http://musliminsuffer.wordpress.com/
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
One Million Dead in Iraq
Our Own (US) Holocaust Denial
By Mark Weisbrot
11/22/07 "<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/>ICH' -- --
Institutionally unwilling to consider America's responsibility for
the bloodbath, the traditional media have refused to acknowledge the
massive number of Iraqis killed since the invasion.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's flirtation with those who
deny the reality of the Nazi genocide has rightly been met with
disgust. But another holocaust denial is taking place with little
notice: the holocaust in Iraq. The average American believes that
10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in
March 2003. The most commonly cited figure in the media is 70,000.
But the actual number of people who have been killed is most likely
more than one million.
This is five times more than the estimates of killings in Darfur and
even more than the genocide in Rwanda 13 years ago.
The estimate of more than one million violent deaths in Iraq was
confirmed again two months ago in a poll by the British polling firm
Opinion Research Business, which estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths
since the US invasion. This is consistent with the study conducted by
doctors and scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of
Public Health more than a year ago. Their study was published in the
Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal. It estimated 601,000
people killed due to violence as of July 2006; but if updated on the
basis of deaths since the study, this estimate would also be more
than a million. These estimates do not include those who have died
because of public health problems created by the war, including
breakdowns in sewerage systems and electricity, shortages of medicines, etc.
Amazingly, some journalists and editors - and of course some
politicians - dismiss such measurements because they are based on
random sampling of the population rather than a complete count of the
dead. While it would be wrong to blame anyone for their lack of
education, this disregard for scientific methods and results is
inexcusable. As one observer succinctly put it: if you don't believe
in random sampling, the next time your doctor orders a blood test,
tell him that he needs to take all of it.
The methods used in the estimates of Iraqi deaths are the same as
those used to estimate the deaths in Darfur, which are widely
accepted in the media. They are also consistent with the large
numbers of refugees from the violence (estimated at more than four
million). There is no reason to disbelieve them, or to accept tallies
such as that the Iraq Body Count (73,305 - 84,222), which include
only a small proportion of those killed, as an estimate of the
overall death toll.
Of course, acknowledging the holocaust in Iraq might change the
debate over the war. While Iraqi lives do not count for much in US
politics, recognizing that a mass slaughter of this magnitude is
taking place could lead to more questions about how this horrible
situation came to be. Right now a convenient myth dominates the
discussion: the fall of Saddam Hussein simply unleashed a civil war
that was waiting to happen, and the violence is all due to Iraqis'
inherent hatred of each other.
In fact, there is considerable evidence that the occupation itself -
including the strategy of the occupying forces - has played a large
role in escalating the violence to holocaust proportions. It is in
the nature of such an occupation, where the vast majority of the
people are opposed to the occupation and according to polls believe
it is right to try and kill the occupiers, to pit one ethnic group
against another. This was clear when Shiite troops were sent into
Sunni Fallujah in 2004; it is obvious in the nature of the
death-squad government, where officials from the highest levels of
the Interior Ministry to the lowest ranking police officers - all
trained and supported by the US military - have carried out a
violent, sectarian mission of "ethnic cleansing." (The largest
proportion of the killings in Iraq are from gunfire and executions,
not from car bombs). It has become even more obvious in recent months
as the United States is now arming both sides of the civil war,
including Sunni militias in Anbar province as well as the Shiite
government militias.
Is Washington responsible for a holocaust in Iraq? That is the
question that almost everyone here wants to avoid. So the holocaust is denied
The full story in
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18765.htm
===
-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW