“Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide” is a site dedicated to informing people about the ongoing, US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that as of December 2009 is associated with post-2001 violent and non-violent avoidable deaths totalling 4.5 million and Afghan and Pashtun refugees totalling 5-6 million – an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention (see: http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/home ).
“Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide” website Home Page summary of the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide (2009): “Afghan Holocaust & Afghan Genocide. This site is dedicated to informing people about the ongoing, US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that as of December is associated with post-2001 violent and non-violent avoidable deaths totalling 4.5 million and Afghan and Pashtun refugees totalling 5-6 million – an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) which states: “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.”
Afghan history 1900-2009.
Afghan history, in the 20th and 21st centuries, 1900-2009, is summarized in the following extract from Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007; see; http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ) [additional comments in square brackets]: “1907, Anglo-Russian Agreement; British control of Afghan foreign affairs; WW1, neutral;; 1919, Third Afghan War, Afghanistan invaded India; Afghanistan recovered control of foreign affairs; WW2, neutral; 1973, military coup; enlightened republic [very little opium grown before 1978 US intervention under later Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jimmy Carter]; 1978, coup installed a communist government; communist leader Taraki killed and US-backed Amin installed; USSR invaded; 1979-1989, Afghanistan War, Russians versus US-backed mujaheddin; 50,000 Russians died and millions of Afghans (1979-1989 Afghanistan excess mortality 2.9 million); 1992, Kabul captured; 1994-1999, Pashtun Islamic fundamentalist religious student militia, the Taliban, conquered all but the Northern Alliance areas, notably those held by Massoud; 1996, Kabul captured by the Taliban; 1997, Taliban banned smoking by civil servants and soldiers; 1998, US cruise missile attacks over Afghan refusal to hand over Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (accused of the 1998 Kenya and Tanzania US embassy bombings); 1999, UN-brokered peace between the Taliban and Massoud; 1 million dead, 3 million refugees (1989-1999 excess mortality 3.3 million); 2000, Taliban banned opium poppy growing (a major financial source for Afghan farmers); 2001, virtually no more opium grown in Afghanistan; September 11, World Trade Centre attacks; October, US invasion after massive bombing [no Afghans were involved in 9/11 according to the US “official version” of 9/11 and the US rejected the Taliban Afghan Government offer to give alleged perpetrator Osama bin Laden to a Third Country]; 2002, Taliban largely defeated; Kabul area protected by NATO forces; most of country reverted to war lords; opium poppy production back to “normal” by mid-2002 (76% of world opium production); 2005, Taliban resurgence; continuing war; still 3 million Afghan refugees despite 2.4 million repatriated; opium production over 90% of the world total [in 2009 93% of world total] (2001-2005 Afghanistan excess mortality 1.7 million; 2001-2005, global opioid drug deaths about 0.4 million) [US president Obama expanded war to NW Pakistan with predator drones, US-backed Pakistani warfare and huge expansion of US forces after award of Nobel peace prize in 2009; as of December 2009 2001-2009 Afghan excess mortality 4.5 million; 2001-2009 global opioid deaths 0.7 million; Afghan and Pashtun refugees 5-6 million].
Foreign occupation: Britain (pre-1950); Russia, US (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia, US, Australia, UK and Canadian and German NATO forces; post-1950 [1990-2005] excess mortality/2005 population = 16.609m/25.971m = 64.0%; post-1950 [1990-2005] under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 11.514m/25.971m = 44.3%.
A note on calculation of post-invasion non-violent excess deaths (non-violent avoidable deaths) in Occupied Afghanistan.
As spelled out in great detail in my book “Body Count. Avoidable mortality since 1950” (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ ) and in a March 2009 article on Occupied Afghanistan excess deaths (see “Obama’s Afghan War “: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29546/42/ ), “excess deaths” (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) for a country in a given period is the difference between the observed mortality and the mortality expected for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics.
For Occupied Afghanistan in 2005-2010, annual crude death rate in “deaths per 1,000 of population per year” was 19.7 as compared to an average of about 4 for “good” high birth rate Developing countries (e.g. for peaceful, only partially-occupied, impoverished Syria it is 3.4) (see UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2 ).
Accordingly, the “avoidable death rate” for Occupied Afghanistan in 2005-2010 (mid-2005 to mid-2010) is19.7-4.0 = 15.7 deaths per 1000 of population per year .
The average population of Occupied Afghanistan 2005-2010 was (24.507 million + 29.117 million)/2 = 26.812 million (see UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2 ).
Accordingly, the avoidable deaths in Occupied Afghanistan in the period 2005-2010 = 15.7 avoidable deaths per thousand population per year x 26,812 thousand population x 5 years = 2,104,742 = about 2.1 million.
Application of the same analysis to the period October 2001-December 2009 yields an estimate of 3.4 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan.
Violent deaths, non-violent avoidable deaths, infant deaths and refugees in Afghan Holocaust & Afghan Genocide.
As of December 2009 deaths from the Afghanistan War include 4.5 million violent and non-violent excess deaths of Indigenous Afghans since 2001 (for December 2009 updated estimates of Afghan Holocaust deaths see Comment #1 at the end of the following article about the Iraqi Holocaust: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34979/42/ ; for a March 2009 estimate of 5 million violent and non-violent excess deaths see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29546/42/ ) and 1,550 US Alliance deaths (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).
As of mid-December 2009 it is estimated from the latest UN Population Division data that in Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths total 3.4 million; post-invasion violent deaths total 1.1 million (assuming expert US-Australian advice that the level of violence has been 4 times lower in the Afghan War than in the Iraq War); post-invasion violent and non-violent avoidable deaths total 4.5 million; and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 2.4 million (90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes in gross violence of the Geneva Convention – Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War demand that an Occupier must supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm ) but according to the WHO (see: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) the “total annual expenditure on health per capita” permitted in Occupied Afghanistan is $29 as compared to $6,714 in Occupier US and $3,122 in Occupier racist, white Apartheid Australia).
There are 3-4 million Afghan refugees plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees generated in NW Pakistan by the obscene war policies of war criminal Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama – this carnage involving 4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess Afghan deaths constitutes an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that “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.”
The bottom line in any comparative analysis of violent wrongdoing is consequential death. The current "annual death rate" for Occupied Afghan under-5 year old infants under the US Alliance is 7% - as compared to that of 4% (for Poles under the Nazis in WW2), 5% (French Jews under the Nazis and the Nazi-collaborator Vichy régime in WW2), 13% (Australian POWs of the Japanese in WW2) and 19% (Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe) (see “Polish Holocaust (1939-1945)-Afghan Holocaust (2001-)”: http://gpolya.polls.newsvine.com/_news/2009/09/02/3218030-polish-holocaust-1939-1945-afghan-holocaust-2001-?groupId=1191 .
Global deaths due to US Alliance protection and restoration of Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry.
According to the UNODC about 0.1 million people die from opiate drug-related causes each year and with the US Alliance -restored and US Alliance-protected Afghan opium industry responsible for over 90% of world opiate trade this means about 0.9 x 0.1 million deaths per year x 8 years = 0.7 million global death s due to US Alliance-pushed Afghan opiates.
However we must also include post-invasion global opiate drug-related deaths due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 6% in 2001 to 93% in 2007 (see UNODC World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2007.html and World Drug Report 2009: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2009.html and World Drug Report , Opium/heroin market, 2009: http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_Opium_Heroin_Market.pdf ).
About 0.1 million people die from opiate drug-related causes each year (see Australian National Drug Research Centre: http://db.ndri.curtin.edu.au/media.asp?mediarelid=40 ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “Addiction, crime and insurgency. The transnational threat of Afghan opium”, 2009: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opium_Trade_2009_web.pdf ) and hence about 0.8 million have died since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, of whom about 90%, i.e. 0.9 x 0.8 million = 0.7 million people, have died as a result of the huge expansion of the Afghan opium industry under US Alliance occupation.
In 2005 in the US, of 18,347 deaths due to narcotics and psychodysleptics, 12, 262 were due to heroin (2,011), other opioids (5,789) or methadone (4,462) (see Health E-stat, “Increases in poisoning and methadone-related deaths: United States,1999-2005 “: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/poisoning/poisoning.pdf ) . Given the over 90% contribution of the US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed opium industry to world illicit heroin production, and the interconnectedness and effective indistinguishability of "Afghan-derived heroin" from the "pool" of other abusively-used opiates, one can accordingly crudely estimate 0.9 x 12,262 persons/year x 8 years = 88,286 US opiate drug-related deaths (0.9 x 2,011 deaths/year x 8 years = 14,479 heroin-related deaths) connected with the aftermath of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
In 2000 there were 17,000 US deaths from the direct or indirect consequences of illicit drug use ( see “Annual causes of death in the United States”: http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30 ). According to the US CDC: “ In 2006, a total of 38,396 persons died of drug-induced causes in the United States (Tables 21 and 22). This category includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of legal or illegal drugs, but also poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use, as well as newborn deaths due to the mother’s drug use.” (see: Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009, p, 11.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf ) - this comparing with 19,128 (1999), 19,720 (2000), 21,705 (2001), 26,040 (2002), 28,723 (2003), 30,711 (2004), and 33,541 (2005). Of 33,541 drug-related deaths in 2005 one could conservatively assume from EU data (see EMCDDA: http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/stats07/DRD ) that about 0.5 x 33, 541 = 16,770 were opiate-related (as compared to the estimate above of 12, 260), this giving an estimate of 8 years x 16,770 per year = 134,160 opiate drug-related deaths since the US invasion of Afghanistan.. Note the huge increase in drug-related deaths (mainly from opiates) since 2001.
There were 3,161 drug-related deaths in the UK in 2005 (UK ONS statistics; European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, EMCDDA: http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/stats07/drdtab05a ). Because of multiple drug use, opioids are present in most cases of 'acute drug-related deaths', due to illegal substances identified and reported in the EU (range 46-100%; 64% in the UK; EMCDDA: http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/stats07/DRD ). We could then conservatively estimate 0.64 x 3,161 = 2,023 annual opiate-related deaths in the UK and accordingly 8 years x 2,023 deaths/year = 16,184 post-2001 UK opiate –related deaths.
It should be noted that very substantial additional deaths from opiate drug use include those from AIDS/HIV and hepatitis via dirty syringes, from deprivation and from crime-related violence. Thus the prevalence of HIV among people who inject drugs ranges from about 11% (Western Europe) to 27% (Eastern Europe), although it ranges from only about 1-3% (Pacific Islands, Australasia and Middle East and North Africa) (see : http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_Opium_Heroin_Market.pdf ).
It can be estimated that there are about 426 opiate-related deaths annually in Australia (see NSW Health, “Deaths from opiates, psychostimulants and benzodiazepines”: http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/publichealth/chorep/beh/beh_illidth.asp ), of which about 90% (383) are due to the US-responsible Occupied Afghan contribution to the world heroin market i.e. 383 x 8 years = 3,064 opiate-related deaths since the invasion of Afghanistan (the Australian Government has fatuously obfuscated this in detailed communication to me by saying that technically most of Australia's heroin actually comes from places other than Afghanistan) . (for detailed discussion and estimates based on 8.5 years post-October 2001 see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29546/42/ ).
Global deaths from the War on Terror.
US president launched the so-called War on Terror in October 2001 by the invasion of Afghanistan a month after the 9-11 atrocity (3,000 people killed). The pathologically dishonest Bush Administration (see: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/ ) alleged that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity but its “official version” of 9/11 had no Iraqis or Afghans involved in the atrocity and indeed the official FBI Most Wanted website does not accuse Osama bin Laden of involvement in 9/11: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm .
Further, the discovery of unexploded nano-thermite high explosive in all samples of World Trade Center dust examined by Professor Niels Harrit and colleagues (Chemistry Department, 9-Nobel-Laureate University of Copenhagen) (see Niels Harrit et al, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2, pp.7-31: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM ) clearly implicates the US Government itself in the 9-11 atrocity (most likely with surrogate Israeli involvement) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34215/26/ , http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ , http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22944/26/ , http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29921/42/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/33114/26/ ).
While Muslim non-state terrorists are allegedly responsible for the deaths of 7,000 Western civilians in the last 40 years (this including 2,000 Israelis violently occupying Palestinian lands and ignoring the most probable US and Israeli responsibility for the 3,000 people murdered on 9/11), the violent and non-violent excess deaths associated so far with the Bush wars (1990-2009) now total 9-11 million (for a detailed accounting see “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead [9-11 million] in Bush wars [1990-2009]”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/ ).
Global deaths from violent priorities and ignoring Developing World poverty.
Professor John Holdren (Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Director of the Woods Hole Research Center; recent Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) identified nuclear weapons, poverty and global warming as the three biggest threats facing Humanity (see: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0216am_holdren_address.shtml ).
The US military budget is now about $1 trillion per annum (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States ) and 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist, Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University) has estimated that the accrual cost (long-term committed cost as opposed to the shirt-term budgeted cost) of the Iraq War is about $3 trillion (see: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2236161.htm and “The Three Trillion Dollar War” by Joseph Stiglitz). In 2009, funds for war had been equally distributed between Iraq and Afghanistan, which each received $700 million. But in 2010, the bulk of the funds - $1.2 billion dollars will go to Afghanistan (see: http://www.defencetalk.com/afghan-war-costs-to-overtake-iraq-in-2010-pentagon-18679/ ). The budgeted cost from Congress of the Afghan War is estimated to have been $38 billion (see: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16570 ).
Poverty results in the deaths of 16 million people annually (including 9.5 million under-5 year old infants) from deprivation and deprivation exacerbated disease (2003 data; see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007; see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ). yet high female literacy, good governance, good primary health care and a modest increase in economic security could abolish this global avoidable mortality holocaust. It is estimated that the simple expedient of increasing the per capita of all countries to about $1000 would cost only $1.4 trillion, roughly the annual global “defence” budget and about 2.65 of global GNP (2003) ( p169, Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”).
Global deaths from worsening climate genocide.
Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (see “Climate Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ).
US Alliance war policies in a swathe of countries from Occupied Haiti to Occupied Afghanistan and NW Pakistan, coupled with similarly greedy and racist US Alliance global warming policies, oppose and prevent global equity and will ultimately kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century.”.[1].
[1]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide” (2009): http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/home ).