Hardcore statistics and the axis of imperialism

Hardcore statistics and the axis of imperialism

Abdul Rahkman – Research Intelligence Unit (www.riunit.com)

Current times are a stern test of the patients and resole for many a citizen residing in numerous regions of our planet. Falling victim to the schemes of the ‘imperial powers’ and their designs on the natural resource wealth endowments of communities, or suffering from home-spun weak governments and policy failings, the price being paid is unjustifiably high.

Cradle to the grave

In the occupied lands of Palestine that is home to several million internally displaced people, UNICEF and the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission runs a program that seeks to address the specific problems and issues faced by children living in Palestine. Already, more than ninety-one Palestinian children have been killed in 2006 in the West Bank and Gaza, almost double the number for the whole of 2005 according to the UN data.

Quite apart from the criminality of targeting children for slaughter, the hostilities are also taking their psychological toll. Increasingly, children are coming into contact with violence from the Palestinian- Israeli conflict and consequently suffering from high levels of stress. “They are confronted with regular military operations, shelling, house demolitions and checkpoints on their way to school,” according to the UNICEF Child Protection Officer, Anne Grandjean. She added that “as a result we find high prevalence of signs of stress such as anxiety, eating and sleeping disorders, and difficulties concentrating in school. All of these signs need to be tackled as soon as possible to avoid a long-lasting impact on the child’s development,” she added.

New crimes

Early October, an Italian TV report aired a disturbing program that documented the use of a new and highly dangerous experimental weapon on Palestinians that was causing serious physical injuries to Gaza strip residents. The report was based on eye witness accounts and tests that show amputated limbs and severe burns on the victims. The munitions were apparently launched from drones and cause a high degree of damage within a radius of a few meters. The frequency of their use has been accelerating since July this year according to sources.

One doctor at the emergency room at the Shuhada al Aqsa Hospital said the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies ‘as if a saw was used to cut through the bone’. He added that there were signs of heat and burns near the point of the amputation with no sign that the dismemberment was caused by metal fragments. Another doctor in the report said that they found entry wounds on the bodies of the wounded and the dead with a power like microscopic shrapnel found on the victims bodies and internal organs.

The evidence suggests that these weapons are comparable to those currently being developed by the US military. The key point being that as they have not officially been tested on the battlefield as yet, they cannot be banned by international law.

Dammed statistics

The past 15 years have witnessed the people of Iraq having to endure hardship after hardship with bombings, economic sanctions, invasion and occupation. According to a recently released report by a team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists, some 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a direct consequence of the arrival of coalition forces in March 2003.

Of these, 601,000 were said to be resulting from violence and the rest from other causes. The figure represents about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country. Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country. Leading causes include gunshot wounds, car bombs and coalition air strikes.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online by the British medical journal the Lancet.

A report published in the Asian Times recently claimed that the violence in Iraq is ‘Made in the USA’, adding that ‘Iraq has never had a history of sectarian conflict’. Moreover, the people were amongst the most highly educated in the world with a record ratio of PhD’s in the population. Therefore, it has been a set of carefully planned policy choices that has served as a road map towards rising bloodshed and internal division.

The true extent of ‘skullduggery’ being applied however remains a mystery. An investigative reporter writing on the confessions of a former CIA officer states that ‘oddly, among the things they were trained to do at Harvey Point was practice blowing up busses, rained on E-cell timers, and improvising pressurized airplane bombs.’ It was claimed by the former officer that by the ‘end of the training, we could have taught an advanced terrorism course”

Increasingly, evidence that elements in the Pentagon itself is funding and instigating the ‘death-squads’ in order to destabilize the country is gaining in credibility and popularity. Robert Dreyfuss (Rolling Stone) suggests that the Iraqi government is behind much of the assassinations and they are in turn controlled by and run with US funding.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to decipher the true picture on the ground. Journalist, author and film maker, John Pilger says that ‘in contrast to the embedded lie that the killings are now almost entirely sectarian, seventy per cent of the 1,666 bombs exploded by the resistance in July [2006] were directed against the US occupiers and twenty per cent against the puppet police force. Civilian casualties amounted to ten per cent. In other words, unlike the collective punishment meted out by the US, such as the killing of several thousand people in Fallujah, the resistance is fighting basically a military war and it is winning. That truth is suppressed, as it was in Vietnam.”

Meanwhile, a silent exodus has been reported. The latest data from Geneva indicates that more than 40,000 people a month are fleeing violence and the flow of refugees towards Europe is growing steadily. The UNHCR claimed that Iraqi’s have now become the single largest group seeking asylum in European countries. Syria is home to some 450,000 of the displaced with some 40,000 crossing the border every month. Tens of thousands are also crossing into Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gulf States and Europe. An estimated half a million Iraqi’s are also in Jordan.

Disability allowance

The human cost on the coalition side is also very high with the official US death toll rising up towards 3000. According to some analysts, the war in Iraq is causing less fatalities and more injuries than previous wars such as Vietnam due to technological improvements made in body armor. However, technology has not gone beyond protecting the torso so in the current conflict many of the serious injuries are to limbs and extremities.

According to a report by the New York Times Company, nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after service in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from partial disability. The official data indicates that over 100,000 veterans to date are getting disability compensation. Some 567,000 have been discharged out of the 1.5 million US troops who have served thus far. Trend analysis indicates that the number claiming disability allowance cold reach 400,000. Already, over 2.6 million are getting compensation, most of them having served in Vietnam. Payments are in the range of a few hundred to more than $1000 per month.

A separate V.A. health care report shows that the most common treatments sought by recently discharged troops are for musculoskeletal disorders like back pain, followed by mental disorders, notably post traumatic stress disorder. About 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought treatment for post traumatic stress, which afflicts soldiers who have been under fire or in prolonged danger of attack.

Axis of hope

Under current US foreign policy dictates, it is difficult to see how any significant improvement in the current scenario can take place. Moreover, many analysts on all sides of the Atlantic expect the US to strike Iran, probably sometime in 2007 before the Bush term runs out.

However, a long-shot at a better situation is also a possibility. A leaked report from a bipartisan US Commission is said to be looking at ways in which Iran and Syria could be approached to defuse the anarchy and enable a US withdrawal. The report is expected to outline a strategy that will facilitate support from neighboring states whose interests are not served by increased violence in Iraq.

The leaked report is said to offer two possible options. The ‘Stability First” approach where some of the main insurgent groups would be asked to join the political process with the involvement of Iran and Syria is one option. Alternatively, the “Redeploy and contain” option outlines ways in which the US troops are pulled back to bases outside Iraq and limit themselves to military operations that aim at supporting Iraqi forces.

Either way, an alternative policy is urgently needed or we could all be on the highway to Armageddon.

Copyrights Reserved (RIU 2006). Prepared exclusively for the Business Standard.