Iraq War In Focus

Here we are in the middle of another election cycle and once again, the issues surrounding the Iraq war are once again being whitewashed by the great PR firm, also known as the U.S. mainstream media. Unlike the 2004 elections when the decision was sold to us as a vital part of homeland security, however, the war has hardly been brought up at all this year. So called “Iraq fatigue” is pointed to as the main reason for the lack of coverage but according to poll numbers leading up to the primaries, the Iraq war was second only to the economy in importance for the majority of those who voted for Obama and in the same range of concerns for Hillary Clinton supporters. So the question has to be asked, if the American people are still so concerned with the war, why has it not been a major issue during the race? Perhaps the details behind current events in the war-torn country could provide some clues. Here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with US troop build ups.

The most recent round of fallacies concerning the dip in violence over the past several months is that the surge of US troops has lead to many gains and suddenly the hit and run tactics of the Iraqi rebel fighters were no longer as successful in causing havoc. As George W Bush likes to point out, however, “the devil is in the details.” For starters, several reports coming out of Iraq, show that one fifth of the country is currently living as refugees, all of whom were forced out of their neighborhoods due to violence or the threat of violence. More than a million of those refugees have fled to Syria, Turkey or Jordan until they were forced to close their borders when it became obvious they would not receive support from NATO countries. By comparison, only 466 Iraqis have been allowed into the United States.

According to the Lancet Report a million Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of the war five years ago. Unlike Iraq-Body-Count-Dot-Org, which uses the official Pentagon count and news wire reports, the Lancet report actually involved face to face interviews, along with patterns of violence in given regions and morgue records to come up with this much higher number. The Pentagon numbers include only those Iraqis killed by bombings, shootings and other forms of violence but ignore the deaths caused by the disease due to the lack of sanitation and clean drinking water.

In a move that can only be described as an act of genocide, several reports have surfaced which suggest U.S. forces deliberately targeted Iraq’s sanitation works, bombing out their sewage systems leading to contamination of drinking water with human waste. As of 2007 there were 5000 cases of cholera in the Northern regions according to Patrick Cockburn of the online journal “Counter Punch.” The suddenness of the outbreak and lack of medicine has already forced 60,000 Kurds out of their homes, even in areas where there as been little to no fighting. In the regions of Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk, 42% of the populations have no access to clean drinking water due to sewage.

According to an article by Stephen Gowans, the US command knowingly violated “Article 54 of the Geneva Convention which prohibits any country from undermining objects indispensable to the survival of (another country’s) civilian population.” According to Gowans, the Pentagon was well aware of the dangers that would be caused by destroying the country’s water supply.

If one reviews US involvement in Iraq dating back to the early 1990s, starting with our sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Government, through today, you would see a body count of over 2 million, roughly half of which are children under the age of 18. In fact, the death toll, until recently, was headed towards that of the Congo under British and Dutch rule.

But while the great red, white and blue, along with the insurgents, have turned Iraq into a massive grave yard, most villages have now organized their own militias in reaction to the bloodshed caused by the so-called terrorists. This is the story of Najaf where the local “Mehdi Army” forced out the death squads targeting the villagers. Listening to CNN, however, one would think that the City was rapt awaiting the new great Conquistador of the west. But we here in the US are little more than babes in the wilderness, with no idea what is going around us. So when the US started their massive and sorely unnecessary bombing raid on Najaf, those who paid the heaviest price were the hundreds of innocent locals that were killed.

And finally, let us not forget about Al Sadr’s call for a cease fire in the middle of 2007, just prior to the US surge of troops. The rate of violence went down remarkably before the increase of our presence a year go. But all these facts mean little to John McCain who still believes we had a chance to get some sort of victory in Vietnam.

Until next time…

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