Gideon Polya, “Ignoring Iraq Holocaust. US holocaust denial”, MWC News, 30 January 2007.
Ignoring Iraq Holocaust. US holocaust denial
Holocaust Denial is repugnant because it denies the suffering of the victims and the suffering of the survivors and descendants of the victims. Holocaust Denial is also dangerous because denial of horrendous avoidable mortality events simply increases the probability of their repetition – history ignored or history denied yields history repeated.
Holocaust Denial is again in the news with the recent Israeli-backed US Resolution passed by the UN General Assembly condemning denial of the Holocaust i.e. denial of the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust. Significantly the Resolution – while perfectly praiseworthy in itself - does not mention OTHER Holocausts, thereby raising the specter of American Holocaust Ignoring, and indeed suggesting that the Resolution was in itself a form of Holocaust Denial.
The Resolution, introduced by the United States and approved by consensus, stated that the General Assembly of the United Nations "condemns without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust."
What the Resolution SHOULD have said was that the UN "condemns without any reservation any denial of ANY Holocaust."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon very properly said that the Resolution: "reflects the prevailing view of the international community … the denial of historical facts such as the Holocaust is unacceptable … [that principle must be] respected both in rhetoric and in practice."
The Resolution, while not mentioning Iran, was clearly linked in the eyes of the world’s media to the December 2006 Teheran Holocaust Conference. Indeed this was explicitly stated by the US representative. Speaking during the General Assembly session, Washington's acting ambassador, Alejandro Wolff, said: "conferences like those sponsored by Iran are designed solely to polarize and incite hatred. If successful they can then use that hatred as a catalyst to justify genocide. Some will cloak their hatred and hidden agenda by invoking the right to free speech and academic freedom. There is a categorical difference between free speech and speech which willfully and maliciously ignores recognized historical facts in order to advance an ulterior agenda."
This American position, echoed by Israel, is intemperate, hypocritical, dangerous and dishonest – the Iranians are not threatening anyone with genocide but indeed it is nuclear-armed Israel and nuclear–armed America that have been threatening non-nuclear Iran with nuclear war and destruction. Thus a Google Search for the utterly obscene phrase “nuke Iran” yields about the same number of URLs today as for the phrase “Jewish Holocaust” – about 0.3 million. For a sample of current discussions about the unthinkable “nuke Iran” possibility that is being actively advocated by Bush-ites and Racist Zionists see the appalled commentary by decent, concerned American commentator Fred Kaplan .
The official, explicitly stated Iran position is that Iran, unlike the US and Israel, does not have nuclear weapons and is not developing a nuclear weapons capacity. Further, the official Iranian position, explicitly stated at the UN General Assembly last week by envoy Hossein Gharibi , unequivocally condemned the Jewish Holocaust as an “horrific crime” but indicated the hypocrisy of the American resolution which ignores OTHER holocausts and genocides including that perpetuated in Palestine by US-backed Israel
The Iranian envoy Hossein Gharibi further stated that the “[Resolution backers continue to] pursue narrow political interests …Only by studying objectively what happened in the past, can we ensure that such crimes will never be repeated again. The seriousness and sincerity of this endeavor would be indeed undermined by rendering political judgments on such events and closing the door to any inquiry on their characteristics, scope and extent" (i.e. that opposing critical analysis of Holocausts is a form of Holocaust Ignoring – Holocaust Denial - that threatens the possibility of repetition).
Now it is a wicked world and cynics could be forgiven for thinking that the Iranians may be disingenuous or dishonest in their statements – in which case, of course, there is no basis for any sensible dialogue or discussion at all. However the Americans and Israelis are being demonstrably dishonest and threatening by ignoring (even worse than denying) other Holocausts (including those perpetrated by themselves) and threatening non-nuclear Iran with “pre-emptive” nuclear attack i.e. with unimaginable Prospective Nuclear Holocaust
Furthermore, as correctly observed by the Iranians, the US (Israeli) Resolution ignores other Holocausts (Genocides) such as “the crimes perpetuated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Palestine, Rwanda, and the Balkans …” Nor did the Resolution refer to the non-Jewish victims of the World War 2 Axis Powers – 35 million Chinese, 20 million Soviet citizens, 6 million Poles (half of them Jewish), 1 million Serbs, 0.5 million other Yugoslavs and 0.5 million Roma (Gypsies) (see: HERE ).
One CONTINUING Holocaust ignored by the racist Bush-ites, the Racist Zionists and their Coalition confreres is the ongoing Iraqi Genocide that amounts to an Iraqi Holocaust. The World War 2 Jewish Holocaust killed 6 million Jews out of 15 million Jews in the world but how does this compare with the Israeli-backed American Iraqi Genocide - the Iraqi Holocaust?
Using UN Population Division and medical literature data it can be estimated that the excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in Iraq under sanctions (1900-2003) totalled 1.7 million and the under-5 infant deaths 1.2 million, noting that the current population is about 28 million.
According to a top US medical epidemiology research group - in the World’s top public health department at a top US university (Johns Hopkins), published peer-reviewed in the top medical journal The Lancet and endorsed by 27 top Australian medical experts - the post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths as of October 2006 totalled 655,000. However using Syria and Jordan mortality rates as a baseline revises this figure upwards to 0.9 million. The post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million and the latest UNICEF figures indicate 122,000 under-5 infant deaths annually in Occupied Iraq (see MWC News).
This carnage is largely occurring due to gross violation of the Geneva Conventions that demand that Occupiers keep their conquered subjects alive. The annual per capita medical expenditure permitted by the Americans in US-occupied Iraq is a genocidal $58 as compared to about $7,000 in Metropolitan America. Further, about 2 million Iraqis have fled Iraq and there are about 1.7 million Iraqis as refugees within Iraq.
What the US and its Allies have been doing in Iraq since 1990 is genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention, which declares that Genocide involves acts committed with intent to destroy a population in whole or in part.
Bush, Blair and Australia’s Howard all reject the findings of the expert Johns Hopkins medical scientists. They are thus denying horrendous Genocide as quantitated by the UN agencies and by top medical experts and as defined by the Internationally-agreed UN Genocide Convention.
The US and its Coalition accomplices are involved in horrendous Holocaust Commission and Holocaust Denial in relation to the Iraqi Holocaust. The US is also involved with Israel in appalling nuclear Holocaust Promotion in relation to Iran. Iran’s complaint at the UN of “hypocrisy” is well-justified. US Holocaust Promotion, US Holocaust Commission and US Holocaust Denial all demand comprehensive International Sanctions and Boycotts to bring US Terror and US-Israeli State Terrorism to heel.