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| The stench of a Mission Accomplished? |
paraclete |
10/16/06 |
A blind eye to genocide
By Phillip Adams
October 17, 2006 08:51am
Article from: The Australian
Why is the media downplaying one of the world's great tragedies, asks Phillip Adams.
Into the valley of Death/ Rode the six hundred - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
IF the foolhardy Charge of the Light Brigade could so move Tennyson in 1854, where's a patriotic poet for the great fiasco of 2006? Six hundred soldiers in the valley of death? How about more than 600,000 dead civilians in Iraq? Instead of one of Victoria's resplendent regiments being sent to its doom by an incompetent general, 655,000 Iraqis are condemned to death by an incompetent US President.
Using methodologies employed to measure death tolls in epidemics – endorsed by scholars from the US Centres for Disease Control – the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health calculate that 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died prematurely, about 600,000 by violence, since the US-British-Australian invasion in 2003.
They admit to a statistical margin of error. A low of 426,369. A high of 793,363. These figures do not include Iraq's military dead or those of the so-called coalition of the willing. The survey shows the prewar mortality rate was 5.5 people per 1000 a year. It is now 19.8.
Total civilian victims? Let us allow a ratio of five or 10 injured for every death. Either figure means millions more casualties. Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die in chaos unleashed by the neo-con conmen in Washington. And, yes, in Canberra. With Bob Woodward's devastating indictment of a dysfunctional administration in the news, remember the revelations in his previous book: that John Howard played a crucial role in urging George W. Bush to invade. Now the chickens are coming home to roost for the chicken hawks who were planning this war long before the Boeings hit the World Trade Centre's twin towers.
Three thousand Americans die on 9/11 and an incoherent Bush blames Baghdad. About 3000 US troops have died in Iraq, thus doubling the US death toll. Tens of thousands of young Americans have been shipped home to military hospitals, maimed or maddened. And the forces unleashed by the US in Bush's unforgivable mixture of vengeance and pre-emption continue to slaughter their fellow Iraqis. No wonder even former defence chief Peter Cosgrove admits the war has boosted global terrorism.
Surprise, surprise. Bush and Howard ridicule the Johns Hopkins figures though the coalition has tabled none of its own. Joining in Washington's efforts to obfuscate, the Iraqi Government bars the central morgue and health ministry from releasing any details of the mounting toll. The lies and disinformation that got us into the war continue and the Iraqis pay an intolerable price for the wish-fulfilment fantasies of armchair generals and neo-cons.
Almost as shocking as the body count is the response to it. It was inevitable that George and John would brush the figures aside, but why did the media underplay it? I had expected to see front-page headlines – 蝟,000 die in Iraq" – but had to search the pages of most papers to find the story, usually on page 10 or 11.
It was an also-ran on the television news. If it made the cut at all, it got the briefest mention late in the bulletins.
Both the ABC and the usually reliable SBS downplayed one of the world's greatest tragedies.
With Iraq flushing his presidency down the toilet and the US mid-term elections just days away, Bush is in deeper denial than ever. But why the wider world? Are we suffering from Iraq overkill? Compassion fatigue? Boredom? Principally, I suspect, the overwhelming feeling is of shame and deep embarrassment.
The coalition is no longer willing; it's time for cutting and running. The recent concession by Britain's army chief Richard Dannatt that the occupation of Iraq is stoking bloodshed worldwide and that British troops should be withdrawn merely confirms this.
Yet many in the pro-war lobby remain in thrall to its fatal attractions. Thus the otherwise admirable Christopher Hitchens seems willing to sacrifice more Iraqi lives for his ideals, while the Quadrant regiment, with the honourable exceptions of Owen Harries and Tom Switzer, are still defending the indefensible.
Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why. On into the valley of other people's deaths. Ignoring the examples of many distinguished and disenchanted US conservatives – Francis Fukuyama and William F. Buckley Jr come to mind – most of Australia's right-wingers are still marching behind Howard. It's as if those great clouds of Bush's political flatulence were Chanel No.5. Iraq's responsibility for 9/11, the links between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the Baathists' support for international terrorism, the weapons of mass destruction in their silos, the inevitability of a triumphant secular democracy in Baghdad and a subsequent domino effect throughout the Middle East. And the stench of 655,000 Iraqi corpses won't change anything. There is no price in other lives they're not willing to pay. |
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 10/17/06 12:27 pm:
Francis Fukuyama ? He was one of the original neo-cons.He was active in the 'Project for the New American Century "in 1997 and signed the letter they sent recommending that Clinton overthrow the Saddam Hussein. The fact that things have not gone as well as he imagined and now he is trying to cover his ass is not to his credit .I can understand refering to Buckley who really did not come out in favor of the war ;but Fukuyama ? He now claims he did not really mean we should use the military to overthrow Saddam.He now has coined a contradictory term for his latest thinking on the issue .He calls it " realistic Wilsonianism " combining the best of realist thinking of keeping dictators in power for stablility's sake and promoting democracy around the world . What an oxymoron !!! What the hell ;he has now penned his conflicting philosophy in a new book called "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy." If you have a couple of days to waste try reading it and his previous mis-reading of world events entitled "The End of History and the Last Man."
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