Gideon Polya, “9/11 & War on Terror. The human cost”, MWC News, submitted 8 September 2006, no Google record.
9/11 & War on Terror. The human cost
ON THIS 5TH 9/11 ANNIVERSARY, what has been the human and economic cost of the post-9/11 Bush War on Terror? Early in 2006 I estimated the human cost of the post-9/11 Bush Wars at 2.7 million dead and an economic cost to the US of $1-2 trillion (MWC News March 16, 2006;). The human cost has climbed over the subsequent 6 months to now total over 3 million, one thousand (1,000) times the number of people (3,000) murdered on 9/11.
We still do not know who was responsible for the carnage on 9/11 although the scientific evidence suggests that the “official story” is a concoction and increasingly points to US Government involvement. Thus an Australian scientist Dr Frank Legge has analyzed the available data on the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) and concluded: “Evidence based on videos, photographs and witness testimonies is presented which indicates that explosives were used in the demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Centre. The conclusion is reached that the official reports are unsatisfactory and that further investigation is required” (F. Legge “9/11 - Evidence for controlled demolition: a short list of observations”, Journal of 9/11 Studies, vol. 2, August 2006, pp 4-15; ).
In a further scientific paper Dr Legge concludes that the US Administration was involved in the atrocity: “ In consideration of all the evidence stated above there appears to be no alternative to the conclusion that some part of the US Administration was involved in the events of 9/11. Regarding the demolitions it is not simply the use of explosives which leads to this conclusion; it is the use of explosives together with systematic and comprehensive denial of their use” (F. Legge “9/11 – evidence suggests complicity: inference from actions”, Journal of 9/11 Studies, vol. 2, August 2006, pp 16-25; ).
While we don’t know for sure who was responsible for the 9/11 atrocity, we do know exactly who have been responsible for the 1000-fold greater carnage associated with the War on Terror, namely George Bush, Tony Blair, Dr Rice (Dr Death) and their Coalition confrères. The following analysis systematically sets out the casualties of Bush’s War on Terror (in reality a War on Women and Children) as at September 9, 2006.
1. Post-invasion avoidable deaths. Avoidable mortality (excess mortality, deaths that did not have to happen) is the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics. From UN Population Division Data (see: HERE and HERE) the post-invasion avoidable deaths in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan are 544,000 and 2,055,000, respectively, for a total of 2,599,000; the corresponding post-invasion under-5 infant mortality figures are 422,000 and 1,637,000, respectively, for a total of 2,059,000. Iraq Body Count estimates that 41,639-46,307 Iraqi civilians have died violently post-invasion in Iraq.
2. Post-9/11 opiate drug-related deaths. There have been an estimated 0.5 million post-9/11 opiate drug-related deaths world-wide and these are largely due to Coalition restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry. These post-9/11 opiate drug-related deaths include about 1,200 (Scotland), 2,000 (Australia), 3,000 (Canada), 3,200 (the UK) and 50,000 (the US) (see: MWC NEWS ). These estimates are based on the assumption that 50% of illicit drug-related deaths are opiate-linked (others would estimate higher at 70% because of the phenomenon of multiple drug abuse).
3. Post-9/11 avoidable American infant deaths. The US is the richest country on earth with an annual per capita income of about $38,000 – as compared to $21,000 (Singapore), $400 (Bangladesh) and an average for the world of about $9,000 (2003 figures; for the latest. The “annual under-5 infant death rate” is 0.17% in the US (annual per capita income $38,000) – exactly the same as in Cuba (annual per capita income $1,200) – but is only 0.07% in Singapore (annual per capita income $21,000). The difference between the “annual under-5 infant death rate” of the US and Singapore is 0.1% and the under-5 infant population of the US is 20.1 million – this difference accordingly translates as 20,100 avoidable under-5 year old American infant deaths each year or about 100,000 avoidable American under-5 year old infant deaths under the Bush Administration since 9/11 (see MWC News, “How Bush killed 100,000 American infants” ).
4. Coalition and American military deaths. Iraq Casualty Count informs that 2,896 Coalition soldiers have died in Iraq (including 2,664 American soldiers) and 472 Coalition/NATO soldiers have died in Afghanistan (including 333 American soldiers). 19,688 American soldiers have been wounded in Iraq and 901 wounded in Afghanistan.
The total number of post-9/11 avoidable deaths (#1-#4 above) in the Bush-Blair War on Terror is about 3.2 million – one thousand (1,000) times greater than the number of people murdered on 9/11 five years ago. US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University) and his Harvard colleague Professor Linda Bilmes estimated the US dollar cost of the Iraq War at between $1-2 trillion.
Using the above links the Reader can update these appalling statistics. UNICEF provides details of “under-5 infant mortality” and a useful relationship is that for Third World countries the under-5 infant mortality is about 0.7 of the overall avoidable mortality (see MWC News, “Layperson’s guide to counting Iraq deaths” ).
The post-invasion avoidable deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories total about 2.6 million - 60% avoidable infant deaths and due to gross, war criminal violation by the US Alliance of the Geneva Conventions, which demand that Occupiers keep their Conquered Subjects ALIVE Bush, Blair, Dr Rice (Dr Death) and their Coalition/NATO confrères should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Of course the carnage summarized above is just a small part of the overall picture of what is going on in our First World-dominated Spaceship Earth. Thus 80 million people have died avoidably in the First World-dominated world since 9/11 of whom about 48 million were under-5 year old infants. If the racist, warmongering and imperialist Western Alliance had decided to have a War on Poverty after 9/11 (rather than having a War on Muslim Women and Children) then most of these people would be alive today.
Of course most of the above is simply not reported by lying, racist, holocaust-denying Mainstream media. Silence kills and silence is complicity. Please inform everyone.