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| Published on Wednesday, August 8, 2007 by CommonDreams.org American Genocide In The Middle East: Three Million and Counting by David Goodner Deaths directly and indirectly attributable to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have neared one million people, a body count higher than the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan combined, according to a new report released by Just Foreign Policy. That brings the U.S. caused death count in the Middle East to over three million people, and that’s not even counting fatalities in Afghanistan or Palestine. The Just Foreign Policy report is an update to two controversial studies published by the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet. In 2003, the Lancet reported over 100,000 excess deaths in Iraq were attributal to the U.S. invasion. That study may be read here. In 2006, the Lancet updated their study and found over 600,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. That study may be read here. The killing of Iraqis since the U.S. invasion includes violence caused by the overwhelming air and ground power of U.S. military forces, mortalities caused by the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and disappearances and murders caused by sectarian conflict and internal power struggles among different Iraqi factions. The report’s methodology is controversial because it bypasses the normal model of death verification - which requires documenting each and every individual body tallied by governments, hospitals, and morgues - and instead uses a model first developed to estimate deaths caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, where bodies are often never found. Many defenders of the occupation of Iraq claim that a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would spark a genocide as sectarian conflict and civil war escalated out of control. Indeed, violence may increase temporarily in the short term following a U.S. withdrawal. Nature abhors a vacum and competition among Iraqi factions for power may increase as they rush to fill the void. However, what is clear is that the U.S. invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq in and of itself constitutes a kind of genocide. American economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s killed one million civilians, according to a 2003 study by the Centre for Population Studies. And the U.S. funded both sides of the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980’s, contributing to well over one million Arab and Persian casualties, according to Farhang Rajaee in a 1993 article published by the University of Florida titled The Iran-Iraq war: the politics of aggression. Now an additional 996,836 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion in 2003. The instability and sectarian conflict were stoked by this unilateral, preemptive, and illegal invasion, and there is little hope of the internal conflict ending while Iraq is under foreign military occupation. This situation is historically similar to the colonial period, where infighting between African and other indigenous tribes around the globe increased because of the havoc wreaked by colonial powers and their divide-and-conqueor strategies. Indeed, the seeds of conflict and disputes between ethnic groups, e.g. in Rwanda, were planted by Western colonialism. People of color around the world reap what we sow. The immediate future of Iraq looks grim, with solutions ranging from bad to worse. Our only hope of ending the senseless violence is an unconditional and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, followed by some kind of responsible assistance by the U.N. and Arab peacekeeping forces. If the Iraqis have to go to civil war to sort out the mess that our government has left them in, let them. It will eventually burn itself out like in Lebanon and, without any further interference from the West besides reconstruction and reparations, the Iraqis will be able to begin rebuilding their devastated country. David Goodner is senior at the University of Iowa majoring in international studies and human rights. |
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| US 'to blacklist Iranian Guards' The US is preparing to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards force as a foreign terrorist unit, officials say. If confirmed, this will be the first time official armed units of a sovereign state are included in the list of banned terrorist groups. The classification would allow the US to target the force's finances. The US has repeatedly accused Iran of destabilising Iraq and Afghanistan, blaming the Revolutionary Guards for supplying and training insurgents. There are currently 42 organisations on the state department's list of foreign terrorist organisations. They include al-Qaeda, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and the Basque separatist group Eta. 'Price to pay' Administration officials told the BBC and US media that the decision to list the Revolutionary Guards was close to being announced. The move was intended to increase the pressure on Iran amid growing concern in Washington that Tehran is funding and supporting insurgents in Iraq and the Taleban in Afghanistan, as well as groups such as Hezbollah, the officials said. REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS Officially the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), or Pasdaran Formed after 1979 revolution Loyal to clerics and counter to regular military Estimated 125,000 troops Includes ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces Also has political influence: dozens of ex-guard sit as MPs Iran President Ahmadinejad is a former member Source: Globalsecurity.org The BBC's Jonathan Beale, in Washington, says the US views the Guard Corps as a state within a state, which has tentacles in business activities and is involved in Iran's nuclear programme. Analysts were divided as to what effect the listing would have. The terror designation "might pass in the States, but it will be resisted very strongly in countries where companies are making money with Iran", like France and Germany, Mahan Abedin, director of research at London's Centre for the Study of Terrorism, told the Associated Press agency. But Rasool Nasisi, a Middle East analyst at Strayer University, told AFP agency: "The move would have tremendous implications... [it] is going to limit their trade with the outside the world". Iranian MP Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said if the US went ahead with its plans it would "meet with a very serious reaction from the Islamic Republic of Iran. This will further strengthen the Guards Corps". Diplomacy slows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was behind the move to add the Guards to the list, the New York Times reported. Ms Rice has championed a diplomatic approach to relations with Iran over the past 12 months. But she was said to have backed the plan after progress on tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by the UN Security Council became bogged down, the Times said. Speaking at a news conference last week, President George W Bush hinted at a tougher stance against the Revolutionary Guards, accusing them of meddling across the Middle East. "When we catch you playing a non-constructive role, there will be a price to pay," Mr Bush said. The BBC News website's world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says the unanswered question is whether the new American move would be another step on a path to a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The Revolutionary Guards force was established after the Islamic revolution toppled the Shah and brought hard-line clerics to power in Iran in 1979. It is estimated to have 125,000 active members, and operates separately from Iran's main armed forces, boasting its own ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces capability. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/midd...ast/6947444.stm Published: 2007/08/15 20:03:13 GMT |