The
Lancet Study...
By Baghdad Burning
23 October, 2006
Baghdad Burning
This
has been the longest time I have been away from blogging. There were
several reasons for my disappearance the major one being the fact that
every time I felt the urge to write about Iraq, about the situation,
I'd be filled with a certain hopelessness that can't be put into words
and that I suspect other Iraqis feel also.
It's very difficult at this point to connect to the internet and try
to read the articles written by so-called specialists and analysts and
politicians. They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about
the Ivory Coast or Cambodia- with a detachment and lack of sentiment
that- I suppose- is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians
is even worse. They fall between idiots like Bush- constantly and totally
in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos
to promote themselves.
The latest horror is the study published in the Lancet Journal concluding
that over 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war. Reading about
it left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it sounded like a reasonable
figure. It wasn't at all surprising. On the other hand, I so wanted
it to be wrong. But... who to believe? Who to believe....? American
politicians... or highly reputable scientists using a reliable scientific
survey technique?
The responses were typical- war supporters said the number was nonsense
because, of course, who would want to admit that an action they so heartily
supported led to the deaths of 600,000 people (even if they were just
crazy Iraqis…)? Admitting a number like that would be the equivalent
of admitting they had endorsed, say, a tsunami, or an earthquake with
a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale, or the occupation of a developing
country by a ruthless superpower… oh wait- that one actually happened.
Is the number really that preposterous? Thousands of Iraqis are dying
every month- that is undeniable. And yes, they are dying as a direct
result of the war and occupation (very few of them are actually dying
of bliss, as war-supporters and Puppets would have you believe).
For American politicians and military personnel, playing dumb and talking
about numbers of bodies in morgues and official statistics, etc, seems
to be the latest tactic. But as any Iraqi knows, not every death is
being reported. As for getting reliable numbers from the Ministry of
Health or any other official Iraqi institution, that's about as probable
as getting a coherent, grammatically correct sentence from George Bush-
especially after the ministry was banned from giving out correct mortality
numbers. So far, the only Iraqis I know pretending this number is outrageous
are either out-of-touch Iraqis abroad who supported the war, or Iraqis
inside of the country who are directly benefiting from the occupation
($) and likely living in the Green Zone.
The chaos and lack of proper facilities is resulting in people being
buried without a trip to the morgue or the hospital. During American
military attacks on cities like Samarra and Fallujah, victims were buried
in their gardens or in mass graves in football fields. Or has that been
forgotten already?
We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the
violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three
years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations,
car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military
raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions,
secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different
ways to die, is the number so far fetched?
There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since
2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around,
some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.
Let's pretend the 600,000+ number is all wrong and that the minimum
is the correct number: nearly 400,000. Is that better? Prior to the
war, the Bush administration kept claiming that Saddam killed 300,000
Iraqis over 24 years. After this latest report published in The Lancet,
300,000 is looking quite modest and tame. Congratulations Bush et al.
Everyone knows the 'official numbers' about Iraqi deaths as a direct
result of the war and occupation are far less than reality (yes- even
you war hawks know this, in your minuscule heart of hearts). This latest
report is probably closer to the truth than anything that's been published
yet. And what about American military deaths? When will someone do a
study on the actual number of those? If the Bush administration is lying
so vehemently about the number of dead Iraqis, one can only imagine
the extent of lying about dead Americans…
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