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Our deadly democracy: 225,000 killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Brown University has released a new study:

The cost of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan are estimated at 225,000 lives and up to $4 trillion in U.S. spending, in a new report by scholars with the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. The group’s “Costs of War” project has released new figures for a range of human and economic costs associated with the U.S. military response to the 9/11 attacks.

Bush presidential library protest
Bush presidential library protest
Bush presidential library protest2
Bush presidential library protest

Photos above are of bunch of folks protesting the opening of the Bush presidential library.

On Thursday, April 25, 2013, while we stood in the designated “no speech” zone where dissent, once again, would be rendered invisible across a highway from the Bush Library, we gazed out through white death masks, still waiting for justice to be served. We were people who came together once more, from all over the country, to create “The March of the Dead”, now in response to the opening of the Bush Library in Dallas, Texas.

While George W. Bush was being celebrated, honored by the presence of four living presidents, as well as countless dignitaries, we watched as memory was being erased and history rewritten. We came to carry names of some of those who lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq and Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo prisons; names that would never be engraved on the walls of an institution dedicated to the man who gave orders that resulted in their unnecessary loss of life.

We carried the names of civilians and U.S. military and of detainees tortured to death because of war crimes committed by the Bush Administration.

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Phil have you read Joy Gordon’s book, ‘Invisible War’? It’s very thoroughly researched and exhaustive (and leaves you exhausted, because of how hypocritical and evil the sanctions regime was).

Its about the Iraq sanctions.

Even before the Iraq War we were destroying Iraq through the sanctions.

225,000 is a very conservative estimate. Even if you toss out the Johns Hopkins study in 2006 (published in the Lancet) which said 600,000 violent deaths in Iraq and if you ignore the ORB poll which found about 1 million deaths a year later and just restricted oneself to the study published in the NEJM (the Iraq Family Health Survey) covering the period up to early 2006, you still have between 100 and 225,000 violent deaths by that time, and that from a study where the survey team identified itself to its interviewees as working for the Iraq government. (Would you necessarily expect honest answers from people, knowing that the Iraqi government ran death squads?)

The 100-225,000 violent death figure is 2 to 4.5 times bigger than Iraq Body Count’s number for that same time (early 2006), so since IBC claims over 100,000 dead civilians by now , the likely figure is probably at least 200,000 and maybe much much higher. In Iraq all by itself.

There was also a poll in 2007 which found 17 percent of Iraqi households had suffered at least one person “seriously harmed”–that would translate into at least 600,000 dead or wounded even if there was only one casualty in each of those households (in reality, significantly more, since if a death squad pays a visit or if family members are out in the streets together you’re likely to have more than one person hurt or killed.)

Wikipedia actually has a fairly decent article on this–

Casualties of the Iraq War

225,000????? What, now Mondo is going to feed us swill? No mention of the Lancet Report? No mention of the UN report citing 500,000 infant deaths as a direct result of the sanctions?

225,000 deaths is a ridiculously low number, rendered absurd by the disingenuous representation of this being any kind of objective or fact based “study”. If someone actually chooses to be suckered into buying this kinda propaganda, fine. But expecting to sell it to anyone reasonably informed is a bit presumptuous. And personally, I dislike being presumed to be an idiot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties

The Lancet, one of the oldest scientific medical journals in the world, published two peer-reviewed studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on the Iraqi mortality rate. The first was published in 2004; the second (by many of the same authors) in 2006. The studies estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the occupation, both direct (combatants plus non-combatants) and indirect (due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poor healthcare, etc.).

The first survey[1] published on 29 October 2004, estimated 98,000 excess Iraqi deaths (with a range of 8,000 to 194,000, using a 95% confidence interval (CI)) from the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq to that time, or about 50% higher than the death rate prior to the invasion. The authors described this as a conservative estimate, because it excluded the extreme statistical outlier data from Falluja. If the Falluja cluster were included, the mortality estimate would increase to 150% over pre-invasion rates (95% CI: 1.6 to 4.2).

The second survey[2][3][4] published on 11 October 2006, estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006. The new study applied similar methods and involved surveys between May 20 and July 10, 2006.[4] More households were surveyed, allowing for a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths. 601,027 deaths (range of 426,369 to 793,663 using a 95% confidence interval) were due to violence. 31% (186,318) of those were attributed to the Coalition, 24% (144,246) to others, and 46% (276,472) unknown. The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56% or 336,575), car bomb (13% or 78,133), other explosion/ordnance (14%), air strike (13% or 78,133), accident (2% or 12,020), and unknown (2%).

Someone please stop us.
Since Americans obviously can’t or won’t stop their own government.
Makes me sick.