Gideon Polya,"Cost of Bush Wars – 2.7 million dead & $1-2 trillion", MWC News, submitted 19 March 2006, on the occasion of the THIRD ANNIVERSARY of the invasion of Iraq.
Cost of Bush Wars – 2.7 million dead & $1-2 trillion
The world is currently observing the THIRD ANNIVERSARY of the invasion of Iraq. It is appropriate for those who value HUMAN LIFE to consider the HUMAN and ECONOMIC COST of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In summary, the human cost is estimated below to now total 2.7 MILLION. Human survivability ultimately relates to RESOURCES which in turn are ultimately quantifiable in dollar terms. US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia) and his Harvard colleague Professor Linda Bilmes estimated the US dollar cost of the Iraq War at between $1 TRILLION and $2 TRILLION (see: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263428_iraq1ed.asp ; http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/iraq-war-could-cost-26-trillion/2006/01/10/1136851198921.html & http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/dailyUpdate.html).
MARCH 2006 – the LATEST UN FIGURES (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/) indicate that the post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality, man-made mortality) is 0.5 MILLION (US-occupied Iraq) and 1.8 MILLION (US-occupied Afghanistan); the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality totals 0.4 MILLION and 1.4 MILLION, respectively.
MARCH 2006 - the LATEST UNICEF FIGURES (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html) indicate that 0.5 MILLION under-5 year old infants die in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan annually (1,300 daily and 90% avoidably) due to NON-PROVISION by the Occupying UK-US-led Coalition of the life-sustaining requisites demanded of Occupiers by the Geneva Conventions (passive genocide) (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm).
MARCH 2006 - the LATEST UN OFFICE FOR DRUGS & CRIME (UNODC) FIGURES (see: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_ex_summary.pdf) indicate that the post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths total 0.4 MILLION due to restoration by the US-led Coalition of the globally-dominant Afghan opium industry destroyed by the Taliban in 2000/2001; in the major “White”, Anglo-Celtic countries the post-2001 opiate drug deaths total about 1,200 (Scotland), 1,600 (Australia), 3,000 (Canada), 3,200 (UK) and 50,000 (US) (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya281005.htm).
MARCH 2006 - the Coalition leaders are responsible for an avoidable post-invasion death toll of at least 2.7 MILLION including a post-invasion avoidable mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (2.3 MILLION) and post-2001 global opioid drug deaths (0.4 MILLION); these estimates IGNORE the global economic impact of the war and increased oil prices on the largely Third World post-2001 global avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality that total 64 MILLION and 42 MILLION, respectively (16.0 MILLION and 10.6 MILLION annually and about 44,000 and 29,000 daily, respectively) (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/).
MARCH 2006 – the International Criminal Court (ICC) has now stopped dealing with the crimes of Milosevic (complicity in 0.2 MILLION deaths) but REFUSES to deal with the war crimes of the Coalition leadership (currently totaling 2.7 MILLION avoidable deaths) (see FORMAL COMPLAINT TO ICC in MWC News: http://www.mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3087&Itemid=145).
MARCH 2006 – over 2,300 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and 17,400 wounded - and the ECONOMIC COST to the US of of the Iraq War has been estimated by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor Linda Bilmes at between US$1 TRILLION and US$2 TRILLION (see: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263428_iraq1ed.asp).
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people are obliged to (a) INFORM OTHERS and (b) ACT ETHICALLY in all their personal and business dealings with people, corporations and countries involved in gross abuses of humanity. SANCTIONS and BOYCOTTS ultimately worked against the racist Apartheid régime in South Africa – UK, US, Australian and Coalition complicity in continuing passive genocide in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan invites similar global retribution. “Consumer choice” is the fundamental rule of the US-dominated globalized world and should be followed by all decent people in the interests of humanity in relation to Coalition war crimes.
Just as Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld and Rice (Dr Death) are complicit in 2.7 MILLION post-2001, war-related avoidable deaths, so ANY person buying goods and services from ANY Coalition country is similarly COMPLICIT in mass murder.