The astonishing, horrifying, and sickening inhumanity of US imperialism (1)

VHeadline.com's Houston-based commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: The astonishing, horrifying, and sickening inhumanity of US imperialism ... which some middle class and "omniscient" intellectuals claim no longer exists ... was made evident by the publication on October 11 of a study by the School of Public Health of John Hopkins University and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad on the cost of the vile US aggression against people of Iraq, in terms of the lost of human life.

"As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes violent and non-violent are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion," a press release from John Hopkins University reported.

The University is extremely precise in the above formulation of the chief finding of the study. The study subtracts the pre-war mortality rate from the war mortality rate to get the cost, so far, of the despicable US aggression against Iraq in terms of the lost of human life during the course of the war which is based entirely on US lies. Naturally, US reactionaries immediately denounced the study for "grossly over-counting" the number of Iraqi casualties.

These hasty denunciations of the study cannot be taken seriously because a large segment of US reactionaries are rightwing "rednecks" ... that is, the conservative and bloodthirsty trash, scum, and garbage of the US society.

The rightwing of the "redneck" population in the USA is an important demographic pool from which many of the torturers, murderers, and kidnappers in US military uniforms, as well as US mercenaries, are recruited. We should note that some "rednecks" are not rightwing. Some are independents and even liberals. But we can count these "anomalies" on one hand.

The importance of the role of Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad in the conduct of the study cannot be overstated because the data on which the findings of the study rest was collected on the spot in Iraq. The rightwing "rednecks" and other rabid US conservatives, on the other hand, who denounce the study collect their data, if any, for their ignorant opinions in their mobile homes parked in trashy trailer parks, by watching the slanted "news" aired in the US capitalist media, mostly the flagrantly pro-imperialist Fox News.

"The estimates were derived from a nationwide household survey of 1,849 households throughout Iraq conducted between May and July 2006. The results are consistent with the findings of an October 2004 study of Iraq mortality conducted by the Hopkins researchers. Also, the findings closely reflect the increased mortality trends reported by other organizations that utilized passive methods of counting mortality, such as counting bodies in morgues or deaths reported by the news media. The study is published in the October 14, 2006, edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, The Lancet," the press release said.

The university, in the press release, speaks about the methodology used in the study and the coherence between the results of this study and earlier peer-reviewed work in the field. The mentioning of the "peer-review" seems intended to distinguish this study from the large mass lies and propaganda put out by over a hundred outfits, all on the Pentagon's payroll [more specifically the Defense Intelligence Agency], around the world, that contend, of late, that Iraqi casualties are somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000.

The sample size of 1,849 households is more than ample, given that Iraq has a population of about 26 million people, roughly the size of Venezuelan population. But, given the rate that the US dictatorship under George W. Bush and his GOP-loving rightwing "rednecks" are exterminating the Iraqi people, in the future, researchers will not have to survey so many households. The selection of "households," as a kind of cell or unit of research, rather than "individuals" as is the custom in much of the survey work in the USA demonstrates the impartiality of the John Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya investigators. The sample size of nationwide polls and surveys in the USA with a population of almost 300 million is often somewhere between 800 and 1,200 "individuals," some of whom reside in the same "household."

Again, the reactionary sector [about a third] of the US people, chiefly represented … at the lower levels … by the GOP-worshiping "rednednecks" have flooded the conservative radio talk shows with violent denunciations of the John Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya study. But these savage critics, unlike the researchers at John Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya, have not interviewed a single Iraqi household. These baseball cap -- sneakers -- T-shirt -- Bermuda shorts -- wearing trash of the trailer parks can't speak a word of Arabic or English. But ... and this a big but ... this trash can kidnap, torture and murder people.

The rightwing "rednecks" say they torture and murder people for their country.

• When they are not doing it for their country, they do it to each other ... perhaps for their society.

"As we found with our previous survey, the majority of deaths in Iraq are due to violence although we also saw a small increase in deaths from non-violent causes, such as heart disease, cancer and chronic illness. Gunshots were the primary cause of violent deaths. To put these numbers in context, deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003, said Gilbert Burnham, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and co-director of the Bloomberg School Center for Refugee and Disaster Response. Our total estimate is much higher than other mortality estimates because we used a population-based, active method for collecting mortality information rather than passive methods that depend on counting bodies or tabulated media reports of violent deaths. Though the numbers differ, the trend in increasing numbers of deaths closely follows that measured by the U.S. Defense Department and the Iraq Body Count group," the University, in its press release, continues to discuss its methodology, stressing the difference between active and passive research methods."

"Here, the University returns to the key issue of whether "active" methods of counting dead people are more accurate and reliable than "passive" methods of counting them. 'Active' methods require that the researcher investigate, make inquiries, look into the problem, and digs up himself, by research, the data before he formulates a finding concerning the data. 'Passive' methods allow the researcher merely to ask somebody else what is the state of affairs with regard to whatever data happens to be available and then the researcher echoes or parrots what he hears from somebody else as the "finding" of "his research."

Gilbert Burham, the John Hopkins lead investigator for the study, cites two "passive" methods:

(1) asking the morgue or hospitals how many dead bodies came in and

(2) asking newspapers and other media how many deaths they reported.

With regard to (1) or asking the morgues or hospitals how many dead bodies came in, the Iraqi hospitals have been subjected to a vicious US terrorist campaign -- staff have been attacked by US marines, doctors have been shot, and emergency medicines blocked. Further, morgues and hospitals have been ordered by the ruling US authorities and the quisling Iraqi authorities under the US rulers to neither count nor report Iraqi casualties without the permission of the US dictatorship over Iraq. The cover-up of the magnitude of the US policy of mass extermination of the people of Iraq is pervasive within what is left of the health care system in Iraq.

'Passive'" method of research, relying on asking Iraqi morgues and hospitals how many bodies came in, is patently worthless and therefore completely acceptable to US reactionaries, rightwing "rednecks," and the senior officials of the Bush dictatorship.

With regard to (2) or asking newspapers and other media how many deaths they reported, this is more worthless than making inquiries at the morgues and hospitals. First of all, 80 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the USA began its war of aggression and extermination -- 20 so far in 2006, 22 in 2005, 24 in 2004 and 14 in 2003. In addition to journalists, 28 media support workers have been killed in Iraq after March 2003. Of the 80 dead journalists, 59 were Iraqis, 11 Europeans, 3 non-Iraq Arabs, 2 USAs, and 5 from all other countries. US armed forces have been implicated in 80% of these hits on journalists. But in every official inquiry, if any inquiry was held at all, the US troop(s), accused of killing a journalists without justification, walked ... usually claiming that the killing was a lamentable and unintended result of a "cross-fire." As a result, the whole of the US capitalist media working in Iraq and the greater part of the European capitalist media are little more than propaganda tools of the US military dictatorship that hides, to obtain legitimacy, behind a fake democracy of Iraqi quislings and traitors.

Only the most cynical scum, like George W. Bush and his top team, the mass of rightwing "rednecks" celebrating auto crashes at the racetrack and condemning the Dixie Chicks for their opposition to US aggression, and other hard-core GOPs will suggest that the absurd "passive" method of reading the lying capitalist press will uncover the results of the US strategy of mass extermination of human beings in Iraq.

CONTINUED ...
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=69509

The astonishing, horrifying, and sickening inhumanity of US imperialism (2)

Continued from...
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=69510

VHeadline.com's Houston-based commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: The presupposition that apparently underlies the preference for "passive" methods of counting the dead in Iraq is that members of the households know less about what has happened to their loved ones than other individuals who are under the absolute control of the US military dictatorship over Iraq.

The John Hopkins press release sums up all of the key findings of the report:

Key points of the study include:

• Estimated 654,965 additional deaths in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006
• Majority of the additional deaths (91.8 percent) caused by violence
• Males aged 15-44 years accounted for 59 percent of post-invasion violent deaths
• About half of the households surveyed were uncertain who was responsible for the death of a household member
• The proportion of deaths attributed to coalition forces diminished in 2006 to 26 percent. Between March 2003 and July 2006, households attributed 31 percent of deaths to the coalition
• Mortality data from the 2006 study reaffirms 2004 estimates by Hopkins researchers and mirrors upward trends measured by other organizations
• Researchers recommend establishment of an international body to calculate mortality and monitor health of people living in all regions affected by conflict"

The press release, in this passage, seems to try to fix operational responsibility or culpability for these 654,965 deaths in this list of findings. This list contains a small hint of an effort to assign responsibility for these deaths on the Iraqi patriots fighting foreign military occupation and political domination by the US regime and other dogs of imperialism, such as the regimes in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

The operational, moral and legal responsibility for the murder of 654,965 people lies squarely with George W. Bush, the mass murderer, who started these hostilities with a year-long propaganda campaign of lies about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq and about Iraqi complicity in 9/11.

The dirty lies of Mr. Bush and his GOP dictatorship in the USA about WMDs and 9/11 set into motion a process in which the current results were entirely foreseeable and about which many warned at the time, especially foreseeable was the high probability of massive Iraqi casualties if the dogs of imperialism, led by the US regime, invaded Iraq.

"The mortality survey used well-established and scientifically proven methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations. These same survey methods were used to measure mortality during conflicts in the Congo, Kosovo, Sudan and other regions. For the Iraq study, data were collected from 47 randomly selected clusters of 40 households each. At each household selected, trained Iraqi surveyors collected data on the number of births and deaths that occurred in the household between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2006. To be considered a household member, the deceased had to have lived in the home at least three months prior to death. When interviewers asked to see a death certificate at households reporting a death, it was presented in 92 percent of instances. The survey recorded 1,474 births and 629 deaths among 12,801 people surveyed. The data were then applied to the 26.1 million Iraqis living in the survey area," the press release said.

Here, the John Hopkins press release returns to the methodological issues surrounding the report. That the answers of respondents to the interviewers were corroborated in 92 percent of the instances by the presentation of a death certificate greatly strengthens the study. These death certificates demonstrates that the hospitals and media, on which "passive" researchers rely, are flat-out lying about the number who have perished.

Since neither the US regime nor the big US capitalist media nor pro-imperialist academics have published an Iraqi body count based on scientifically proven methods of research, Dr. Gilbert Burnham knows that this regime, media, and academic mouthpieces have a limited range of options to attack the John Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya University study. This regime, this media, and these academic mouthpieces can either insist on the use of and the results from the discredited "passive" methods of counting the dead which exposes their rottenness or vigorously criticize the methodology that Burnham and his colleagues used in the conduct of their study. So, here, Burnham anticipates their deceitful objections.

"While the survey collected information on the manner of death, the study did not examine the circumstances of the death, such as whether the deceased was actively involved in armed combat, terrorism, criminal activity or caught in the middle of the conflict. The study outlines other limitations of the survey method, including the hazards of collecting data during a conflict," the John Hopkins press release said, here, backing off somewhat from the small hint, given earlier, that vaguely and mostly assigned some kind of responsibility for the 654,965 deaths on the heroic Iraqi patriots.

The language "the study outlines other limitations of the survey method, including the hazards of collecting data during a conflict" practically invites or, at least, challenges the big-mouth rightwing "rednecks" to go Iraq and conduct their own research if they doubt the results of the work of Burnham and his colleagues.

Fat chance. Rightwing "rednecks" and other GOPs only want to lift in the Iraqi body count, not measure it.

"The results from the new study closely match the finding of the group October 2004 mortality survey. The earlier study, also published in 'The Lancet,' estimated over 100,000 additional deaths from all causes had occurred in Iraq from March 2003 to August 2004. When data from the new study were examined, it estimated 112,000 deaths for the same time period of the 2004 study. The new survey also found that the number of deaths attributed to coalition forces had declined in 2006, though overall households attributed 31 percent of deaths to the coalition. Responsibility could not be attributed in 45% of the violent deaths. According to the researchers, the overall rate of mortality in Iraq since March 2003 is 13.3 deaths per 1,000 persons per year compared to 5.5 deaths per 1,000 persons per year prior to March 2003. This amounts to about 2.5% of Iraqi population having died as a consequence of the war. To put the 654,000 deaths in context with other conflicts, the authors note that during the Vietnam War an estimated 3 million civilians died overall; the Congo conflict was responsible for 3.8 million deaths; and recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur over the past 31 months," the press release said as it concludes.

Here, the John Hopkins press release returns to the issue of responsibility and introduces the fresh issue of the historical context of the US-instigated slaughter in Iraq. Here, the press release repeats that the Iraqis may be killing more Iraqis than the foreign dogs of imperialism who started these horrible hostilities. Interestingly, the press release, here, points out that US imperialism killed 3.8 million or inflicted over six times as many casualties in Vietnam. So, Iraq is hardly more than a melee for the bloodthirsty rightwing "rednecks" and other reactionaries of the USA.

A better way to put the US extermination of hundreds of thousands of human beings in Iraq in historical context is the add the 654,965 killed in Iraq to the number of human beings killed and starved to death in Afghanistan after the US attack, during a famine, in the fall of 2001.The resulting sum of casualties greatly exceeds a million people killed, as result of US imperialism, in only five years.

The thing that is stunning about the report is not its sophisticated methodology or its innuendos about responsibility for 654,965 dead people or the historical context in which it places the ongoing US-managed massacre in Iraq.

What is stunning is the conceptual framework under which the work was done. The report attempts and succeeds in making a reliable measurement of dead Iraqis, resulting from the US aggression, whether the dead were military or civilian (if military, whether the death was "in action" or "in an accident) and whether the dead were pro-imperialist or anti-imperialist or neither. Before this report, most of the earlier work sought to estimate just the dead civilians or just some of the dead soldiers or dead pro-imperialists or dead anti-imperialists. Laboring under these and other inappropriate conceptual constraints, misleading results and counts poured out in the vicinity of 30,000 to 60,000 "total" dead.

George W. Bush, responding to the study, said "It's not credible." It is the longstanding policy of the US regime to tell lies when faced with embarrassing reports. This policy is commonly called "plausible denial." In this case, the denial isn't plausible and Mr. Bush himself isn't credible.

• Now, with this report, we finally know the truth about continuing holocaust in Iraq and the degree of the moral degeneracy of the US regime.

Now, let's look at the response, so far, of the US people to the publication of the John Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya study.

Politically and ideologically the US people mostly divides into three huge sectors -- reactionaries, independents, and the so-called liberals, each accounting for about a third of the population.

The rightwing or the GOP reactionaries or the conservatives or, more correctly, the latter-day Nazi goose-steppers are outraged that the study blew the whistle on the evil in which the GOP regime is involved in Iraq. But, at the same time, these degenerates are rejoicing … exceedingly … €¦ over the heinous magnitude of the tragedy.

• Just tune in to their radio talk shows and listen for yourself. If you like, join the celebration.

The independents feel a certain degree of uneasiness over the colossal magnitude of inhumanity that the US reactionaries have visited upon the people of Iraq because the independents are perceptive enough to ask themselves whether the US reactionaries ... wild dogs ... will someday turn on the US independents. But, in the main, the independents can look upon the plight of the Iraq people with indifference … not joy, like the US reactionaries … because the US independents are absolute self-seekers.

The US liberals come in many different degrees and their response is the hardest to describe. The response wavers between dismay to disbelief to righteous indignation to compassion to dishonor to whatever.

What I hear most from the liberals is the question "How could 'we' do this?"

My answer is "we" didn't ... they did!