL RAHMAN AL RAHEEM
The Honourable Ms. Luisa Morgantine, Vice-President of the European Parliament,
Members of the European Parliament
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Iraq, ladies and gentlemen, with its wealth and its generosity, attracted many peoples and ethnicities over the ages, as a result of which the aforesaid elements have made up a mosaic of the people. It has been inhabited by peoples of numerous different nationalities, ethnicities and religions in security and peace, as well as compatibility, harmony and stability. In spite of the fact that it has experienced numerous foreign waves of invasions, and large attempted invasions, desirous of its great wealth and its geopolitical strategic position over the ages. Iraq has come out of these experiences after fighting to the death and defending its land and territory to emerge victorious, united and unified.
I, an experienced doctor and cardiac specialist, who is experienced in the treatment of heart disease and who has served in his specialty in The State of Iraq for the past 4 decades, stand in your presence and addresses you. I have lived with and through the rule of several successive governments and political regimes which you know. I haven't any particular party or political fealty and affiliation. My people as well as my students and my colleagues in Iraq bare witness to my service in the medical, health and military and civilian medical services fields, professionally as well as academically. I specialized and trained in European hospitals in England, Italy, Ireland, France and here in Belgium, specializing in heart disease during the critical periods of the long war and the chocking embargo. I transferred the most up to date technical skills and research you had achieved in the cardiac field in order to benefit Iraq's patients as well as its doctors at a time when Iraqis suffered from the scourge of a technical, scientific and economic embargo which lasted for 13 years; I also witnessed the invasion of Iraq and when I also saw with my own two eyes, on the 9th and 10th April, 2003, how the invading tanks invaded my cardiac center and burned, looted and plundered the largest center for cardiac surgery in the center of Baghdad in plain sight of the entire world, for it to be left open for further plunder for many days to come under the invader's auspices.
In this center we used to perform 8 open heart surgeries on Iraqi adults and children, daily. European doctors from England, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain and Germany volunteered their work there as a humanitarian contribution to the center. I recall a telephone call from a colleague from the South of France who had worked in the past with us in the Center, when Baghdad and the area in which the center is situated was undergoing heavy aerial bombardment, during the invasion, begging me to leave the center with the rest of my colleagues in order to escape because the center was a target, as he seemed to believe from the direct satellite pictures. I remember when tears poured down my cheeks whilst watching the Cardiac Center burn and I was screaming at the commanding officer of the group which supervised the operation from the top of a tank, saying to "me stop your tears", we will build you a greater, larger and more up to date Center.
Gentlemen, Members of the European Parliament and Distinguished audience, when my colleagues and medical students in Iraq knew that I was going to be present amongst you, I was asked by their Union which was lately formed and carries a membership of more than 350 doctors, to carry forth their concerns and suffering as a result of the seriously deteriorated health situation in Iraq; their letter which arrived 2 days before my arrival, here, is in my possession. I left Iraq after continuing to work and restore parts of the Center with my colleagues, up to 5th March, 2005, when I received a letter threatening to liquidate and kill me in company with 10 other colleagues who are all cardiac specialists, should we not leave Iraq before this date. Its letters still follow me like ghosts and the style in which it was written still fills me with horror and pain.
Gentlemen, before the invasion and despite the cruel embargo, there were 18 Faculties of Medicine, six of which were established during the period of the embargo, six dental colleges, four pharmacological faculties, and tens of colleges, institutes and schools of nursing, assistant doctors and aides, in Iraq. The first Faculty of Medicine in Baghdad, was opened in 1927 whose first dean, for a very long time, was the English Doctor, Sanderson, the author of the golden memories of his decades long medical service in Iraq called "10,000 Nights and a Night in Iraq".
In Iraq, we had more than 39,000 hospital beds in efficiently run teaching hospitals, as well as city and town hospitals, as well as medical clinics and centers in the country. We had more than 34,000 registered doctors, 20% of whom were specialists and we used to graduate more than 1,000 doctors annually. We also had 30 Post Graduate Studies of Medical Specialization, granting the Iraqi Board to more than 250 doctors annually. These personnel carried out their duties and responsibilities with great efficiency towards the injured and the disabled during a long war and during the period when Iraq was boycotted scientifically for a very long time.
The Founding Constitution of The Iraqi State in the 1920s granted the right to all Iraqis to free education and state medical treatment and preventative medicine (national health insurance). These services were established throughout Iraq's countryside, villages and cities, throughout all its provinces.
The Educational system in Iraq is British in its method since its establishment, and Europe understands and knows the standards and efficiency of Iraqi doctors as well as the standards of medical teaching and health care in Iraq; a large percentage of these doctors, today, is spread throughout Europe and Britain. The World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNICEF, THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF RED CROSS, and other world organizations evaluated Iraq's achievements positively in vaccination programs, family medical care, general health, child health, rehabilitation of the disabled, birth control and the decline in mortality of the under 5s and of the newly born since 1980, which put an end to the spread of infectious diseases and epidemics such as Cholera, Infantile Paralysis, Meningitis, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough, and Tuberculosis......... In addition to this, Iraq was the foremost in the region in controlling HIV Aids and in fighting addiction and drug abuse as well as establishing School Health Programs and establishing Protective Child and Maternal Centers as well as establishing specialized centers for Fertility, Cancer, Cardiac and Vascular, Orthopedic, Glandular, Radio Isotopes, Nerves, Ophtalmology, Paralysis, Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, Toxicity, Herbal Medicine, and even Acupuncture Treatment.
Iraqi women have contributed heavily to Iraq's medical journey and history, and in addition to all the aforementioned the great success of The Food Program and the Dispensing of Medicines for all chronic disease, as well as the widespread institution of local health clinics and national health insurance. The beneficial use of the Oil For Food and Medicine Program led to mitigating the bad effects of the imposed embargo on Iraq on its medical imports before the occupation.
The method of importing medicines and medical equipment and supplies since the '70s in the last century was successful in importing safe, effective and solid medicines from international, multi national solid, well-known companies, so was the local manufacture of medicine, enjoying the same specifications as that of the imported, both of which succumbed to identical analyses and tests as well as to efficient central registry in order to safeguard society from its possible resultant catastrophic effects. The importation of medicines was limited to the Organization for Medicinal Imports – The Ministry of Health, with scientific supervision of a committee specially chosen for its efficiency.
Gentlemen, Members of the European Parliament and Distinguished Colleagues and Audience:
What did the invasion of Iraq after April 2003 do to the health and humanitarian situation in Iraq, as we commemorate its repugnant and abominable anniversary?
To abbreviate my talk, and because of the constraints of time, leaflets in English will be handed out to you which will give you a clear picture in numbers which reflect the state of my country's health. These numbers are not a figment of the imagination, but numbers extracted from studies and follow up carried out by international professional and humanitarian organizations, institutions and societies, referred to, opposite each fact and number mentioned.
As for the reality on the ground,
CDs will be handed out to you which will, in pictures, reflect and document a little of the suffering of the Iraqi people from the terror of bombardment and bombing, the destruction of infrastructure, violence and terror, the killing which has targeted the people and its doctors, its efficient professionals, and its scientists and academics as well as the forced displacement of people inside and outside Iraq; the suffering of women as well as the widows and the orphans and the spread of crime and sickness and epidemics; the spread of commercialization of bad medicines and addictive drugs; the internally displaced refugee camps; their conditions as well as the condition of the detainees in the prisons of the occupation as well as in those of the imposed authority. However, suffice it for me to state that we are in a country that :
1- 70% of its doctors have emigrated.
2- It has lost more than 5,500 of its scientists and academics, killed, imprisoned, or emigrated.
3- 70% of its hospitals have minimum standard performance, below the required standards in the remnants of what is destroyed, raided, or stolen.
4- 90% of medicines in pharmacies is neither analysed nor is it registered or is bad or corrupt and contaminated; it is brought on to the black market across the borders by ghost companies and a country in which thousands of unlicensed pharmacies and drug depots exist, run by people who are not pharmacists.
5- Its hospitals are used as centers for ethnic and sectarian physical liquidation and terror by the militias.
6- The Ministry of Health is part of a sectarian quota division system that specifies the identity of the minister and the directors general and is controlled by the theocratic political parties as well as the religious and sectarian militias. It is an institution in which financial and administrative corruption prevails and according to the Transparency Committee, more than US Dollars 2 Billion have disappeared as a result of phony ghost contracts and bribery. There is no supervisory or monitoring role to be mentioned by the present parliamentarians who are doctors , but on the contrary, their interference may cause a negative effect on the size and the nature of the financial and administrative corruption.
7- Widespread mental illness and drug addiction and the widespread growth of opium poppy plantations and opium for the first time since occupation.
8- Fixing basic medical records and their exchange with insignificant invoices and lists by the occupation authorities.
9- The spread of epidemics and the loss of credibility of all statistics and the lack of statistics of cholera, Measles, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough, and Toxoplasmosis and a worsening situation of Tuberculosis and HIV Aids.
10- Unsafe imported foods.
11- A rise of incidence in cancer and the nature of the registered cases recently and a rise in cases of congenital malformation as due to the aggravated complications as a result of radioactive pollution and the burning down of the forests and trees. Pollution of rivers, as a result of the collapse of the sewage system, particularly in the Middle and the South caused by the use of Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorous as well as Cluster Bombs, and the prevention by the occupation forces of remedial measures and surveys to discover the polluted locations for sterilization and cleansing.
12- The proliferation of landmines in the sites of the old wars, as well as unexploded ordinance, especially in Basra and in the border areas.
13- loss of cooperation and harmony with the humanitarian and voluntary organizations, such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and others, as well as financial corruption in the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, and the escape outside Iraq, of its President with US protection.
14- Lack of medicines and supplies and, as well as minimal financial allocations, since they did not exceed 4% of the overall budget allocations in the best of cases, and because of rampant corruption.
15- Lack of safe potable water for more than 70% of the population and the continuing lack of electricity as well as the lack of proper sanitation.
16- The highest rates of infant and newborn mortality in the world.
17- In Iraq after the occupation:
More than five million persons displaced.
More than 4 million below poverty level.
Approximately, 2 million widows.
Five million orphans.
Insufficient food for more than eight million.
More than 400,000 detainees and prisoners.
More than 28% of the population is unemployed.
Conclusion:
It is clear that human health and safety is being targeted as well as the Iraqi identity; depersonalization, and interference in the process of education and upbringing in order to weaken and divide Iraq by depletion of its capabilities and its scientific resources which is being implemented by devising a political process and service institutions based on ethnic and sectarian quotas which are inconsistent with efficiency, integrity and reconstruction, transparency and construction.
Distinguished Members of the European Parliament:
Occupation, invasion, murder, terrorism, intimidation, and threats would not put an end to the aggravated violence because of the worsening oppression of peoples and unjustified wars that do not create freedoms and democracy. All that the occupation built as a political process which it alleges to be legitimate, has proved that it is a failure, for the Government of Iraq is classified as the most failed in the world, and the most financially and administratively corrupt. Thus, I urge you to work on expelling the occupation out of Iraq as soon as possible and to allow the Iraqi people and international will to achieve genuine national reconciliation between the patriotic forces and the components of the mosaic of our people and its factions so that it is an Iraqi solution with regional and international support and so that it is not a forced solution as a result of force, invasion and threats.
International law obliges the occupying power to pay equitable compensation for all the damage committed after the occupation while the country was under its patronage. We also hope that all those involved in all the political administrations formed during the occupation, be made accountable and tried for their planning for, and execution of the invasion of Iraq, without any justification. Your stance with the will and aspirations of the ill-fated Iraqi People is required and is basic for what it expresses in its message of justice and support for all the oppressed peoples, in opposition to and a cessation of all lethal wars and all occupation and imperialistic projects in the world, for they will only contribute to further violence, tension and political and economic instability which threaten the world today, with choking choking crises as well threatening the heart of humanity and the achievements of the peoples of the world.
Finally, please accept from our people and ourselves, words of the deepest gratitude, of thanks and of praise as I also ask of The Brussels Tribunal for helping in granting me this opportunity.
Dr. Omar Al – Kubaisy
Brussels, Belgium.
March 18th, 2009. [1, 2].
[1]. Dr Omar Al-Kubaisy, “Speech in the European Parliament”, Brussells Tribunal, 18 March 2009: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/AlKubaisy180309.htm .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “The Forgotten Iraqi Genocide, Iraqi cardiologist’s Speech to European Parliament”, MWC News, 4 April 2009: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29682/42/ .
ALWAN, Taher. "Peace to Baghdad" poem - Stop the War!
Dr Taher Alwan is an Iraqi poet, writer and film producer. Dr. Taher Alwan- born in Baghdad, Iraq, currently living in Brussels Belgium. He is an cademic, film producer, journalist, and human rights activist . He is also a published writer of novels, short stories, poetry and textbooks and was formerly professor of Cinema at Baghdad University . (see: http://taheralwan.blogspot.com/ ).
Taher Alwan, poem on the 5th anniversary of the US Alliance invasion of Iraq: “Peace to Baghdad”.
No one is going to Baghdad
No moon is lighting up its nights
No sun is brightening up its days
Its children are orphans
Its women are sad
Its flowers are withered
Baghdad is exhausted by the war
Five years after March 2003
Five years of destruction and sadness
The voices of the mosques cry out:
The bells of the churches ring:
The chimes of the temples sound:
Stop the War!
Stop the massacres!
Stop the rivers of blood!
Give the smile back to Iraqi children!
Give the land to its people!
Stop the War!
Stop the killing!
Bring back Peace!
[1].
[1]. Taher Alwan, “Peace to Baghdad” poem as statement for Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Brussells Tribunal, March 2008: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm .
BURNHAM et al, The Lancet. Huge death toll from violence in Occupied Iraq
Drs Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts are medical epidemiologists who published a paper in the top medical journal the Lancet revealing the horrendous post-invasion deaths from violence in US Alliance-occupied Iraq (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties ). This study expanded on a previous survey, came from top US public health schools and was published in a top, peer-reviewed medical journal but attracted holocaust-denying hostility. Numerous Australian medical experts signed a letter testifying to the professionalism of these humanitarian researchers (see “The Iraq deaths study was valid and correct”, The Age, 21 October 2006: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-iraq-deaths-study-was-valid-and-correct/2006/10/20/1160851135985.html ). This data was confirmed by a UK survey conducted by the UK ORB (Opinion Research Business) commercial organization (see: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88 ).
Dr Gilbert Burnham and colleagues on post-invasion mortality in Occupied Iraq (2006): “BACKGROUND: An excess mortality of nearly 100 000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003-September, 2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate. METHODS: Between May and July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates, with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from these households was gathered. FINDINGS: Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5.5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4.3-7.1), compared with 13.3 per 1000 people per year (10.9-16.1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979-942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2.5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369-793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire. INTERPRETATION: The number of people dying in Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death, although deaths from car bombing have increased.” [1].
[1]. Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, Les Roberts, “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey”, Lancet, 2006 Oct 21;368(9545):1421-8: http://www.jhsph.edu/bin/c/e/Burnham_2006-Iraq2_Lancet.pdf and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17055943 .
CEOSI. US Occupation: over 1 million Iraqis killed & 5 million Iraqi refugees
CEOSI Campaña Estatal contra la Ocupación y por la Soberanía de Iraq = Spanish Campaign Against Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq ) opposes US occupation of Iraq (see: http://www.nodo50.org/iraq/index.html ).
CEOSI statement for the Brussells Tribunal Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq (March 2008): “... One million Iraqis dead and five million Iraqi refugees and displaced
A new study published in January 2008 by the British company Opinion Business Research (ORB), in collaboration with the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS), an independent Iraqi institution, estimated that over one million Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of the occupation, a figure 10 times higher than official figures. The new study confirms the assessment made by two previous studies conducted by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, USA, and published in the medical journal The Lancet, and that the occupiers and their allies have sought to discredit. All studies consider the actions of occupation forces as the main cause of violent death in Iraq, both in absolute and relative terms.
In addition to over one million dead, the US occupation of Iraq has created the largest and fastest growing global refugee crisis in post-World War II memory, inclusive of the Palestinian exodus and the genocide in Rwanda. In terms of numbers, Iraq is first in the world, and ahead of Colombia. At least 2.5 million Iraqis have been internally displaced —2,000 per day— while 2.2 million more are refugees in neighbouring countries, particularly in Syria, representing a burden on host state resources that inevitably generates tension.
The causes of the exodus of the Iraqi population are overlapping: massive military operations of the occupation and the systematic destruction of infrastructure; the deterioration of basic living conditions due to the destruction of the state; rampant corruption and the strengthening of local mafias; and sectarian violence instigated from 2005 by the security services, militias and death squads linked to forces comprising the collaborating government in Iraq with the encouragement —or at least consent— of the occupation...” [1].
[1]. CEOSI statement for the Brussells Tribunal Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq (March 2008): http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm .
DOUGLAS, Ian. US has committed and sponsored the crime of genocide in Iraq
Dr Ian Douglas was a visiting professor of political science at An-Najah University, Nablus, Palestine, and is Coordinator of the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq (see: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/NotesOnGenocideInIraq.pdf and http://www.usgenocide.org/ ).
Ian Douglas on Iraqi Genocide (2007): “The United States has committed and sponsored the crime of genocide in Iraq. Responsibility for genocide rests on specific intent and given or probable consequences of actions. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was the culmination and intensification of a consistent US policy, spanning over 17 years, of destroying Iraq as a national and state entity. The United States attempted and succeeded to destroy the state if Iraq, but cannot succeed in its attempt to destroy the nation of Iraq”. [1]
[1]. Ian Douglas, “US genocide in Iraq”, June 2007: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/NotesOnGenocideInIraq.pdf .
EASTER MESSAGE – Stand up for Humanity
Gideon Polya, “Easter Message – Stand up for Humanity”, MWC News, 17 April 2006.
Easter Message – Stand up for Humanity
NINETY YEARS AGO the Irish rebelled against the British in the Easter Rising. The rebellion was short-lived and Irish insurgents and leaders were caught and hanged by the British. Notable among these was SIR ROGER CASEMENT, a noble humanitarian who – like E. Morel – had “blown the whistle” on Belgian atrocities in the Congo (where some 10 million had died as a result of appalling Belgian rubber-collection atrocities).
The Easter Rebellion was “unsuccessful” at the time but 6 years later Ireland became independent. Similarly, hanging Sir Roger Casement did not stifle his spirit. The humanitarianism of Sir Roger Casement lives on and periodically decent people everywhere are profoundly moved by courageous individuals who stand up for humanity – true heroes such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Raoul Wallenberg, Hugh Thompson, Dr Rafil Dhafir and, most recently, Australian medical doctor, Dr Malcolm Kendall-Smith.
DR MALCOLM KENDALL-SMITH is an Australian hero and humanitarian. An Australian doctor in the British Royal Air Force (RAF), Dr Kendall-Smith has been decorated for previous tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. However Dr Kendall-Smith has now been jailed for refusing to participate further in the illegal Iraq War. He argued that the UK-US-led invasion of Iraq was illegal and “on a par with Nazi Germany”. The post-invasion under-5 infant mortality and excess mortality in Occupied Iraq now total 0.4 million and 0.5 million, respectively (see MWC News ). International legal experts have indicated that the UK-US-led invasion of Iraq was indeed illegal but the military panel thought otherwise and sentenced Dr Kendall-Smith to 8 months jail and dismissed him from the RAF (see: here and here ).
DR RAFIL DHAFIR, an Iraqi American medical doctor and specialist oncologist, was sentenced in 2005 to 22 years imprisonment as a result of sending food and medical supplies to Iraq during the Sanctions period. It can be readily estimated from the latest UN infant mortality figures that the Iraqi under-5 infant mortality under Sanctions totalled 1.2 million in the period 1990-2003 and have totalled 0.4 million post-invasion. Dr Dhafir is the only Honorary Member of the distinguished Brussells Tribunal humanitarian organization
HUGH THOMPSON was a US helicopter pilot who heroically intervened to save Vietnamese civilians from being massacred by US soldiers at My Lai, Vietnam, on 16 March 1968. He subsequently reported the My Lai massacre - this eventually lead to public exposure of the atrocity by Seymour Hersh and the conviction of Lieutenant William Calley for the massacre of 500 unarmed civilians. This decorated war hero (Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and Soldier’s Medal) died of cancer in January 2006 (see: here ).
RAOUL WALLENBERG was a Swedish diplomat who heroically helped save the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi genocide in 1944. He disappeared after the Soviet Red Army liberated Budapest and is believed to have died in the Soviet Gulag system in Siberia. A bust of Raoul Wallenberg at a very busy intersection in Melbourne, Australia, is a continuing reminder to everyone of our duty to stand up for humanity (see: here ).
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER was a German Protestant pastor and theologian who stood up to the Nazis. He helped Jews escape to Switzerland and eventually became involved in the Abwehr (Military Intelligence Office) plot to remove Hitler. He was incarcerated in a concentration camp and eventually hung on 9 April 1945, one month before the end of the Second World War in Europe (see: here and here ).
Both Dr Dhafir and Dr Kendall-Smith are still alive. They are both medical doctors who have been imprisoned in Western democracies (the US and the UK, respectively) for standing up against horrendous abuse of humanity by the Anglo-American Coalition in Iraq. The Nazi analogy adduced by Dr Kendall-Smith in his defence is germane. The Nazis killed 1.5 million Jewish children during World War 2. So far, the post-1990 Iraqi infant mortality totals 1.6 million and the post-2003 infant mortality totals 0.4 million - 90% of these deaths have been AVOIDABLE and have occurred through the non-provision by the Occupying Coalition of the life-preserving requisites demanded by the Geneva Conventions. The under-5 infant mortality in Iraq (post-1990) and Afghanistan (post-2001) have been 1.6 million and 1.4 million, respectively, and now total 3.0 million (see MWC News for the latest UN and UNICEF mortality figures ). How many infants have to be murdered before the world cries “enough is enough”?
Decent people around the world should be inspired by these examples. Decent people living in INTERNALLY decent democratic societies with freedom of speech (such as those of the war criminal Coalition countries) are obliged to stand up for humanity - they will not be imprisoned, tortured or killed for simply stating the obvious, that “thou shall not kill” and that mass killing of “enemy infants” is utterly repugnant and unforgivably beyond the Pale. Silence kills and silence is complicity – in the face of horrendous abuses of humanity we are obliged to INFORM everyone and to AVOID (where possible) any personal or business dealings with those responsible.
FREEZE, Jacob. US Occupier responsible for Iraqi Holocaust
Jacob Freeze is a humanitarian American photographer, artist, writer and commentator (see: http://jacobfreeze.com/ ).
Jacob Freeze on the Iraqi Holocaust (2007): “The best current estimate of the number of Iraqis who have been killed in consequence of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq is 1,200,000. This figure is consistent with the earlier estimate of 655,000 published in the Lancet in October 2006, if some account is taken of the intervening orgy of sectarian killing.
The responsibilty for all this death belongs to the United States, as a matter of international law. Kofi Annan's summary of the relevant articles of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Hague Convention of 1907 is perfectly clear: "In any area under military occupation, responsibility for the welfare of the population falls on the occupying power."
I call it a Holocaust because no other word does justice to the magnitude of this abomination.” [1].
[1]. Jacob Freeze, “Iraqi Holocaust”, Daily Kos, 3 October 2007: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/3/143112/569 .
GALEANO, Eduardo. Victoria China Opium War for "free trade", Bush Iraq Oil War for "freedom to lie"
Eduardo Galeano (born 1940) is a famed Uruguayan writer, novelist, journalist and historian (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano ).
Eduardo Galeano statement for the Brussells Tribunal Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq (March 2008): “In Sum. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the murder of China deserved to be called The Opium War. Victoria, the drug trafficking queen, forced dope on the country in the name of the freedom to trade. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the murder of Iraq deserved to be called The Oil War. George W. Bush, more pipeline than president, crushed the country in the name of the freedom to lie.” [1].
[1]. Eduardo Galeano statement for the Brussells Tribunal Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq (March 2008): http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm .
GENEVA CONVENTION. Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War: Occupier must supply life-sustaining requisites "To the fullest extent of the means available to it "
Dr Gideon Polya summary of the carnage in Iraq and the Muslim World from violent deaths and non-violent excess deaths from deprivation due to the US Alliance (5 December 2009): “Obama is complicit in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide, these atrocities being associated, so far, with post-invasion non-violent excess deaths of 0.3 million, 1.0 million and 3.2 million, respectively; post-invasion violent deaths of 11,000, 1.3 million and 1.0 million, respectively (the latter figure assuming the conservative US adviser estimate that violence in Afghan War has been 4 times lower than in the Iraq War); post-invasion under-5 infant deaths of 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.3 million, respectively; and refugees totalling 7 million, 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively, with a further 2.5 million refugees from NW Pakistan generated under Obama war policies – a Palestinian Holocaust, Iraqi Holocaust and Afghan Holocaust and indeed a Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention.
Indeed the Iraqi Genocide (1990-2009) involves 4.2 million violent and non-violent excess deaths and 1.8 million under-5 infant deaths as compared to the Afghan Genocide (2001-2009) involving 4.2 million violent and non-violent excess deaths and 2.3 million under-5 infant deaths, with the carnage of non-violent avoidable deaths under occupation due to US Alliance refusal to supply life-sustaining food and medical supplies demanded unequivocally of an Occupier “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Indeed WHO informs us that the total annual per capita health expenditure permitted by the US Occupier in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan total $124 and $29, respectively , as compared to $6,714 in the US. [3].
The violent and non-violent avoidable deaths in both the Iraqi Genocide (4.2 million dead) and the Afghan Genocide (4.2 million dead) are of a similar magnitude to the death toll in the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million, dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation).
Indeed the current "annual death rate" for Occupied Afghan under-5 year old infants under the US Alliance is 7% - as compared to that of 4% (for Poles under the Nazis in WW2), 5% (French Jews under the Nazis and the Nazi-collaborator Vichy régime in WW2), 13% (Australian POWs of the Japanese in WW2) and 19% (Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe)” (see Gideon Polya, “Peace Laureate Obama expands Afghan War. Obama lying by omission and commission”, MWC News, 5 December 2009 : http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34834/42/ ).
This US Empire carnage is due to UK, US, Australian, Coalition, Israeli and NATO violation of the Geneva Conventions which demand that Occupiers must do everything in their power to keep their Conquered subjects alive. Thus Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War state:
“Article 55
To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.
The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.
Article 56
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.
In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory. “ [1].
[1]. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm .
HALLIDAY, Denis. Former top UN official on genocidal Sanctions, "intent to kill" & Iraqi Genocide
Dennis Halliday (born, Ireland, 1941) has an MA in Economics, Geography and Public Administration from Trinity College Dublin and was the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from September 1, 1997, until 1998. He resigned after 34 years with the UN, including being UN assistant secretary-general, over the Sanctions imposed on Iraq, characterizing them as “genocide” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Halliday ).
Denis Halliday on Iraqi Genocide in a lecture titled "Sanctions Against Iraq: Consequences and Alternatives," Sept. 24, in Goldwin Smith Hall's Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium. (1999): “"We are now in there responsible for killing people, destroying their families, their children, allowing their older parents to die for lack of basic medicines…" Halliday said during a "We're in there allowing children to die who were not born yet when Saddam Hussein made the mistake of invading Kuwait… For me what is tragic, in addition to the tragedy of Iraq itself, is the fact that the United Nations Security Council member states ... are maintaining a program of economic sanctions deliberately, knowingly killing thousands of Iraqis each month. And that definition fits genocide." [1].
Denis Halliday speech about his resignation from the UN over Iraqi genocide (2002): “I often have to explain why I resigned from the United Nations after a 30 year career, why I took on the all powerful states of the UN Security Council; and why after five years I continue to serve the well being of the people of Iraq. In reality there was no choice, and there remains no choice. You all would have done the same had you been occupying my seat as head of the UN Humanitarian Program in Iraq. I was driven to resignation because I refused to continue to take Security Council orders, the same Security Council that had imposed and sustained genocidal sanctions on the innocent of Iraq. I did not want to be complicit. I wanted to be free to speak out publicly about this crime. And above all, my innate sense of justice was and still is outraged by the violence that UN sanctions have brought upon, and continues to bring upon, the lives of children, families – the extended families, the loved ones of Iraq. There is no justification for killing the young people of Iraq, not the aged, not the sick, not the rich, not the poor. Some will tell you that the leadership is punishing the Iraqi people. That is not my perception, or experience from living in Baghdad. And were that to be the case – how can that possibly justify further punishment, in fact collective punishment, by the United Nations? I don’t think so. And international law has no provision for the disproportionate and murderous consequences of the ongoing UN embargo – for well over 12 long years.” [2].
Denis Halliday in genocidal “intent to kill” in answering the question “Who, in your view, is primarily responsible for the deaths of those 500,000 children under five [under Sanctions]?” (2000): “All the members of the Permanent Security Council, when they passed 1284, reconfirmed that economic sanctions had to be sustained, knowing the consequences. That constitutes ‘intent to kill’, because we know that sanctions are killing several thousand per month. Now, of the five permanent members, three abstained; but an abstention is no better than a vote for, in a sense. Britain and America of course voted for this continuation. The rest of them don’t count because they’re lackeys, or they’re paid off. The only country that stood up was Malaysia, and they also abstained. But you know, by abstaining instead of using your veto, when you are a permanent member you're guilty because you’re continuing something that has this deadly impact. However, I would normally point the finger at London and Washington, because they are the most active in sustaining sanctions: they are the ones who will not compromise. All the other members would back down if London and Washington would change their position. I think that’s quite clear. But unfortunately Blair and Clinton have an almost personal investment in demonising Saddam Hussein. That’s very hard to get out of, they have my sympathy, but they created their own problem. Once you’ve demonised somebody, it’s awfully difficult to turn around and say, ‘Well actually he’s not such a bad guy, he likes kids’. Under the Baath Party regime, they ran a social welfare system in Iraq that was so intense it was almost claustrophobic, and they made damn sure that the average Iraqi was well taken care of, and they did it deliberately to divert them from any political activity and to maintain stability and allow them (Baath Party) to run the country. [US Secretary of State] Madeleine Albright has also fallen into the demonisation hole: her whole career is linked to maintaining this policy, although she didn’t start it.” [3].
Denis Halliday on Iraqi Genocide and petition against mass executions in Occupied Iraq (2010): “Accepting the Gandhi International Peace Award in 2003, I explained my resignation from the United Nations as head of the UN Humanitarian Programme in Iraq at end 1998. I indicated that resignation was necessary because of my refusal to accept Security Council orders that continued to impose genocidal sanctions on the innocent of Iraq. My continuation would have implied my complicity in human catastrophe. And, in addition, my innate sense of justice was outraged — as yours would have been in my position — by the violence that UN sanctions had brought upon the lives and wellbeing of children, families, and the many loved ones of Iraq. There can be no justification for killing the young, the aged, the sick, the rich, the poor anywhere, under any circumstances, least of all by the United Nations.
Some will tell you that the Iraqi leadership was punishing the Iraqi people. That was not my perception or experience when living in Baghdad in 1997-98 and traveling throughout the country. And were that to be the case, how could that possibly justify collective punishment — that is sanctions, by the United Nations? The UN Charter and international law have no provision for the murderous consequences of a UN embargo, over 12 long years in the case of the people of Iraq.
After leaving, sometimes I explained the impact of sanctions to the media, and to university and public meetings by describing Iraqi children as being on death row without hope of reprieve. By the end of 1998, we — the UN — had killed hundreds of thousands without any apparent hesitation on the part of the permanent member states of the Security Council.
The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 has only worsened the overall situation for Iraqi children, women and men. Contrary to what the mainstream media has been and is reporting, a whole nation is being terrorized, killed, driven into exile. The humanitarian situation in Iraq is catastrophic according to the ICRC (The Red Cross) and other international organizations. American imposition of “democracy and freedom” has failed as law, order and economic and social wellbeing is increasingly elusive. Health and educational systems are about to collapse; the human rights situation is disastrous; human security and opportunities have vanished; the fearful, the refugees and the displaced outnumber those enjoying normal lives.
Since the Iraqi government reintroduced capital punishment in 2004, an unknown number of people have been hanged. None of the condemned appears to have had a fair trial. Sadly, the Iraqi judicial system has been deemed by responsible international agencies and human rights organizations to be corrupt, dysfunctional and plagued by sectarianism.
And now the Presidential Council of Iraq has reportedly ratified the death sentences of some 900 detainees languishing on death row. Some 17 of them are confirmed to be women. The apparent collapse of justice in Iraq today needs to be seen in the context of an almost total breakdown of law and order since the US/UK invasion, including the war crimes, atrocities, killing of civilians by invading and occupying US mercenaries and military forces.
I oppose the use of the death penalty wherever it occurs on the grounds that it is contrary to fundamental human rights. The international community that has already totally failed the Iraqi people has a compelling obligation to condemn the appalling human consequences of illegal invasion and occupation, and condemn — surely the Iraqis have suffered enough — one of the highest rates of execution in the world.
Without your voice the deadly increasing spiral of killing will continue. That’s why I join the BRussells Tribunal in denouncing executions. I would very much appreciate it if you would read the following statement against the imminent hanging of 900 detainees: http://brusselstribunal.org/DeathPenalty121209.htm and sign the call to stop these executions and request that the Iraqi government impose a moratorium on the death penalty.
Thank you on behalf of the BRussells Tribunal and all of us who care about justice and human life.” [4].
[1]. Mark Siegal, “Former UN official says sanctions against Iraq amount to “genocide””, Cornell Chronicle, 30 September 1999: http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/99/9.30.99/Halliday_talk.html .
[2]. Denis Halliday quoted in “Denis Halliday”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Halliday
[3]. Denis Halliday, interviewed by David Edwards, “Half a million children under five are dead in Iraq – who is responsible. An interview with Denis Halliday - Former Assistant Secretary-General of The United Nations”, Media Lens, May 2000: http://www.medialens.org/articles/the_articles/articles_2001/iraqdh.htm .
[4]. Denis Halliday, “900 prisoners face summary execution: stop the death penalty in Iraq!”, Brussells Tribunal, Newsletter1, 1-10 January 2010: http://www.brussellstribunal.org/Newsletters/Newsletter1EN.html .
HASSAN, Ghali. Iraqi Genocide as described by UN Genocide Convention
Ghali Hassan is an independent humanitarian writer living in Australia (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/hassan120808.htm ).
Ghali Hassan on Iraqi Genocide (October 2006): “For nearly sixteen years, U.S. and British forces have been killing Iraqis with impunity. The number of Iraqis killed is increasing rapidly and could easily reach 3 millions if the U.S. refuses to end the Occupation. Iraq is an example of how the West uses the word genocide selectively. Genocide is used to describe the internal conflict in Sudan (Darfur region), but not the mass killing of innocent Iraqis where the U.S. and Britain are the main perpetrators of violence and destruction. What is happening in Iraq today is genocide, as clearly described by the Genocide Convention.”. [1].
[1]. Ghali Hassan, “The case for Iraqi Genocide”, Axis of Logic, 22 Octpber 2006: http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23293.shtml .
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC). 2005 complaint to ICC over US Coalition war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan
Dr Gideon Polya is a Melbourne-based humanist, scientist, academic, artist, and human rights and climate change activist (see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ). The contact details of the Chief Prosecutor, the International Criminal Court are provided here: http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Contact .
Dr Gideon Polya, formal complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan (2005):
"19 December 2005
Office of the Prosecutor,
International Criminal Court,
The Hague, The Netherlands
Dear Mr Moreno-Ocampo, Mr Brammertz and Mrs Bensouda,
On 14 October 2004 I made a formal complaint against the Australian Government and its Coalition allies over war crimes in Iraq, specifically illegal invasion and subsequent horrendous civilian mortality in contravention of international law (for details of this complaint and a prior complaint sent to the 2 dozen top law officers of Australia see: here).
Since that complaint was made, it can be estimated from the latest UNICEF reports (see: here) that a further 560,000 under-5 year old infants have died in US Coalition-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions for the protection of civilians in time of war (1949).
I am accordingly renewing and extending my formal complaint of egregious war crimes against the US-led Coalition leaders responsible for (1) the irresponsible and illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) deliberate conduct of military operations to minimize politically-sensitive invading military deaths at the expense of the lives of utterly innocent civilians; (3) subsequent horrendous civilian mortality in these occupied countries in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions (1949); and (4) collateral damage involving mass mortality elsewhere in the world as a consequence of Coalition actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have amplified these charges briefly below… As we approach the festivities of Christmas Day 2005, we must appreciate from the latest UNICEF data that about 2,640 infants in US Coalition-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan will die over the 2-day period of Christmas Day-Boxing Day - nearly the same number of innocent victims as died in the World Trade Centre atrocity on 9/11 – and about 0.5 million more will die in the year to come. An estimated 560,000 under-5 year old infants have died in the US-occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories in the 14 months since I made my previous complaint to the International Criminal Court.
I beg the International Criminal Court to indict the Coalition governments involved in massive war crimes in their invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In doing so the International Criminal Court will deliver justice and force an early end to the egregious Coalition passive genocide in these horrendously abused countries.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya.” [1].
[1]. Dr Gideon Polya, “MWC political editor files formal complaint. Formal complaint to ICC over Coalition war crimes”, MWC News, 19 December 2005: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/3087/268/ .
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC). 2008 complaint to ICC re Australian involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide
Dr Gideon Polya is a Melbourne-based humanist, scientist, academic, artist, and human rights and climate change activist (see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ). The contact details of the Chief Prosecutor, the International Criminal Court are provided here: http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Contact .
Dr Gideon Polya, Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide (March 2008):
“Chief Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Office of the Prosecutor
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM The Hague
The Netherlands
Dear Sir,
Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re
Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide
For your convenience I have numbered the various sections of this formal complaint.
1. Statement of complaint
Avoidable death (excess death) is the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently run country with the same demographics. Excess deaths can be violent (from bombs or bullets) or non-violent (through deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease) (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ). Thus 1 million of the 6 million victims of the Jewish Holocaust died from deprivation (see Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).
Successive Australian Governments have been involved in sustained, remorseless, deliberate, intentional, knowing policies that have resulted in huge avoidable death (excess death) and/or displacement among their domestic and overseas Subjects and among impoverished people around the world subject to global warming impacts due in part to Australia’s world-leading, climate criminal, greenhouse gas pollution policies:
a. Aboriginal Genocide of Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal) Subjects (9,000 avoidable Indigenous deaths each year; 90,000 avoidable deaths in the 11 years of the previous Coalition Government; current Indigenous population about 0.5 million; the annual death rate is 2.2% (for Indigenous Australians), 2.4% (Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory and since 2007 subject to race-specific suspension of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in contravention of international humanitarian conventions), 0.4% (what it should be) and 2.5% (for Australian sheep) (see: June 2007 edition of the National Indigenous Times: http://www.nit.com.au/news/story.aspx?id=11555 ; “Stolen Generations’: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19735/42/ , “Invasion & Australia Day”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19735/42/ , “Racism in Australia, “Bundoora Arabesque””: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15960/42/ , “Sydney Madonna” and Aboriginal Genocide”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10865/26/ and “Australian Genocide”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12578/42/ ).
b. Iraqi Genocide in Occupied Iraq (post-invasion, roughly 1:1 violent and non-violent excess deaths total 1.5-2 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.6 million; excess deaths; 4.5 million refugees; 1.9 million excess deaths and 1.2 million under-5 infant deaths in the Sanctions period 1990-2003) (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ).
c. Afghan Genocide in Occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 6.6 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million; 4 million refugees) (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-3-australian.html ; “Top US lawyer and UNICEF reveal Afghan Genocide”: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080208.htm).
d. Climate Genocide. Global avoidable deaths total 16 million annually with 9.5 million being under-5 year old infants. This is increasingly impacted by global warming and Australia is the developing country with the highest annual per capita fossil-fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution (43 tonnes per person per year in 2007 including that due to fossil fuel exports - about 10 times greater than the annual per capita fossil-fuel-derived CO2 pollution value (2004) for the World (4.2) and China (3.6), about 40 times greater than for India (1) and 160 times greater than for Bangladesh (0.25).) (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-2-climate.html ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ ). It is predicted by UK climate expert Professor Lovelock FRS that over 6 billion will perish this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20071022221333.aspx ).
2. UN Genocide Convention and “intent to destroy in whole or in part”
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see:
http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states that “In the present Convention, 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) Deliberately 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.”
“Intent” in horrific crimes is rarely “confessed” but can be convincingly established by a record of “remorseless sustained policy”. Thus the immense 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust was a man-made, market forces famine in which the price of rice doubled and then doubled again due to a range of factors. Those living on the edge who were unable to pay for food died under the sustained, racist and remorseless policies of the British colonial régime. The Bengal Famine consumed 6-7 million lives in Bengal and the neighbouring provinces of Assam, Orissa and Bihar but has been largely deleted from British history (see: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ; Polya, G.M. (1998), Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability (Polya, Melbourne); http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).
Churchill deleted mention of the Bengal Famine (a 6-7 million death holocaust atrocity for which he was primarily responsible) from his immense history of the Second World War (see Churchill, W.S. (1954), The Second World War. Volumes I-VI (Cassell, London). However his responsibility and culpability has been revealed from the record of his remorseless, racist, “sustained policy” (e.g. as revealed by the diary of General Wavell, Viceroy of India; see Moon, P. (1973) (editor), Wavell. The Viceroy’s Journal (Oxford University Press, London; see also Mason, C. (2000), A Short History of Asia. Stone Age to 2000AD (Macmillan, London)).
The Bengal Famine was clearly a Bengal Holocaust (and indeed the first of the World War 2 atrocities to be described as a holocaust – see Jog, N.G. (1944), Churchill’s Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay)). The “remorseless sustained policy” means that this was “intent to destroy in whole or in part” even if the destruction was “a sustained horrendous collateral in full knowledge” rather than “a vindictive desire to kill”. A bioethical analysis of this culpability is sketched below.
3. Active and passive killing and active and passive genocide
The outstanding bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and the University of Melbourne) has stated that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do” (see: Singer, P. (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (Ecco Press, New York), ppxv-xvi).
An analogy of “passive genocide” in British-ruled Bengal and in the Genocides involving Australia can be found in the treatment of severely disabled new-born infants. Professor Peter Singer, arguably the most influential living philosopher, has controversially argued for the humane “active euthanasia” of severely disabled infants. At present many experienced hospital doctors will administer pain relief but not sustenance to such infants by way of “passive euthanasia”. However, according to Singer
“Doctors who deliberately leave a baby to die when they have the awareness, the ability, and the opportunity to save the baby’s life, are just as morally responsible for the death as they would be if they had brought it about by a deliberate , positive action.” (see: Kuhse, H. & Singer, P. (1985), Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (Oxford University Press, Oxford)).
The active massacre of Australian Aboriginals in the period from Invasion in 1788 until the late 1920s can be described as “active genocide” but the continuing Aboriginal Genocide through sustained policies of deprivation is no less deadly “passive genocide” and the same analysis can be applied to the Iraqi Genocide, the Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide in which Australia is complicit. As outlined below Australia has grossly violated International humanitarian conventions in deliberately failing to provide life-sustaining requisites to its domestic and overseas Subjects.
4. Criminal failure to supply life-sustaining requisites
While annual per capita medical expenditure on Indigenous Australians is similar to that for the non-Indigenous Australians, it has been estimated that this expenditure needs to be at least doubled because of the huge morbidity and the remote location of many Aboriginal communities. While Australia has been prepared to spend up to 6 million dollars each time to save individual solo yachtspersons who have deliberately placed themselves in danger, it has remorselessly refused to meet its obligations towards Indigenous Australians with a consequent huge excess death rate (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15140/42/ ).
WHO data reveal that the “annual total per capita medical expenditure” (2004) permitted by the US Coalition is $135 (in Occupied Iraq) and $19 (in Occupied Afghanistan) as compared to $2,560 (UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096(the US) (see WHO: http://www.who.int/en/ ; see also: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ). One can now understand why there is such horrendous infant mortality in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan as reported by UNICEF (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) and as summarized in section #1 above.
The sheer criminality of this Australian failure to supply life-sustaining requisites to Subject people is made clear in Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ):
Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.
The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.
Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.
In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory.
Of course under international humanitarian conventions Australia has an obligation to supply such requisites to its own citizens as well as to its Subjects through invasion, conquest and forcible occupation of other countries. However it is noteworthy that no treaty was ever signed by the invading Europeans with the conquered Indigenous Peoples of Australia.
5. Climate Genocide and ICC action
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific body in the world, has identified nuclear weapons, global warming and poverty as the major threats facing humanity (see: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0216am_holdren_address.shtml ). The latest scientific discoveries about climate change make it clear that we have already passed a key “tipping point” for a major ecosystem catastrophe, the complete loss of Arctic summer ice which is now expected to be realized in several years’ time.
What we are facing is a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency as revealed by the eminent American atmosphere scientist Dr James Hansen who has recently stated that 300-350 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the safe, sustainable level for the biosphere and human survival – whereas it is actually 385 ppm now and increasing by 2.5 ppm every year. Dr Hansen is effectively calling not for ZERO EMISSIONS but for NEGATIVE CO2 EMISSIONS and a cessation of coal burning (see the Friends of the Earth’s ”Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ and http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/ ; see also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7143567.stm and http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/james-hansen/20080124.html ).
16 million people die avoidably in the world each year (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) but global warming is already impacting on human excess mortality. Eminent atmosphere scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates that over 6 billion will die this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20071022221333.aspx ).
Unfortunately the world is now seeing the beginnings of an appalling re-run of the British famine atrocity in India in World War 2 outlined in part #2 above. The price of wheat has doubled in one year (forced up by diversion for biofuels, purchases by prosperous India and China and effects of climate change on agricultural productivity) (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/ ).
Australia is steadfast in its refusal to reduce its world leading annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and has a major responsibility for the accelerating Climate Genocide that as estimated by outstanding UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS will affect billions; as reported by the Royal Society: “Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct” (see his recent lecture at the Royal Society: http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=7226 ) .
Consideration of current rates of CO2 pollution and sea levels over millions of years past indicate that a predicted temperature rise this century of 3oC on the current “business as usual” scenario means a roughly 20 metre rise in sea level.
According to America’s foremost climate scientist Dr James Hansen: “There is strong evidence that the Earth is within 1 oC of its highest temperature in the past million years. Oxygen isotopes in the deep sea foraminifera reveal that the earth was last 2oC to 3oC warmer [relative to 2000] around 3 million years ago, with carbon dioxide levels of perhaps 350 to 450 parts per million. It was a dramatically different planet then, with no Arctic sea ice in the warm seasons and sea levels about 25 metres higher, give or take 10 metres.” (see “Climate Code Red”, p9: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ).
The Earth’s atmosphere is ALREADY at 385 ppm CO2 and CO2 concentration is increasing at about 2.5 ppm per year; global average temperature is ALREADY about 1oC above the pre-industrial and now increasing at about 0.25 oC per decade.
I understand that the International Criminal Court may be prepared to make initial investigations of formal complaints by individuals (such as this complaint) but will only act to the fullest extent of its remit in response to formal complaints by National Governments.
Countries at major risk from sea level rises due to climate change include island nations in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (some of which face total extinction) and countries with mega-deltas in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia (of which some face catastrophic loss of agriculture and massive population displacements). Such Nations will be receiving copies of this formal complaint and are urged to transmit formal complaints to the International Criminal Court.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya
Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia
March 1, 2008
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).” [1].
[1]. Dr Gideon Polya, Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide (March 2008): http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
IRAQ HOLOCAUST, IRAQ GENOCIDE & Australia’s Secret Genocide History
Gideon Polya, “Australia’s Secret Genocide History. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus” & Black Crimes of White Australia”, MWC News, 30 April 2008.
For an image of the huge “Bundoora Eucalyptus” painting see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4318154968/ .
Revised and updated, 2010.
Australia’s Secret Genocide History. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus” & Black Crimes of White Australia.
La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne is one of Australia’s top dozen universities with particular expertise in paramedical training and an excellent reputation for research and teaching in the humanities and biological sciences in particular. The main campus is set in beautiful bushland about 20 kilometers north of Melbourne at Bundoora. Bundoora means “the country kangaroos like” in the local Indigenous Australian Wurrundjeri language and indeed one can often see kangaroos grazing and hopping about in the outskirts of La Trobe University in the evening and early morning.
La Trobe University is named after a former Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875), who administered the colony of Victoria from 1839-1854. However there are 2 sides to this man that reflect a continuing dichotomy of good and evil in Australia as a whole. Thus Charles La Trobe was a gentle, cultured man and a mountaineer, adventurer and writer. However he was a poor administrator and his rule over the British colony of Victoria was associated with 2 major failures: (1) the Eureka Stockade rebellion of gold miners that was brutally put down by British soldiers and (2) the expansion of the Aboriginal Genocide with ethnic cleansing of Indigenous (Aboriginal) people involving the notorious Native Police set up under La Trobe. This paradoxical good/evil duality is perhaps behind the statue of Charles La Trobe at La Trobe University that is exhibited standing on its head!
The beautiful La Trobe Bundoora landscape with its wonderful gum trees (Eucalyptus species), birds and kangaroos is the inspiration for my huge (1.3 metres x 2.9 metres) “Bundoora Eucalyptus” painting which also illustrates the dark/light, good/evil dichotomy of Charles La Trobe and of Australia as a whole. On the one hand Australia is a prosperous, educated, democratic society that was one of the first countries to have women’s suffrage, trade unions, and compulsory State-provided education. On the other hand, Australia has a shocking secret history of involvement in appalling genocides that continues to this day. Thus in 2008 Australia is involved in Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide.
Before going further it must be clearly stated that the term “Genocide” used here is “Genocide” as precisely defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ): “In the present Convention, 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) Deliberately 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.”
Further, in assessing deaths from particular policies of invasion, occupation and dispossession one notes that deaths can be violent (from bombs and bullets) or non-violent (from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease). Both kinds of avoidable death (death that should not have happened) are included within the term “excess death” used below (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007).
The following catalogue of Australian involvement in Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention – and notably in British- and American-imposed genocides - is given below in roughly chronological order from 1788 (the year of European Invasion and First Settlement) to 2008. A key reference is my book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”; other relevant books are Chalk, F. and Jonassohn, K. (1990), The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies (Yale University Press, New Haven & London); Tatz, C. (2003), With Intent to Destroy. Reflecting on Genocide (Verso, London); and Blum, W. (2006), Rogue State, A guide to the world’s only superpower (Zed Books, London)).
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1. 18th-19th century Aboriginal Genocide (the Indigenous Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after invasion in 1788).
2. Tasmanian Aboriginal Genocide (the “full-blood” Indigenous population dropped from 6,000 to zero in 1803-1776; however there are several thousand “mixed race” decendants of Tasmanian and Mainland Aborigines still living in Tasmania today).
3. British Indian Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.6 BILLION, 1757-1837; 0.5 BILLION, 1837-1901 under Queen Victoria; 0.4 BILLION, 1901-1947.
4. European Chinese Genocide (10-100 million deaths in the European imperialism-driven Tai Ping rebellion period; Australia was involved in suppressing the Boxer rebellion).
5. Maori Genocide (Maori population dropped from 0.1-0.2 million in 1800 to 42,000 in 1893; Australia was involved in the 19th century Maori wars).
6. African Genocide (scores of million perished over 5 centuries of European slavery and colonialism; Australians participated in the Sudan War, 1881-1898).
7. Pacific Genocide (there was a catastrophic population decline due to introduced disease and slavery; thus 40,000 Fijians died from measles out of a population of 150,000 in 1876; “blackbirding” slavery was conducted by Australians in the late 19th century).
8. Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide (1899-1902; 28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps; Australians participated in the Boer War as immortalized in the movie “Breaker Morant”).
9. Armenian Genocide (1.5 million killed; the Australian invasion of Gallipoli as part of an Anglo-French force in 1915 helped to precipitate this atrocity; indeed April 24 is Armenian Genocide Day and April 25 is the day of the Australia invasion in 1915 and also a sacred war dead remembrance day for Australians and New Zealanders – it is called Anzac Day after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) which stormed ashore on that first Anzac Day at Gallipoli in 1915).
10. Bengali Genocide (6-7 million perished in the “forgotten” man-made Bengal Famine atrocity in Bengal and adjoining provinces in British India, 1943-1945; Australians were there and indeed the Governor of Bengal in 1944 was an Australian, R.G. Casey: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ).
11. British post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to British occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 727 million; Australia has the same Head of State as the UK and continues to be a loyal military ally of the UK in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan).
12. US post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to US occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 82 million; Australia participated in all post-1950 US Asian Wars in Korea, Indo-China, Iraq and Afghanistan with Indigenous Asian excess deaths now totalling 25 million).
13. Australian Colonial Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to Australian occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era, namely Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands totalled 2.1 million).
14. 20th century Aboriginal Genocide (total excess deaths clearly of the order of 1million; 0.1 million Stolen Generations Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their Mothers in the 19th and 20th centuries; excess deaths in the 11 years of the Bush-ite Coalition Government totalled 90,000 for 1996-2007).
The following Australian genocide involvements in this catalogue of horrors are ON-GOING.
15. Palestinian Genocide (post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million and 7 million refugees; with bi-partisan agreement Australia provides diplomatic, financial and haven support for Israeli state terrorism – even when directed against tens of thousands of Australian citizens as in Lebanon in mid-2006 - and up to life imprisonment for anyone giving support to the Hamas Party that overwhelmingly won the 2006 Occupied Palestinian elections).
16. Iraqi Genocide (4.4 million excess deaths 1990-2010; 2.5 million post-invasion excess deaths, 0.9 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees; Australia militarily involved since 1990(as of December 2009).
17. Afghan Genocide (3-7 million post-invasion excess deaths, 2.3 million post-invasion under-5 infant and 4 million refugees; Australia involved militarily since 2001).
18. Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 excess deaths annually; 90,000 excess deaths in the last 11 years of Bush-ite Coalition rule).
19. Biofuel Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year but this is increasingly biofuel-impacted as the legislatively-mandated US, UK and EU biofuel perversion forces up global food prices; Australia is a major sugar cane grower and sugar exporter with 60% of sugar going to bioethanol production worldwide; Australia has biofuel-promoting legislation and is a major canola grower, this being a major source for biodiesel ).
20. Climate Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year ALREADY from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; Professor James Lovelock FRS says that over 6 billion will perish this century die to unaddressed climate change; on a per capita basis Australia is among the very worst greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters – in terms of 2004 figures for “fossil fuel-derived annual per capita CO2 pollution” Australia is about 40 times worse than INDIA and 160 times worse than Bangladesh if you include Australia’s world number 1 coal exports).
Yet politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia steadfastly “looks the other way” and its past and present involvements in the above atrocities are overwhelmingly NOT reported by racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring Mainstream media NOR taught in Australia’s schools and universities. PC racist White Australia just cannot see the “Elephant in the room” – its continuing involvement in over 2 centuries of horrendous genocide.
Australians are trapped in an Orwellian dream - Australia will only stop doing it when it is INFORMED that it is doing it. Please inform everyone you can.
JUST FOREIGN POLICY. 1.5 million violent deaths in US-occupied Iraq (2011) - eclipses Rwandan Genocide
Just Foreign Policy: “Just Foreign Policy is an independent and non-partisan membership organization dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy by mobilizing and organizing the broad majority of Americans who want a foreign policy based on diplomacy, law and cooperation. Although Just Foreign Policy will focus exclusively on foreign policy, we appeal directly to Americans for whom foreign policy is not a primary concern. We have seen through the Iraq war that unnecessary military actions can undermine civil liberties and democracy at home, and can be used to remove pressing domestic issues like the economy from the political agenda to the detriment of the great majority” (see: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/about/mission ). Justo Foreign Policy has an eminent board of scholars and public leaders (see: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/about/board ).
Just Foreign Policy statement on horrendous 1.4 million post-invasion violent deaths in Occupied Iraq (December 2009): “Iraq deaths. 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 U.S.-led invasion of March 2003…Sign the petition telling Congress that about a million Iraqis have likely been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Help us expose to Congress the true costs of war. A study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The death counter provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count… The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US-led invasion. This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it.” [1].
[1]. Just Foreign Policy, “Iraq deaths”, December 2009: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/156 .
LAYPERSON'S GUIDE TO COUNTING IRAQ DEATHS
Gideon Polya, “Layperson’s guide to counting Iraq deaths ”, MWC News, 6 April 2006.
Layperson’s guide to counting Iraq deaths
AVOIDABLE MORTALITY (technically, excess mortality) is the difference between the actual mortality in a country and the mortality expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics (i.e. with the same birth rate and the same population age profile). Avoidable mortality is a fundamental parameter to be considered in any sensible discussion of human affairs – it is the bottom-line issue when assessing the success or otherwise of societal, regional and global policies.
This has been recognized by no less than US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who infamously commented “we think the price is worth it” when asked by Lesley Stahl about the estimated 0.5 million Iraqi infant deaths due to Sanctions (“60 Minutes”, 12 May 1996).
Lesley Stahl (on Sanctions against Iraq): “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it”.
Notwithstanding the notoriety of this comment, Mainstream Media have been very coy about reporting about avoidable deaths due to the Sanctions war against Iraq, the Afghan War or the Iraq War. Indeed their acute coyness now constitutes egregious lying by omission and, given the dimensions of the problem, must be described as holocaust denial.
Decent people must attempt to find out and then inform others about man-made mass mortality (see: here and here ).
Ignoring mass mortality simply ensures its continuance and denying past atrocities simply ensures their repetition – history ignored yields history repeated. Thus the actuality of the Jewish Holocaust (6 million deaths) was not formally acknowledged by the Allies until 30 months before the end of World War 2 in Europe. This tardiness in reportage must surely have contributed significantly to this atrocity.
However, TODAY Mainstream Media are comprehensively ignoring the horrendous magnitude of the avoidable post-invasion deaths in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan (presently totalling 2.3 million deaths) and the avoidable deaths in the First World-dominated non-European World (presently 14.8 million deaths each year).
Several years ago, as a humanist scientist interested in the fundamental problem of human mortality, I set out to determine “avoidable mortality” for every country in the world since 1950, using publicly-accessible data from the UN Population Division (see: here ).
The population, death rate, birth rate, under-5 infant mortality rate and other demographic statistics from the UN go back to 1950, a time when all the world potentially had access to the life-preserving basics such as universal literacy, a tolerable per capita income, antibiotics, anti-malarials, mosquito netting, soap, antiseptics, clean water, sanitation, some basic immunizations, basic health care and preventative medicine.
My approach was to graphically estimate base-line values of “expected mortality rates” for all countries of the world (a very complicated process). Having this information it was possible to determine “avoidable mortality rates” and thence “avoidable mortality” for every country in the world since 1950. The post-1950 avoidable mortality totalled 1.30 billion for the world, 1.25 billion for the non-European world and about 0.6 billion for the Muslim world.
These numbers were so horrendous that they demanded some sort of independent corroboration. I achieved this by independently calculating the “under-5 infant mortality” for every country in the world since 1950. This process, based on UN infant mortality data, involved no complicated “base-line” estimates – the calculations simply involved straightforward arithmetic.
The post-1950 “under-5 infant mortality” has totalled 0.88 billion for the world, 0.85 billion for the non-European world and about 0.4 billion for the Muslim world. Further, comparisons with First World countries (which all have very low infant mortality rates) revealed that for Third World countries about 90% of “under-5 infant mortality” has been “avoidable” (see: here ).
A very important number derived from this analysis is that for the non-European world “post-1950 under-5 infant mortality” has been numerically about 0.7 of the “post-1950 avoidable mortality”. This has the important operational consequence that if you know the “under-5 infant mortality” for a high mortality country, simply dividing by 0.7 will give you a rough idea of the “avoidable mortality” (remembering that the “highly technical” estimation of “avoidable mortality” described above is arduous and involves some complicated assumptions).
Over the last few years I have been performing thousands of calculations relating to avoidable mortality and writing a huge book on the subject. However I have also taken a lot of time trying to tell the world about this appalling continuing catastrophe – following the example of Continental Europeans who tried to tell an unresponsive world about the expanding Jewish Holocaust about 60-65 years ago.
In particular, over the last 2 years I have reported the steadily increasing post-invasion avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan that now total 2.3 million and 1.8 million, respectively. Alternative media (notably MWC News) have been ethical, responsive and eager to report this shocking intelligence to their liberal readerships. However Mainstream Media, while endlessly apprised, resolutely refuse to report this important information
This extraordinary lying by omission by Mainstream Media makes them accessories to egregious war crimes in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories – the Geneva Conventions make it quite clear that the occupiers are obliged to do everything in their power to preserve the health and lives of their conquered subjects (see: here).
However some of the fault must also lie with the Messenger, no matter his best intentions – he has failed to convince Mainstream Media, no matter that he has convinced many decent, humanitarian people around the world. Part of that failure lies in perceptions of the nature of “avoidable mortality” and “scholarly authority”. What is needed is a didactically-successful method of assessing war-related “avoidable deaths” that should be (a) simple, (b) publicly accessible, (c) non-controversial (i.e. clearly and simply deriving from an authoritative source) and (d) free of hard-to-understand assumptions or difficult to explain mathematical operations.
AN EASY, LAYPERSON-FRIENDLY WAY - the simplest, most immediately understandable, most publicly-accessible, publicly-confirmable and self-empowering way - is to be preferred and advanced to get this urgent humanitarian message across to an unresponsive world because EVERY DAY 1,300 under-5 year old infants die in Occupied Iraq & Afghanistan (1,200 avoidably) and 29,000 under-5 year old infants die in the non-European World (26,000 avoidably). This way IS available through the detailed, readily-accessed and regularly-updated reports of the United Nations Childrens’ Fund (UNICEF) as outlined below.
Under-5 infant mortality figures are presented in updated UNICEF reports for essentially every country in the world ( the latest 2006 reports ) - it is only a click away and for Iraq and Afghanistan tells us the following: in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 122,000 in Occupied Iraq, 359,000 in Occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the occupying country Australia (noting that in 2004 the populations of these countries were 28.1 million, 28.6 million and 19.9 million, respectively).
From this data, assuming that the figures have been roughly the same each year after invasion (they have actually got worse) we can readily estimate that the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality in Occupied Iraq over 3 YEARS has been 122,000 x 3 = 366,000 and that in Occupied Afghanistan over 4 YEARS has been 359,000 x 4 = 1,436,000 i.e. a total of 1,802,000 [as compared to my "highly technical" calculation of 1.8 million].
Assuming for "bad outcome" Third World countries that "under-5 infant mortality" is numerically about 0.7 of the "avoidable mortality", we can estimate that the post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan = 1,802,000/0.7 = 2.6 million [as compared to my "highly technical" calculation of 2.3 million]. Similarly, the post-invasion “avoidable mortality” can be estimated roughly to be 366,000/0.7 = 0.5 million (for Occupied Iraq) and 1,436,000/0.7 = 2.1 million for Occupied Afghanistan) [as compared to my “highly technical” estimates of 0.5 million and 1.8 million, respectively) (see MWC News )
As you can see, the "easy, layperson-friendly way" yields essentially the same results for post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan as my "careful, highly technical, precise method" based on UN Population Division data.
It must be noted that this "easy, layperson-friendly" approximate approach is only valid for "bad outcome non-European countries” - but then these are the countries we are interested in from an urgent, humanitarian perspective ("avoidable mortality" as conservatively measured by me is zero or essentially zero in other countries - even the unusually elevated "avoidable mortality" in Hungary - which is among the countries in the world with the lowest infant mortality - "only" accounts for 35,000 Hungarians each year) (see MWC News ).
In 1945 Germans presented with evidence of the Jewish Holocaust claimed that “We didn’t know” - lying by omission by Mainstream Media is giving Coalition citizens, and indeed everyone in the world, the same excuse in relation to horrendous post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. It is up to decent people to INFORM EVERYONE that (a) “under-5 infant mortality” in “bad outcome” Third World countries is numerically about 0.7 of the “avoidable mortality” and (b) that under-5 infant mortality data for Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan and other Third World countries is regularly up-dated and reported by UNICEF – the awful truth is only a click away.
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity – it IS possible to get through the Wall of Silence.
MASSEY, James. US Iraq War veteran Jimmy Massey: "We are committing genocide in Iraq, and that is the intention"
Former Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey, a 12-year Marine veteran and an Iraq War veteran, lives in Waynesville, North Carolina, a small town in the Smoky Mountains just outside of Ashville. According to WSWS (World Socialist Web Site) “Massey entered Iraq as part of the initial US invasion in March 2003. He witnessed—and in some cases participated in—the killing of innocent civilians. During a single 48-hour period, he says, he saw as many as 30 civilians killed by US gunfire at highway checkpoints” (see: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/vet-n11.shtml ).
A recent study estimated the number of Iraqi deaths since the start of the war in March 2003 at around 100,000. When asked by WSWS if this number seemed accurate, Jimmy Massey responded: “Yes, but that of course does not include the thousands more who will be dying from disease because of a lack of medical supplies, clean water, or proper sanitation. It does not include the hundreds of thousands that died in Iraq before the war even began from the sanctions. We are committing genocide in Iraq, and that is the intention.” [1].
[1]. Jimmy Massey interviewed by Jeff Riedel, “Iraq veteran Jimmy Massey talks to WSWS. “We’re committing genocide in Iraq”, World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), 11 November 2004: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/vet-n11.shtml .
MODEL, David. Iraqi Genocide
David Model is a Professor of Political Science at Seneca College, New York, USA. He is the author of States of Darkness: US Complicity in Genocides Since 1945 (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/model05212008.html ).
Professor David Model on Iraqi Genocide (2008): “Whether or not the administrations of Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush Junior intended to commit genocide in Iraq is irrelevant because the consequences of the bombings and sanctions could have been predicted by any reasonable person. The actions of these administrations clearly resulted in mass killing, serious bodily and mental harm, and the infliction of conditions calculated to bring about Iraq’s physical destruction in whole or in part. Iraq is a clear-cut case of genocide.
The carnage resulting from this genocide clearly exposes the disparity between the professed principles of American foreign policy and its manifest practice. This hypocrisy betrays the indifference of American leaders to basic democratic principles and to respect for both domestic and international law.” [1].
[1]. David Model, “Genocide in Iraq?”, Counterpunch, 21 May 2008: http://www.counterpunch.org/model05212008.html .
ORB. UK ORB confirms Lancet finding of huge post-invasion violent deaths in Occupied Iraq.
ORB on post-invasion violent deaths in Occupied Iraq (2008): “January 2008 - Update on Iraqi Casualty Data. Further survey work undertaken by ORB, in association with its research partner IIACSS, confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003.
Following responses to ORB’s earlier work, which was based on survey work undertaken in primarily urban locations, we have conducted almost 600 additional interviews in rural communities. By and large the results are in line with the ‘urban results’ and we now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000.”. [1].
[1]. ORB (Opinion Research Business), “January 2008 - Update on Iraqi Casualty Data”, January 2008: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88 .
PILGER, John. Iraqi genocide, Iraqi holocaust & UK holocaust denial
John Pilger is renowned Australian-born British investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, and is one of only two to have twice won British journalism's top award; his documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the US. According to the UK New Statesman: “In a New Statesman survey of the 50 heroes of our time, Pilger came fourth behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. "John Pilger," wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy truth. I salute him."” (see: http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/12/pilger-iraq-media-crime and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger ).
John Pilger re Iraqi Genocide, Iraqi Holocaust and UK holocaust denial (2007): “Remembrance Day was marred by the unacknowledged deaths in Iraq - a genocide that threatens to outstrip the horrors of Rwanda in the numbers killed and displaced. On Remembrance Day 2007, the great and the good bowed their heads at the Cenotaph. Generals, politicians, newsreaders, football managers and stock-market traders wore their poppies. Hypocrisy was a presence. No one mentioned Iraq. No one uttered the slightest remorse for the fallen of that country. No one read the forbidden list. The forbidden list documents, without favour, the part the British state and its court have played in the destruction of Iraq. Here it is: 1 Holocaust denial. On 25 October, Dai Davies MP asked Gordon Brown about civilian deaths in Iraq. Brown passed the question to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who passed it to his junior minister, Kim Howells, who replied: "We continue to believe that there are no comprehensive or reliable figures for deaths since March 2003." This was a deception. In October 2006, the Lancet published research by Johns Hopkins University in the US and al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad which calculated that 655,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the Anglo-American invasion. A Freedom of Information search revealed that the government, while publicly dismissing the study, secretly backed it as comprehensive and reliable. The chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Roy Anderson, called its methods "robust" and "close to best practice". Other senior governments officials secretly acknowledged the survey's "tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones". [1].
[1]. John Pilger, “The forgotten fallen”, New Statesman, 15 November 2007: http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2007/11/iraq-genocide-pilger-british .
PINTER, Harold. "The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act"
Harold Pinter (1930-2008) was a major British playwright and won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature. His best-known plays include “The Birthday Party”, (1957), “The Caretaker” (1959), “The Homecoming” (1964), and “Betrayal” (1978) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Pinter ).
Harold Pinter statement for Brussells Tribunal Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, (March 2008) : ““The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act. The occupation of Iraq remains a criminal act. The British government under Blair and the United States administration are war criminals. It’s as simple as that.” [1].
Harold Pinter 2005 Literature Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (2005): “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice… When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us. I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us the dignity of man.” [2].
[1]. Harold Pinter, statement for Messages for the People on the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Brussells Tribunal, March 2008: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm .
POLYA, Gideon. Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide and US Alliance holocaust denial
Dr Gideon Polya is a Melbourne-based humanist, scientist, academic, artist, and human rights and climate change activist (see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ).
Dr Gideon Polya on Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide and US holocaust denial (13 December 2009): “Not only is the US involved in an ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide (post-1990 violent and non-violent excess deaths 4.4 million), the US and its Iraqi Puppet Régime are grossly understating post-invasion mortality rates to the United Nations Population Division… 1. According to the 2006 Revision UN Population Division data, medical literature data, and other authoritative sources, the Iraqi Holocaust has been associated with 1.1 million post-invasion non-violent avoidable deaths; 1.4 million violent post-invasion deaths; and 0.9 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to gross US Coalition violation of the Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demands that an Occupier supplies food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it.” In addition, avoidable deaths under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million, violent deaths in the Gulf War totalled 0.2 million and under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions totalled 1.2 million. Iraqi refugees (both inside and outside Iraq) total 5-6 million.
2. The ongoing Iraqi Holocaust (1990-2009) involves 1.6 million violent deaths, 2.8 million non-violent excess deaths, 4.4 million violent and non-violent excess deaths, 1.9 million avoidable under-5 year old infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees – an Iraqi Genocide according to the UN Genocide Convention definition of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group“. The Iraqi Genocide - still continuing under Nobel Peace Laureate Obama - is of a similar magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation).
3. The US and US Puppet Iraqi Régime assertions, as reflected in 2008 Revision UN Population Division data, would have us believe that nearly 2 decades of Sanctions, Bombing, War and violent Occupation imposed on Iraq resulted in a steady decline in under-5 year old infant mortality, general death rate and avoidable death rate in Iraq.
4. The US under Obama and the US Puppet Iraqi Régime are involved in horrendous Iraqi Holocaust commission, Iraqi Holocaust denial, Iraqi Genocide commission and Iraqi Genocide denial.
5. All those politicians, public servants, academics and journalists complicit in the ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide (most notably George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, George Bush Junior, Barack Obama, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair) should be arraigned for complicity in war crimes and genocide and /or for being accessories after the fact of war crimes and genocide.”. [1].
Dr Gideon Polya on Australian genocidal complicity in Iraqi mass mortality (2005): “The top ABC journalist, Tony Eastley, concluded: ‘The Australian Government has admitted it doesn’t know how many civilians have died in the Iraq war, and neither it, nor US authorities, are trying to find out.’ Indeed US authorities have repeatedly stated that they do not keep records of civilian casualties. However, as with the children overboard, the weapons of mass destruction and the torture of Iraqi prisoners, the truth eventually emerges. The latest UNICEF report in 2005 estimates that for the year 2003 the under-5 infant mortality was 110,000 in occupied Iraq, 292,000 in occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the invading and occupying country Australia (noting that these countries have populations of about 25-million, 24-million and 20-million respectively). Using publicly available United Nations and medical literature data one can readily calculate that there have been about 0.4 million avoidable deaths in post-invasion Iraq. In 1991 the UK recommenced military action against Iraq that had kicked off in 1914. In 2003 the US, UK and Australia illegally invaded and conquered Iraq. I have calculated that the under-5 infant mortality was 1.2 million for Iraq since 1991; 0.2 million for Iraq since the 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. This now raises the philosophic issue of responsibility. The occupying ruler is responsible for the ruled, (noting ‘occupation’ includes military, economic and political hegemony and rule by client indigenous regimes). Further, whether an adult or child is killed violently or dies non-violently from deprivation or avoidable disease, the end result is the same and the culpability the same. In 2004 the estimated per capita medical expenditure was only $US37 in occupied Iraq, but $US3,100 in the invading and occupying country, Australia. This roughly one-hundredfold difference in per capita medical expenditure is reflected in a one-hundredfold difference in under-5 infant mortality. The provision of grossly inappropriate medical assistance in occupied Iraq at only about 1% of the per capita level in the occupying Coalition countries is criminal and genocidal.” [2].
Dr Gideon Polya on Iraqi Holocaust (2004): "Whether a person dies violently or in bed, any death that is avoidable requires public assessment of causality, culpability and complicity in order to make the world a safer place. Of course, whether a person dies violently or dies from avoidable disease or deprivation, the end result is the same.
I have been researching and writing a careful analysis of global mortality. My scientific analysis involves summarising mortality and its causes for all parts of the world throughout history. The ultimate aim of this analysis is to address the avoidable human mortality that accounts for the approximately 20 million people who die each year from deprivation and malnourishment-related causes. My analysis is powerfully illustrated by the situation in Iraq. The UK has been militarily involved in Iraq on and off for 90 years and the largely Anglo-American Coalition has been combating Iraqis since 1991.
Whatever our positions on Iraq, we are morally obliged to assess the actual human cost of our involvement there. One powerful approach is to estimate “excess mortality”, which is the difference between the actual deaths observed in a country and the mortality expected for a properly run, peaceful society with the same demographics.
The total excess mortality in Iraq, calculated using United Nations data, is 5.2 million since 1950 and 1.5 million for the period 1991–2004. The huge excess mortality in Iraq since 1950 is similar in magnitude to that of the Jewish Holocaust (six million victims) and the “forgotten” manmade World War II Bengal Famine (four million Muslim and Hindu victims).
My estimates of excess mortality for Iraq are consistent with the under-5 infant mortality in Iraq, estimated from UNICEF data to be 3.3 million since 1950 and 1.2 million in the period 1991–2004.
Excess mortality and infant mortality have declined dramatically for nearly all developing countries outside Africa over the past 50 years. In Iraq, excess mortality and infant mortality reached a minimum in the 1980s. However, this decline reversed after the 1991 Gulf War. According to UNICEF, in 2001 the under-5 infant mortality was 109,000 in Iraq, which has a population of about 24 million, compared with about 1000 in Australia, which has a population of about 20 million.
Rulers are responsible for the ruled. Accordingly the occupying Coalition, including Australia, is clearly responsible for the continuing excess mortality and infant mortality in Iraq. Both are estimated to be currently of the order of 100,000 per year, or about 300 per day.
John Valder, a former president of the Liberal Party, has recently called for war crimes trials of the leaders of the Coalition, adducing the illegality of the invasion of Iraq (The Age, 9 April 2004). Mass mortality in a conquered population also constitutes a war crime, as well as a humanitarian tragedy. The actual Iraqi death toll is not being reported and publicly discussed. Ignoring mass human mortality in Iraq amounts to holocaust denial." [3].
[1]. Gideon Polya, “Iraqi Holocaust Denial by US & Puppet Iraqi Régime”, MWC News, 13 December 2009: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34979/42/ .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Australian complicity oin Iraq mass mortality”, ABC Radio National, Ockham’s Razor, 28 August 2005: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm and transcript also published in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007).
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Iraqi Holocaust”, ConScience, Australasian Science, 2 June 2004: http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/33427-iraqi-holocaust/ .
RIHANI, Samir. Dr Samir Rihani's history of UK-, US-, Israeli-, UN- and Indigenous Iraqi-complicit Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide
Dr Samir Rihani is an Iraqi living in the UK, a chartered civil engineer, a transportation planner, a chartered marketing specialist, PhD in in development studies, an academic consultant, lecturer, and researecher. Author of ."Complex Systems Theory and Development Practice" (2002) he is prresently a Research Fellow and lectures on human and economic development and International Political Economy to third year and postgraduate students at the School of Politics and Communication, University of Liverpool, UK (see:http://www.globalcomplexity.org/DrSamirRihani.htm
).Dr Samir Rihani on the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide from colonial occupation, dictatorship, the Iran-Iraq war, Gulf War, sanctions and occupation, outlining UK, US, Israeli, UN and indigenous Iraqi complicity (2004): "The Washington based Institute for Policy Studies published a report in June 2004 to chronicle the horrendous costs of the illegal 2003 war on Iraq. Dwelling on this latest episode, however, obscures the fact that the intentional and systematic 'scourging of Iraq', the title of a powerful book by Geoff Simons, began decades before. Iraqis cannot forgive or forget this process of wanton destruction in which their own leaders as well as external powers led by the USA were the main villains. Neither can they ignore the role played by the UN as willing tool and legitimising authority for the horrors heaped on their head. The current unrest is prompted by a great deal more than just resistance to occupation by foreign forces...Again, war was not deemed enough. Preparation for the next stage was meticulous. Propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies were used on a scale that dwarfs Britain's infamous dossier and other mind-making efforts associated with the 2003 war. The tool chosen was sanctions; described by Woodrow Wilson as the 'silent deadly remedy'. And so it proved to be for the majority of ordinary Iraqis. The ruling elite, by contrast, grew stronger and benefited hugely. The UN, under pressure from the US government, imposed a strict regime of sanction on Iraq that was maintained for thirteen years. The ensuing devastation was on a biblical scale. The genocide inflicted by the sanctions on Iraqi people is well documented. The damage was clear as early as late-1991 when a Harvard team published their shocking report. However, the most disturbing accounts came from UN agencies and their staff in Iraq. Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, who resigned in disgust, are prime examples.The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation reported in 1995 that "more than one million Iraqis have died- 567,000 of them children- as a direct result of the economic sanctions. Madeleine Albright thought that price was acceptable. It seems astonishing, but some commentators still hold that viewpoint today (see Foreign Affairs, July-August 2004).And the carnage mounted despite the sham of the oil-for-food programme introduced in 1996 and the 'smart' sanctions of 2000. A whole generation of children was blighted, hundreds of thousands perished, and highly qualified people left the country in droves. As promised by James Baker in 1991, Iraq regressed to the pre-industrial age. And remember, this is before one shot had been fired in the 2003 war." [1].
[1]. Dr Samir Rihani, “Iraq’s Holocaust”, 30 August 2004: http://www.globalcomplexity.org/Iraq%27sHolocaust.htm .
ROBERTS, Paul Craig. Father of Reaganomics slams Iraqi Genocide
Dr Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939), is an economist, academic, former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and Business Week, nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate, and author of numerous books. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as the "Father of Reaganomics” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts ).
Dr Paul Craig Roberts on the Iraqi Genocide (2007): “Why has not the Turkish parliament given tit for tat and passed a resolution condemning the Iraqi Genocide? As a result of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, more than one million Iraqis have died, and several millions are displaced persons. The Iraqi death toll and the millions of uprooted Iraqis match the Armenian deaths and deportations. If one is a genocide, so is the other. It is true that most of the Iraqi deaths have resulted from Iraqis killing one another. But it was Bush’s destruction of the secular Iraqi state that unleashed the sectarian strife. Moreover, American troops in Iraq have killed more civilians than insurgents. The US military in Iraq has fallen for every bit of disinformation fed to it by Al Qaeda personnel posing as “informants” and by Sunnis setting up Shi’ites and Shi’ites setting up Sunnis. As a result, American bombs and missiles have blown up weddings, funerals, kids playing soccer, and people shopping in bazaars and sleeping in their homes. Not to be outdone, Bush’s private Waffen SS known as Blackwater has taken to gunning Iraqi civilians down in the streets. How do Blackwater and Custer Battles killers escape the “unlawful combatant” designation? One can only marvel at the insouciance of the US Congress to the current Iraqi Genocide while condemning Turkey for one that happened
90 years ago. People seldom see the beam in their own eye, only the mote in the eyes of others. Every member of the Bush Regime is busily at work denouncing Iran for causing instability in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the US has invaded two countries, throwing them into total chaos, while beating the drums for war with Iran and conspiring with Israel to invade Lebanon and to attack Syria. The indisputable facts are that the US and Israel have attacked four Middle East countries and are determined to attack a fifth. Yet, it is peaceful Iran, at war with no one, that Bush and Israel blame for causing instability in the Middle East.”. [1].
[1]. Paul Craig Roberts, “The Iraqi Genocide”, Global Research, 20 October 2007: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7136 .
SABRI, B.J.. How the US engineered the Iraqi Holocaust
B.J. Sabri is an Iraqi- American antiwar activist and writer (see: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=13016 ).
B.J. Sabri on how the US engineered the Iraqi Holocaust (2006): “Did the United States, under the pretext of “liberating” Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation, engineer and execute an Iraqi holocaust to implement, consolidate, and entrench American imperialism in Iraq, and the Middle East?
By judging from the scale of destruction and death the United States inflicted on Iraq, and by considering the international and regional objectives of war, history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East since the 1930s, control of oil, Israel, U.S.-Israel relations, the answer is yes.
Even so, to back up the charge that the United States committed a holocaust in Iraq, an investigation on the meaning of the term: holocaust is indispensable …
A question, “How did the U.S. engineer the Iraqi holocaust?” And by that, I do not mean the details of the operation but rather the guiding methodology for war and resulting holocaust.
As a starter, considering the colossal imbalance of power between a developing country and a superpower, U.S. planners knew that a war with Iraq would inevitably mean a potential Iraqi holocaust followed by swift massive degradation of Iraq as a functional nation and more deaths.
Gen. Michael J. Dugan, former Chief of Staff of the U. S. Air Force, externalized the deliberations of the administration when he stated (mid summer, 1991) that if war comes, “We will bomb Iraq back into the Stone Age.” [1].
[1]. B.J. Sabri, “The splendid failure of occupation. Part 45: How the U.S. engineered the Iraqi holocaust”, On-Line Journal, 31 May 2006: http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_856.shtml .
SABRI, B.J. How the U.S. engineered the Iraqi Holocaust
B. J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American antiwar activist (see: http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_856.shtml ).
B.J. Sabri on Iraqi Holocaust (2006): “Did the United States, under the pretext of “liberating” Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation, engineer and execute an Iraqi holocaust to implement, consolidate, and entrench American imperialism in Iraq, and the Middle East?
By judging from the scale of destruction and death the United States inflicted on Iraq, and by considering the international and regional objectives of war, history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East since the 1930s, control of oil, Israel, U.S.-Israel relations, the answer is yes.
Even so, to back up the charge that the United States committed a holocaust in Iraq, an investigation on the meaning of the term: holocaust is indispensable.
As a first step, to qualify the human destruction in Iraq consequent to the Gulf War as a holocaust, we have to dispense at once with all preposterous differentiations that American imperialism assigns to the use of the term or to any other taxonomic categories of mass violence. Second, to debunk completely the imperialist practice that restricts the application of the holocaust concept to specific events but not to others, a discussion on the use of language and derived political vocabulary is in order.
In language, synonyms do not change the basic meaning of a word. Take for example, the words, kill, slay, destroy, slaughter, or exterminate. They all mean the same: take life. Yet, the one subtlety that distinguishes each term is the imagery associated with the given taxonomy.
What these terms would not tell is the magnitude of those who died. Accepted contemporary definitions resolved this problem by adding either the qualifier: mass (as in mass destruction) to indicate lethal violence against large groups, peoples, or nations; by inventing names based on Roman derivation such as genocide; or by reviving the ancient Hellenic term: holocaust.
Before the first Iraqi holocaust (1991), there were many other large-scale holocausts committed by marauding, colonialist, and imperialist polities. Among these were Mongolian hordes in Asia and Eastern Europe; European and American colonialism in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Africa; Ottomans against Armenians; Germans against Jehovah witnesses, Jews, Romanies, communists, etc.; Japanese against Chinese and Koreans; Israelis against Palestinians; and the United States against Koreans, Vietnamese, and Panamanians.
A holocaust, as an expression of humanity gone dastardly and violently bestial, should have neither trophy nor primacy over other despicable events of mass violence. Still, the Iraqi holocaust is prominent among all other holocausts for one distinguishing feature: the United States planned for it with the acquiescence of other colonialist powers of the U.N. Security Council, and with financing from Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and other American vassals.
In the end, and for the first time in history, there has been a “legalized” consensus to perform a holocaust, a fundraising to finance it, and a deadline to start it.“ [1].
[1]. B.J. Sabri, “”, The splendid failure of occupation. Part 45: How the U.S. engineered the Iraqi Holocaust”, Online Journal, 31 May 2006: http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_856.shtml .
SADDAM'S CRIMES DWARFED by Coalition carnage
Gideon Polya, “Saddam’s crimes DWARFED by Coalition carnage”, MWC News, 9 April 2006, partly cached by Google.
Saddam’s crimes DWARFED by Coalition carnage
SADDAM HUSSEIN is on trial in Baghdad but his awful crimes PALE when compared to those of the UK-US-led Coalition countries in Iraq under Sanctions and Occupation. In short, by 1990 “under-5 infant deaths per 1,000 births” reached a MINIMUM of 50 in oil-rich Iraq under Saddam Hussein as compared to 44 in its neighbour, resource-poor Syria (from catastrophic high values of about 170-200 in the immediately post-colonial era). However Western-imposed Sanctions immediately reversed this trend, leading to doubled infant mortality and avoidable mortality for a dozen years; ultimate US-led invasion and occupation further increased mortality. According to UNICEF (2006) (see: here ) in 2004 “under-5 infant deaths per 1,000 births” had reached 125 in UK-US-occupied Iraq as compared to 16 in Syria.
The latest United Nations Childrens’ Fund (UNICEF) data (see: here ) ALSO show that in 1990 the “under-1 infant mortality rate” expressed as “under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 births” was 40 in Iraq under the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, this comparing favourably with a value of 35 in neighbouring Syria; however by 2004 after 16 years of violent Western impositions this was 102 in Occupied Iraq as compared to 15 in Syria.
The Ba’athist régimes in both Iraq and Syria (for all their authoritarian faults) had been quite successful in reducing the “under-1 infant mortality rate” which had been 150 (post-colonial Iraq, 1950-1955) and 144 (post-colonial Syria, 1950-1955) according to Web-accessible data from the UN Population Division (see: here ). In 1950-1955 the “under-5 infant mortality rate” was 197 in Iraq and 167 in Syria, these countries having only recently emerged from the almost genocidal rigours of occupation by the British and French, respectively.
However the return of Western armies to Iraq in 1990 with the application of Sanctions (and thence war, sustained bombing and sustained Sanctions-induced privations) interrupted this trend to lower infant mortality – “under-5 infant mortality rate” immediately INCREASED ENORMOUSLY and continued to rise in oil-rich Iraq, from a value of 50 in 1990 to 125 in 2004. In contrast, “under-5 infant mortality rate” in impoverished, neighbouring Syria continued to FALL from 44 in 1990 to 16 in 2004.
To put these “under-5 infant mortality rate” figures into a wider context, the current “125” value for oil-rich Occupied Iraq is similar to that found in wretchedly impoverished countries in the world in South Asia (e.g. Pakistan, 101) and sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. Zimbabwe, 129); “16” is around the value found in the “best” countries in the Developing World (e.g. Sri Lanka, 14); and, of course, infant mortality inevitably occurs even in peaceful, prosperous First World countries (e.g. Australia, 6).
SCIENCE, HUMANITY and the Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide
Gideon Polya, “Science, Humanity and the Iraq Holocaust ”, MWC News, 14 April 2006, not cached by Google.
Science, Humanity and the Iraq Holocaust
This essay is a message of solidarity from an Australian scientist and writer sent to the Brussells Tribunal on the occasion of the Madrid International Seminar on the Assassination of Iraqi Academics and Health Professionals, 22-23 April 2006.
Sensible people want to change things for the better. Indeed that is how Man became sensible. The extraordinary intelligence of human beings evolved through the Darwinian selection of genetic variants who had improved survivability through enhanced ability to understand their environment and improve their circumstances. There was a trade-off, a price to be paid for the resultant increased brain size, and that was infant birth after 9 months’ gestation, the long-term helplessness of infants and their critical dependence on parents during postnatal brain development and enlargement. Associated with the co-evolution of increased intelligence and infant helplessness was evolution of survival-enhancing behavior patterns that resulted in our present behavioral fundamentals of parental affection, altruism and respect for Mother and Child.
As cogently argued by Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene”, Man also transmits behavior non-genetically from generation to generation through sets of learned behaviors, culture and ideas he describes as “memes” in contradistinction to the DNA-constructed “genes”. The DNA-based “genes” are mutated, ”shuffled” through genetic recombination and sex and are thence subject to natural selection. In contrast, “memes” are passed on in oral and written traditions from generation to generation, are selected through societal success and can over-ride genetic behavioral imperatives. Thus gene- and meme-determined social behaviors relating to “not killing” and to “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” were codified in writing as “thou shall not kill” but conflicting ideological memes relating to nationalism, racism and power readily overcome this fundamental imperative.
Scientific approaches have dramatically improved Man’s lot since the beginnings of sophisticated, agriculture-based civilization in the Fertile Crescent encompassing lands from Egypt to present-day Iraq. The scientific approach involves truth, reason, sensible communication and the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses. The scientific approach was implicit in the process whereby the earliest farmers carefully selected seed for sowing and applied a process of reiterated selection to eventually yield the cereal staples that became the mainstay of humanity. Lying, un-reason, censorship and fraud may serve narrow power interests but are ultimately self-defeating. Thus non-reportage of man-made mass mortality may serve the short-term interests of those responsible but simply ensures continuance of such catastrophes – history ignored yields history repeated.
Whether it is selecting better animal and plant breeds, developing better medical protocols or simply improving society generally, the basic approach involves minimizing risk. The best “risk minimization” protocol, which is applied most successfully in high risk areas such as heavy industry and aviation, successively involves (a) acquisition of information, (b) scientific analysis of the data, and (c) sensible systemic change to minimize risk. Unfortunately, in many areas of human activity this protocol is perverted by (a) lying by omission and commission, censorship, intimidation and self-censorship, (b) anti-scientific “spin”-based approaches involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position, and (c) “blame and shame” punishment of suitable victims with no sensible, risk-minimizing systemic change.
The tragedy of post-colonial Iraq since the return of Western armies in 1990 illustrates the perversion of humanitarian values, scientific approaches and rational risk assessment. The bottom-line parameter in any discussion about social policy is the human cost. According to the latest, Web-accessible UN Population Division data and UNICEF data (see: here), the "under-5 infant deaths per 1,000 births" in oil-rich Iraq versus impoverished Syria were 200 vs 170 (1953), 50 vs 44 (1990) and 125 vs 16 (sixteen) (2004) i.e. infant mortality decreased enormously under the dictator Saddam Hussein but increased hugely after 1990 due to Western intervention. The post-1990 under-5 infant mortality in Iraq under war-criminal UK-US sanctions, bombs and occupation now totals 1.6 million and the post-1990 excess deaths (i.e. avoidable deaths) now total 2.2 million. The 1990-2003 under-5 infant mortality and excess mortality in Iraq under sanctions and bombing totalled 1.2 million and 1.7 million, respectively; the 2003-2006 figures for post-invasion Occupied Iraq are 0.4 million and 0.5 million, respectively. In comparison, the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality and excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan now total 1.4 million and 1.8 million, respectively (see MWC News ).
These tragedies could have been averted by commitment by the responsible Western democracies to the scholarly and scientific ethos of truth, reason, sensible communication and application of the scientific method. Everyone is now familiar with the numerous, outrageous lies that preceded the illegal Coalition war on Iraq in 2003. However relatively few are familiar with the above mortality statistics – while deriving from authoritative, publicly-accessible UN and UNICEF reports just a click away on the Web, this crucial information is comprehensively ignored by Mainstream Media in a continuing process of racism, lying by omission and holocaust-denial. The horrendous under-5 infant mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan (1,300 infants dying every day, 0.5 million infants dying each year and with 90% of these deaths avoidable) is occurring because of the non-provision by the Occupying UK-US-led Coalition of the life-preserving requisites demanded unequivocally of Occupiers by the Geneva Conventions. Indeed these horrendous crimes constitute “passive genocide” and are the subject of formal complaints to the International Criminal Court (see Countercurrents).
The appalling, continuing, avoidable mass mortality of infants in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories is a gross violation of the fundamental human behavioral imperative of respect for Mother and Child and reveals the semantically-absurd War on Terror as in actuality a War on Women and Children. While this carnage has been occurring, the very people who can save societies from irrational perversion have been targeted, threatened and killed in Coalition-occupied Iraq, namely Iraq’s intellectuals, academics, lawyers, scientists, teachers and health professionals. According to the eminent Brussells Tribunal, about 220 Iraqi academics have been killed, hundreds of have been forced into exile, hundreds of Iraqi teachers have been murdered and there is evidence for targeting of professionals by death squads and see here . What can decent people do in the face of the racism, violence, unreason and untruth exhibited by the UK-US-led Coalition countries over Iraq? Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity.
We are all obliged to INFORM everyone about gross abuses of humanity.
Having read this, please inform everyone you know.
Dr Gideon Polya,
Melbourne, Australia
WEISBROT, Mark. Iraqi Holocaust & US holocaust denial
Dr Mark Weisbrot is an American economist, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC, USA and president of Just Foreign Policy (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weisbrot ).
Dr Mark Weisbrot on the Iraqi Holocaust and US holocaust denial (2007): “another holocaust denial is taking place with little notice: the holocaust in Iraq. The average American believes that 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in March 2003. The most commonly cited figure in the media is 70,000. But the actual number of people who have been killed is most likely more than one million. This is five times more than the estimates of killings in Darfur and even more than the genocide in Rwanda 13 years ago… The estimate of more than one million violent deaths in Iraq was confirmed again two months ago in a poll by the British polling firm Opinion Research Business, which estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths since the US invasion. This is consistent with the study conducted by doctors and scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health more than a year ago. Their study was published in the Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal. It estimated 601,000 people have been killed due to violence as of July 2006; but if updated on the basis of deaths since the study, this estimate would also be more than a million. These estimates do not include those who have died because of public health problems created by the war, including breakdowns in sewerage systems and electricity, shortages of medicines, etc… In fact, there is considerable evidence that the occupation itself - including the strategy of the occupying forces - has played a large role in escalating the violence to holocaust proportions. It is in the nature of such an occupation, where the vast majority of the people are opposed to the occupation and according to polls believe it is right to try and kill the occupiers, to pit one ethnic group against another. This was clear when Shiite troops were sent into Sunni Fallujah in 2004; it is obvious in the nature of the death-squad government, where officials from the highest levels of the Interior Ministry to the lowest ranking police officers - all trained and supported by the US military - have carried out a violent, sectarian mission of "ethnic cleansing." (The largest proportion of the killings in Iraq are from gunfire and executions, not from car bombs). It has become even more obvious in recent months as the United States is now arming both sides of the civil war, including Sunni militias in Anbar province as well as the Shiite government militias. Is Washington responsible for a holocaust in Iraq? That is the question that almost everyone here wants to avoid. So the holocaust is denied.” [1].
[1]. Mark Weisbrot, “Holocaust denial, American style”, The Huffington Post, 3 December 2007: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/holocaust-denial-america_b_75098.html .
WHO. Total expenditure pa on health per capita in Occupied Iraq $124 versus $6,714 in Occupier US
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends (see: http://www.who.int/about/en/ ).
WHO on “Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births)” and “Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006)” (2010): “[Occupied] Afghanistan … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 257… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 29; [Occupier] Australia … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,122; [Occupier] France … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,554; [Occupier] Germany … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,328; [Occupied] Haiti… Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 80… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 96; [Occupied] Iraq… Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 47… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 124; [Occupier] Netherlands … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,383; [Occupied Somalia] … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 145… Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2001): 18; [Partly Occupied] Syria … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 13 …Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 109; [Occupier] UK … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6…Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 2,784; [Occupier] US … Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 8…Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 6,714.” [1].
[Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War demand that an Occupier must supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm )].
[1]. WHO, Countries (2010): http://www.who.int/countries/en/ .
ZAMPARINI, Gabriele. Condemnation of all those complicit in Iraqi genocide commission and denial.
Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer living in London. He’s the producer and director of the documentary series "XXI CENTURY" and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers, Colorado, July 2005) (see: http://thecatsdream.com/ ).
Gabriele Zamparini on shoe-throwing Iraqi hero Muntazer al-Zaidi and “shoes for all” those complicit in the commission and denial of the Iraqi genocide (2008): “When Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, shouted, "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" to Bush and threw him his shoes durign anewsconfercvne in Baghdad, the curtain of hypocrisy fell and the ugly emperor stood naked in front of the world.
Those shoes however were not aimed only to a man who should be - by his own standards - hanged, together with his entire junta of mass murderers; the Iraqi hero hit to the face all those responsible for the Iraq genocide and its ongoing denial; an endless army of politicians, diplomats, generals, businessmen, journalists, intellectuals and pimps who've helped to carry out the crime of the century. Shoes for all!
Shoes for the United Nations that instead of protecting one of its members from the supreme international crime that organization has been founded to prevent, collaborated with the occupation and its crimes.
Shoes also for the lib-left intelligentsia, the anti-war movement's politburo, the human rights paladins and the court of eunuchs who have worked as gatekeeper of dissent and helped to sell the products of the crime of the century; the supporters of the "political process", of the sectarian Quisling government, of the militias of drillers and all those who rejoiced for the capture and lynching of Saddam Hussein and his government. Shoes for all!
Shoes for Human Rights Watch that contributed to the propaganda campaign that made possible the invasion of Iraq, rejoiced and praised the US occupation for the capture of its president and stil keeps denying the Iraqi genocide.
Shoes for Iraq Body Count that's made possible the denial of the Iraq genocide by its perpetrators and their propaganda apparatus.” [1].
[1]. Gabriele Zamparini, “Shoes for all!”, Global Research, 17 December 2008: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11424 .
ZANGANA, Haifa. Horrendous violent deaths and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Iraq
Haifa Zangana is a novelist and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime. She is a weekly columnist for al-Quds newspaper and an occasional commentator for the Guardian, Red Pepper and al-Ahram Weekly. She lectures regularly on Iraqi culture, literature, and women issues (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/haifazangana ).
Haifa Zangana on Iraq carnage (2006): “One advisor, Undersecretary of State George Ball, was against the idea of escalating the war. He told Johnson that: "There is no assurance that we can achieve our objectives by expanding US forces in South Vietnam." Ball believed that it was the last chance for the US to leave Vietnam. Johnson knew it was the right advice to follow, but he chose to stay the course. It took the US another 10 years to withdraw its soldiers from Vietnam. Three million Vietnamese were killed, 15 million were displaced, over one million persons had to flee the country, infrastructure was destroyed and 58,000 Americans killed, and far more injured. The same is happening in occupied Iraq now. The latest study by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health published in The Lancet, estimates that a total of 654,965 Iraqi people -- nearly one in 40 -- have died violently since the American-led invasion of the country in March 2003. The number is equivalent to seven million Americans. No academic or statistician has disputed the methodology and conclusions of a study based on a cluster samples and on death certificates naming violent death and excluding the equally devastating figures of preventable mortality due to collapsing medical services or contamination. Maliki's government, though, was keen to discredit the report and its conclusions. While Iraqi morgues, hospitals and streets bear witness to the daily carnage, Ali Al Dabagh, spokesperson for the government, stood, shamelessly, in the fortified Green Zone to argue "methodology". He did not argue responsibility or the morality of the killings. Thousands are displaced. Tortured, mutilated, burned bodies appear everywhere. Nameless and numberless, the young and old are found shot in the head. Bodies pile in the streets, dumped near rubbish tips or in rivers. The Tigris River, the heart of Baghdad, cries in horror as bodies float downstream to be snagged in grids at Suwaira to the south. The city weeps for bodies no one dares to collect. The pre-planned descent into hell is so rapid that no fatwa can stop it.” [1].
Haifa Zangana, “They must go, and soon”, al-Ahram, 19-25 October 2006: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/817/re11.htm .
posted by Dr Gideon Polya @ 3:51 AM
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