First published as Gideon Polya, “12th Anniversary Of Illegal Iraq Invasion – 2.7 Million Iraqi Dead From Violence Or War-imposed Deprivation”, Countercurrents, 23 March, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230315.htm .
“12th Anniversary Of Illegal Iraq Invasion – 2.7 Million Iraqi Dead From Violence Or War-imposed Deprivation” by Gideon Polya
Those with consciences recently marked the 12th anniversary on 19 March 2015 of the illegal and war criminal US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq in 2003 that was based on false assertions of Iraqi possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, was conducted in the absence of UN sanction or Iraqi threat to the invading nations, and led to 2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence (1.5 million) or from violently-imposed deprivation (1.2 million). The West has now commenced its Seventh Iraq War since 1914 in over a century of Western violence in which Iraqi deaths from violence or violently-imposed deprivation have totalled 9 million. However Western Mainstream media have resolutely ignored the carnage, this tragically illustrating the adage “History ignored yields history repeated” [1].
Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-subverted and perverted Western Mainstream media utterly ignore expert assessments of how many people the US Alliance has killed in Iraq and resolutely ignore the crucial epidemiological concept of non-violent avoidable deaths (excess deaths, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that should not have happened) associated with war-imposed deprivation (for detailed analysis see [2]). Thus, by way of example, on the occasion of US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 the Australian ABC (Australia's equivalent of the UK BBC) reported that “The withdrawal ends a war that left tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,500 American soldiers dead" [3]. In contrast, the expert and eminent US Just Foreign Policy organization estimates, based on the data of expert UK analysts and top US medical epidemiologists, 1.5 million violent deaths in the Iraq War (2003-2011) [4-7] and UN data indicate a further 0.8 million Iraq avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation in this period [2]. Violent deaths and avoidable deaths from violently -imposed deprivation in the Gulf War (1990-1991) and Sanctions period (1990-2003) total 0.2 million and 1.2 million, respectively [1]. Accordingly, Iraqi deaths from violence (1.7 million) or war-imposed deprivation (2.9 million) since 1990 total 4.6 million [1].
However Western violation of Iraq commenced with the British invasion in 1914. Assuming excess mortality of Iraqis under British rule or hegemony (1914- 1948) was the same as for Indians under the British (interpolation from available data indicate Indian avoidable death rates in “deaths per 1,000 of population per year” of 37 (1757-1920), 35 (1920-1930), 30 (1930-1940) and 24 (1940-1950) [8]), one can estimate from Iraqi population data [9] that Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation under British occupation and hegemony from 1914-1950 totalled about 4 million. Thus ignoring Iraqi deaths associated with the US-backed Iraq-Iran War, one can estimate that about 9 million Iraqi deaths from UK or US violence or imposed deprivation in the century after the 1914 invasion of Iraq by Britain, this constituting an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as discussed below.
Holocaust is the destruction of a large number of people and 9 million Iraqi deaths from Anglo-American violence or violently-imposed deprivation certainly constitutes an Iraqi Holocaust. The term “holocaust” was first applied to a WW2 atrocity by Jog in 1944 [11] in relation to the “forgotten” man-made Bengal Famine (Bengali Holocaust) in which 6-7 million Indians (many of them Muslims, and hence the term WW2 Muslim Holocaust) were deliberately starved to death by the British in 1942-1945 (Australia was complicit in this atrocity by withholding grain from its huge wartime wheat stores from starving India) [11-14]. The term “holocaust” was subsequently applied to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation according to the recently deceased, pro-Iraq War, and Iraqi Genocide-ignoring British Zionist historian Professor Sir Martin Gilbert [15]), noting that the WW2 Jewish Holocaust was part of a vastly greater WW2 European Holocaust in which 30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies were killed [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.” [16]. Any argument that the British and Americans did not “intend” to kill 9 million Iraqis is belied by the remorseless slaughter over 101 years interrupted only by the period between the overthrow of the British-installed monarchy in 1958 and the commencement of Sanctions in 1990.
The Anglo-American Iraqi Genocide since 1990 has been associated with 2 million under-5 year old infant deaths comprising 1.2 million (1990-2003) and 0.8 million (2003-2011), 90% avoidable and due to gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demand that an Occupier must supply their conquered Subjects with food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it” [17]. The Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide was also war criminal mass infanticide and mass paedocide.
The appalling legacy of a quarter of a century of Western violence against Iraq (1990-2015) - for oil, US hegemony and Apartheid Israeli hegemony – is summarized below, with much of the data being found in “Iraqi Holocaust Iraqi Genocide” [1], “Genocide in Iraq” volumes I and II by Iraqi scholars Dr Abdul-Haq Al-Ani & Tariq Al-Ani and reviews of these works [18-21] and noting that about half of the Iraqi population of 30 million are children :
(1). 1.7 million Iraqi violent deaths.
(2). 2.9 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from violently -imposed deprivation.
(3). 2 million under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths, 90% avoidable and due to gross violation of the Geneva Convention by the US Alliance.
(4). 7,700,000 Iraqi refugees.
(5). 5,000,000 Iraqi orphans.
(6). 3,000,000 Iraqi widows.
(7). 1,000,0000 Iraqis missing.
(8). 4,000 Iraqi women (20% under 18) missing and presumed “trafficked”.
(9). 3.5 million Iraqi children living in dire poverty.
(10). 1.5 million Iraqi children are undernourished.
(11). Iraqi cancer cases in cases per 100,000 people were 40 (1990), 800 (1995) and 1,600 (2005).
(12). 40% of Iraqi professionals have left since 2003.
(13). 34,000 doctors (1990) declined to 16,000 doctors (2008).
(14). More than 2,200 doctors and nurses killed.
(15). The Iraqi health budget dropped from $450 million pa (1980-1991) to $22 million (2002),
(16). Most of Iraqi children are traumatized by war.
(17). From high literacy pre-1990 to 74% illiteracy in 2011.
Iraq has been substantially destroyed a modern state by US state terrorism, UK state terrorism, French state terrorism, Apartheid Israeli state terrorism and Australian state terrorism and the same state terrorists have been variously involved in the similar destruction of Libya and Syria from formerly being modern, socially progressive states (albeit under authoritarian governments). . These are unforgivable crimes and the US Alliance war criminals must be brought to account by the world through international law and through application of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the war criminal Western states responsible for the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide.
Summary.
The anti-racist Jewish British writer Harold Pinter declared in his 2005 Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “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” [22]. 1990-2011 Iraqi deaths from US Alliance violence (1.7 million) or violently-imposed deprivation (2.9 million) total 4.6 million and one can in 2015 paraphrase this great humanitarian: “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? 4.6 million? More than enough, I would have thought.”
Unfortunately the International Criminal Court (ICC) as currently operating is a racist, cowardly, partisan, genocide-ignoring, genocide-complicit organization that strictly confines its war crimes attention to war criminals that the US Alliance doesn't like (e.g. non-European and Serbian war criminals) (for discussion see “The Politics of Genocide” by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson [23, 24]). The ICC has repeatedly ignored complaints over the Iraqi Genocide (e.g. [25, 26] and that means the world must accept recourse to eminent, ICC-independent international tribunals to assess the war crimes of the US Alliance in Iraq and elsewhere.
US state terrorism, UK state terrorism, French state terrorism, Apartheid Israeli state terrorism and Australian state terrorism have variously combined over the last 25 years to destroy Iraq as a united, sovereign, modern state. In the face of endless war against Iraq and an ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide, what can decent people do? Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people must (a) circumvent the lying and ignoring by the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-subverted Mainstream media [27] by resolutely attempting to inform everyone they can about the Iraqi Genocide, and (b) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) – of the kind successfully applied against Apartheid South Africa and currently being applied against US Alliance-backed, nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel – against all people, politicians, parties, companies, corporations and countries involved in the Iraqi Genocide and the Zionist-promoted Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide of which it is a part [28]. History ignored yields history repeated. We cannot walk by on the other side.
References.
[1]. “Iraqi Holocaust Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web : http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/ .
[3]. “US military marks end of its Iraq war”, ABC News, 16 December 2011: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-15/us-military-marks-end-of-its-war-in-iraq/3733982 .
[4]. “Just Foreign Policy”: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq .
[5]. ORB (Opinion Research Business), “January 2008 - Update on Iraqi Casualty Data”, January 2008: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88 .
[6]. Les Roberts, “Les Roberts: Iraq's death toll far worse than our leaders admit”, Uruqnet: 14 February 2007: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=30670&s2=16 .
[7]. G. Burnham, R. Lafta, S. Doocy and L. Roberts, “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey”, The Lancet 2006 Oct 21;368(9545):1421-8: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17055943 .
[8]. Gideon Polya, “Economist Mahima Khanna wins Cambridge Prize”, MWC News, 20 November 2011: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/14978-economist-mahima-khanna.html .
[10]. “Iraq Population”: http://www.populstat.info/Asia/iraqc.htm .
[11]. Jog, N.G. (1944), “Churchill's Blind-Spot: India”, New Book Company, Bombay.
[12]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008, now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/2008/09/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-british.html .
[13]. Gideon Polya, “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .
[14]. Madhusree Muckerjee, “Churchill's Secret War. The British Empire and the ravaging of India during World War II” (Basic Books, New York, 2010).
[15]. Gideon Polya , “UK Zionist Historian Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015) Variously Ignored Or Minimized WW2 Bengali Holocaust”, Countercurrents, 19 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya190215.htm .
[16]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .
[17]. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/380 .
[18]. “Genocide in Iraq Volume I . The case against the UN Security Council and member states” by Dr Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tarik Al-Ani (foreword by Professor Joshua Castellino; Clarity Press, Atlanta).
[19]. Gideon Polya ““Genocide in Iraq, The Case Against UN Security Council And Member States”. Book review”, Countercurrents, 8 February, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080213.htm .
[20]. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tariq Al-Ani, “Genocide in Iraq Volume II. The Obliteration of a Modern State” (Clarity Press, 2015).
[21]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Genocide in Iraq Volume II. The obliteration of a modern state” By Abdul-Haq Al-Ani & Tariq Al-Ani”, Countercurrents, 15 March 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150315.htm .
[22]. Harold Pinter, “Art, Truth and politics”, Countercurrents, 8 December, 2005: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm .
[23]. Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, “The Politics of Genocide”.
[24]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “The Politics Of Genocide” By Edward Herman And David Peterson”, Countercurrents, 05 December, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya051211.htm .
[25]. SEARCH Foundation, “ Australia's former Prime Minister Howard accused of war crimes before the International Criminal Court in The Hague”, Countercurrents, 7 June 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/searchnew2.pdf .
[26]. “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”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 .
[27]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .
[28]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .
Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. 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 published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript
) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has 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.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ). 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: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .