Will The US Government And Media Finally Report The Slaughter Of Iraqis By The US Military?

[laststeamtrain]

Will The US Government And Media Finally Report The Slaughter Of Iraqis By The US Military?
Michael Schwartz


I recently received a set of questions from Le Monde Diplomatique reporter Kim Bredesen about the 2007 Project Censored story about 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The questions and answers are, I think, useful in framing both the untold story of the slaughter in Iraq and the failure of the U.S. media to report on its extent or on U.S. culpability for the deaths of 4% of the Iraqi population.

Bredeson : I observed recently that your story on Iraqi deaths caused by US occupation became story no. 1 in this year's listing by Project Censored. I wondered if I could ask you a few questions on e-mail regarding this issue?

Regards,
Kim Bredesen, Le Monde diplomatiqe (Norway)

These are my questions.

<more>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-schwartz/will-the-slaughter-of-ira_b_143503.html

[baby_mouse]

1. This issue has long since stopped being the elephant in the living room

It has simply disappeared.

[doc03]

2. This is not my opinion but most American

people don't care how many Iraqis were killed.

[baby_mouse]

3. Yes, it's a bit sad, really. 1,000,000 people just gone.

And all over a complicated political spat generated by a bunch of snobs resentful and angry over, essentially, the 60s.

[baby_mouse]

15. Kick.

[whathehell]

8. "most Americans don't care how many Iraqis were killed"

That may be your opinion, but I don't see how you can state that as fact.

[PinkyisBlue]

12. I think part of the reason for this is that the media doesn't show the war.

More Americans would be upset if they actually saw what was happening over there, the babies and kids killed by bombs and gunfire, innocent families killed while driving in a car, etc. This administration knew what a powerful tool pictures of the war could be, so they prevented publication of photos of our soldier's coffins. I believe they also discouraged photojournalists from going to Iraq and taking photos of dead and injured Iraqis and US soldiers, partly because there was almost no US market for such photos (big media has always played up the war and would not show images critical of US policy). I wonder if journalists were actually targeted to discourage their presence, as I seem to recall several foreign journalists were actually killed by US gunfire. Some journalists have been embedded with the troops, but they are not allowed out on their own, and the number of such journalists is small.

But then I think there are plenty of cold, hard-hearted Americans who really don't care how many Iraqis have been killed, even if provided with the facts and shown photos. They only care about themselves and have no empathy for others.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Criminal bastards!!!

This administration should be hung for war crimes and the media is complicit in letting the Bush Administration get away with mass murder.

:grr:

[baby_mouse]

5. Do you think there will ever be a memorial for these 1,000,000 people?

Like this one?

[bvar22]

6. 1 million deaths......

Not quite in the same class with Hitler or Stalin,
but right up there with the Pol Pots.
Certainly enough to gain entry into the top class of Mass Murderers of the 20th Century.

And, if you add in the 500,000 child deaths under Clinton, and then add in the civilian deaths from the first Gulf War......pretty grim.

[baby_mouse]

7. Sinking fast, I see.

[slipslidingaway]

9. K&R, only two comments on the story at Huffington, pretty sad :( nt

[Joe the Liberal]

10. Sadly I doubt it ever will get reported....

People here in the US only seem to care about our own who have died over there.

[Truth Teller]

11. The great loss of Iraqi lives is the most overlooked aspect

of this tragic mistake known as the Iraq War. :cry:

[baby_mouse]

19. It will have legitimised warfare in the eyes of certain insane, powerful people.

It will not have escaped China's notice that 1,000,000 people can be thrown away as part of a kind of social experiment so long as you have more guns than the next 100nations put together. The only consequence, this far, is a lot of protesting and nobody wanting to publish your memoirs.

Chain's already a serious economic power, but once it starts getting REALLY serious, like the States was in the latter 20th century, china starts acquiring serious economic power, it'll start plowing as much of its money as possible into militarisation, just like the States did.

And the whole useless, bloody mess will start all over again.

[Usrename]

13. We don't do body counts.

The Swartzkopf Doctrine.

In his 1992 autobiography, "It Doesn't Take a Hero," retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf strongly agreed with that view. When his superiors asked for a body count during the invasion of Grenada in 1983, he responded, "We need to stay away from this body count business. It caused us terrible trouble in Vietnam and it will cause us terrible trouble here." Regarding his experience in Vietnam and the body counts used then, Schwarzkopf wrote, "I felt like I'd been a party to a bureaucratic sham." Body counts were not used during the first Gulf War, when U.S. forces were under Schwarzkopf's command.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/06/11/body_counts/index1.html

In the Eye of the Storm

http://books.google.com/books?id=mM6WKYZRcDMC&pg=PA270&lpg=PA270&dq=%22swartzkopf+%22+body+counts&source=web&ots=r6bd7jvJRI&sig=UP2-HjRgvl1HofMv98jsNSzuKJs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA270,M1

[Cid_B]

14. Big Round Even numbers set off my spidey senses

I'm off to find the article.

[moodforaday]

16. K&R

Thank you for posting this.

[tom_paine]

17. Doubtful. I hope I am mistaken about that.

[Azooz]

18. Afghanistan and Somalia to

The internet is fast replacing the media as a source of news - good thing to.

"US Alliance Afghan Genocide - Six Million Excess Deaths?"

http://countercurrents.org/polya081107.htm

Somalia is much worst, it would need deep and full media coverage to stop that genocide becuase it is very messy.

[hfojvt]

20. that headline is bullsh*t

consider these articles, which I can remember similar stories going back to May 2003

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=iraq+death&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1268843051&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=5&ct=more-results&cd=1

What is the common thread there?

Iraqis being killed by other Iraqis (or by non-American/coalition foreign invaders). The target was not even American troops so it does not seem to be part of some country-defending insurgency.

Granted that Pandora's box was opened by the invasion, but a large, large part of the slaughter has not been done by the US military, it has been done by the enemies of the US military.

[bertman]

21. "Granted the Pandora's box was opened by the invasion . . ." And that is the crux of the matter.

We unleashed the demons of death on the Iraqis. Saddam, for all of his tyrannical horrors, kept the pot from boiling over. We knowingly and willingly dismantled the only safety mechanism keeping Sunni and Shia and Kurd from unleashing genocide on each other.

We are at fault. No excuses, no alibis, no explanations can change that. But, of course, we were really "giving them a democracy".

[hfojvt]

22. we are not entirely at fault the way Schwartz claims

that is the crux of the matter. Since May of 2003, our soldiers have been dying in the attempt to get the other sides to settle down and fight with words and ballots rather than with guns, knives and bombs. It is our enemies who are deliberately attacking civilians, but to Schwartz it is the US military who are the bad guys. Even their sins of ommission are worse than the sins of those actually doing the deeds.

[bertman]

23. I disagree, hfojvt. We invaded their country, destroyed their army (which was the means

of keeping the various factions separated), destroyed the infrastructure of the country, allowed thieves to loot their national treasures, then failed to provide the stability that was required in such a circumstance. The only ones who saw us as liberators were the ones who were looting the treasury and trying to set themselves up in power positions. By doing certain things and failing to do others, and by virtue of being the invaders (not to mention infidel invaders) WE BECAME THE ENEMY.

We did not attempt to get the sides to "settle down and fight with words and ballots". We stood on the sidelines until the factional fighting and the ethnic cleansing got so out of control that we had no choice but to step in. Then we became the targets of the resistance by Shia and Sunni alike.

What's so deplorable about this is that experts--people who study warfare and know the consequences of such actions as we took--warned all along that this was going to happen because we were not bringing in enough forces to pacify the country as soon as we overwhelmed them militarily.

This is all well documented and part of the plan by the NeoCons to provide a CASH COW for war profiteers aka military contractors and to destabilize Iraq enough that our Oil Corporation Masters could steal the black gold as well as have a "forward outpost" for the American empire.

[baby_mouse]

24. Oh, well I guess that's okay then.

[NNN0LHI]

25. So if China invaded us and dismantled our police force and army it would be our fault ...

... when American people began killing each another? That is the most bizarre fucking thing I have ever heard.

You are joking aren't you?

Don