The "Public Option" in Iraq is Genocide
Just Foreign Policy maintains a running estimate of the number of Iraqis who have perished as a result of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on surveys in Iraq conducted by the Lancet and ORB, and for the typical holocaust deniers who always show up asking for proof, proof, proof, and more proof, and still more proof, and even more proof endlessly and forever, my response is... Eat shit and die!
Americans have been obsessing month after month about a "public option" for healthcare, and every other issue has been relegated to niche blogs and the back pages of a few newspapers, and meanwhile in Iraq, which has one hospital bed for every five patients, children die every day from injuries which could have been treated with simple antiseptics and a bandaid, if half of Iraq weren't so completely devastated that you can't even find a bandaid or a bottle of iodine, and if you're looking for links, links, links and still more links because you still don't know fuck-all about Iraq after 6 long years of the genocidal American occupation and you want me to prove everything step by step for the fiftieth time on the blogs... Go fuck yourself!
And in other news, Project Censored chose the annihilation of more than one million Iraqi men, women, and children under the American occupation of Iraq as the most censored story of 2009.
I don't think that the "eat shit and die" approach will get you much, but you've otherwise written a post that I can recommend.
September 8, 2009 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the pre-emptive Eat shit and die! and Go fuck yourself! are entirely appropriate. It's essentially what we say to the Iraqis, no?
September 8, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Ruta showed remarkable self-retraint in communicating so concisely an extremely intense emotional state, and I am not opposed to having feelings about this subject.
1,000,000 people have died as a result of our invasion. HOLY FUCKING SHIT
Ruta, thanks for reminidng us of the plights of others for which we are responsible. I am going to maintain my focus on helathcare reform because we must get it done NOW! But then, it will be back to our usually scheduled programming. WTF are we doing in Iraq.
AA - I believe we need to monitor how the money gets spent, but allow more of the Iraqis to do the work. One thing that we are missing in Iraq is the real news of what that money is funding and how well those funds are distributed. There is almost no transparency about that, and it could be a blog all its own.
Here's the title and it's slogan: The Iraqi News, Who has the Contracts? Who does not? How much are they paid, and what do we get for it?
Log and blog, it's your money they're spending!!
September 8, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any suggestions about what the U.S. should do about it?
For what we have done, one thing is sure: we are damned to an eternity of being blamed not just for the past deaths but for whatever situation that country is in or will be in.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't: Handing over more forklifts of money without oversight staff or direction or rules does not seem a wise choice given the current state of their government. Presenting monetary support with oversight staff or direction or rules means returning to "occupation" by U.S. government agencies. I.E., giving money and saying it is for new hospitals does not insure new hospitals get built, not without oversight. Do you want us to stay or go?
September 8, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are right AA. We have no idea how to try and help them rebuild their lives. And that is what gets me the angriest. Just foaming at the mouth angry.
I would like at least some since of justice- war crimes tribunals, an honest investigation of 911, the decisions to invade Iraq, and the reconstruction bungling. Something that says to the dead that we recognize we fucked up.
Nothing.
No rebuilding, no justice.
September 8, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our country really is a completely disgusting fucked up mess and like many people I am willing to do something about this and many other things but I have no idea what to do?
And the health care obsession may at least be waking us up to the reality that our ideas of democracy in this country are much more of an illusion than we knew.
September 8, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was wondering whether to take advantage of that Cash for Clunkers program. It's kind of a toss-up: I could drive my car for a while longer, and I don't think it gets that bad of mileage, so maybe it's not that bad for the environment, but then if they've *already* made those new cars, then it's not like my buying one will use up more resources, and that rebate is pretty attractive even though it will still cost money that I don't really have, but probably this kind of cash subsidy won't be coming around in quite a while. It is a Quinndary, I must say.
September 8, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone wanna hear a Sarah Palin joke?
September 8, 2009 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not just the mileage, the carbon emissions are the big thing (in the EU, by the by, car taxation is based on the latter.) If those are under control, I would probably hold off until electric and fuel cell vehicles start being mass-produced. This should occur within two years.
September 8, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh wait, you just reminded me - I DON'T OWN A CAR. Har har har. Hell, I DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY LEGS!!! Har har har. (Every day is) Happy Iraq & Afghan War Day!!!
September 8, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
ver one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.
ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.
I have been waiting for five years for this info
Thank you for this link.
The figures have been hidden, just thrown out there by left and by right.
Great blog.
September 8, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real story is much, much worse than numbers can convey.
I was just about totally unaware of how the US/UN sanctions were affecting the civilian population of Iraq until 1998, when I began to see UNICEF estimates of the number of children who had died in Iraq as a result of our embargo, and especially as a result of the break-down in medical care and the supply of clean water. Tens of thousands of children in Iraq were dying every year of water-borne diseases, and for me it summoned up a picture that I would like to forget.
This was a child I saw in the last phase of dying of dysentery in Guatemala, in the terminal phase of dehydration. The child's eyes had turned into wax. This is something that you never want to see.
Children have been dying like that in Iraq year after year, and now decade after decade, and they are still dying like that today, right now.
September 8, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes the real story just keeps getting worse and worse the more you look. Warning, links contain horrific photos of Iraqi children with birth defects many believe were caused by depleted uranium.
September 8, 2009 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
One has to wonder how the "Right to Lifers" would feel about that if they knew. Of course, they would never admit this was real if the news came from a liberal. I don't know the word that fits a people who make a profit selling this kind of catastrophic residue.
September 9, 2009 3:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not just the deaths, but the injuries. I swear there were stretches of neighborhoods in Haditha, Barwanah and Albu Hyatt where every single man and woman were missing limbs or digits.
But America experienced no terror attacks after we invaded and occupied Iraq, right? How rockin kewl is that?
September 8, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ruta got me goin on this again. Damn. Facing the truth, it is hard to look into the eyes of the truth.
WHAT IN GOD'S NAME DID WE DO?
September 8, 2009 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Opened Pandora's box?
Opened a can of worms?
Sat on 50 cents and squeezed out 4 quarters?
Rode on the short bus?
Sorry for the joke. When dealing with the incredibly terrible , my first response is a joke. Later the reality sinks in.
My only response to this is that we should never have gone in to Iraq alone (and at all). Why are we using so much money on our military? What gain does anyone get out of this? Iraqis? Maybe a semblance of democracy (though I doubt it will last. Democracy can't be handed out imo, it has to be wanted and worked for)? Us? The cheap oil that was argued behind the scenes didn't materialize and enriched only a few. We still are losing soldiers. We could get more bang for our money by using it to fill potholes--at least then it would prevent a few flats.
As RR says above, our policies even before the war caused harm. What other policies that we haven't examined but are entrenched are causing unintended or unthought of harm right now?
September 8, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give them time. From their midst will emere vengeance, which is why the GOP was taunting them in the first place. In chaos they can steal, says Randi Rhodes on Air Americe, and while I have a lot of questions about Randi, on this I agree.
September 9, 2009 3:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo Ruta!
September 8, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Rootie,
I posted this in Desi's blog the other day but I want to post it here too.
I want to share a personal story of a 'debate' on the Iraq war that I went to in spring 2005 between Howard Dean and Richard Perle. It was held in an auditorium and tickets were sold, and the crowd was mostly middle class professionals (in Portland, Or). Well needless to say the debate proceeded with the usual talking points. You know Dean making the strong left case that containment was the answer and that we are only creating more problems by going in. Meanwhile Richard Perle just kept returning to the paramount threat that Saddam and WMD's meant to us and how we "had no idea what he had and that it was too important.... I set there in my sit and stewed in absolute anger.
I mean it was utter nonsense. WE had bombed the shit out of the country less then a decade ago, we investigated all the weapons facilities, we had spy satellites on every inch 24/7, we patrolled 2/3ds of it with "no fly zones" we blockaded Basra and confiscated oil ships every few week (my brother worked in the navy doing exactly this), and just for good measure we had been bombing suspect targets every month or so throughout that decade. We had everything locked up. And here he was saying that we didn't have any of this knowledge. that the risk was too great. I was incredulous.
And then it happened. A 20 something kid ripped off his shoes and threw them at Perle and started shouting "Liar. Liar. Liar". This lasted about 30 seconds and then he was muscled to the ground and dragged out. Perle laughed and rolled his eyes and for the next 3 to 4 minutes we could still hear the muffled kid shouting liar. Dean said nothing. Then the debate carried on as if nothing happened.
The crowd set there, mildly uncomfortable with nervous apprehension.
I was so angry. The kid was right and hundreds of thousands are now dead.
But I sat there too.
September 8, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I also think about throwing a shoe, or whatever, sometimes, and who knows what the future will say all of us should have been doing.
We're probably past the point of no return with the climate, and who knows what the future will say all of us should have been doing about it.
"Less talk, more killing," as the Governator of California once said... but only in a movie.
September 8, 2009 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awful philosophical of you.
I have similar fears, but I think I can live with the future judgment. It is my own that bothers me more.
September 8, 2009 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Project Censored has become a lot more sensible than in April of 2001, when it thought that the most censored story was "Cuba Leads the World in Organic Farming."
I'm glad they have their head on straight now.
September 8, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm remembering the Vietnam war memorial in Washington, thinking about how tall (10'-3" in the middle) and long (493'- 6" for both panels) the wall had to be to inscribe the names of the 58,000 American soldiers who died there:
http://www.bvvinc.org/WebPages/vietnam_veterans_memorial_wall.htm
So just how long, and how many panels of similar size and angle would a 10' high wall have to be to list the names of the Iraqi civilian dead so far? And since we're still there, how many extra uninscribed stone panels should we plan on? Maybe a couple of miles of the Great Wall of China could be purchased for the purpose with Halliburton or Blackwater profits.
September 9, 2009 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
But no one will ever lobby for that wall. Just forgotten names and faces. And if you labeled all the ripped off limbs, you'd cover from the Washington Monument straight through the pool to the Capitol Building.
September 9, 2009 5:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
it is another reason why people rightfully hate Americans
September 9, 2009 1:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glad this one is getting up on the front page, Rootie. Until I read your comments I was going to say you're very much understating the horror - the UNICEF estimates on pre-2000 deaths. This Albright statement still stands out for me:
"Lesley Stahl on U.S. 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?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Half a million children, in a country of 20 million.
PROCESS THAT. JUST TAKE FIVE MINUTES TO PROCESS IT.
But hey, in respectable discussion, that's the price of empire.
These numbers, like so many others, people just refuse to accept them or refuse to process them. Because, God, what would we have to think of ourselves. "Eat shit and die" - you're much too kind...
September 9, 2009 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink