Turk

"You're Either With Us or You're Dead"
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS


Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis their lives.
That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies and
conducted by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins
University epidemiologists. These are deaths over and above the
pre-invasion mortality rate. Bush's illegal invasion raised Iraq's
mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 13.3
deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is published by the
distinguished British medical journal, The Lancet, and is available on
the journal's online site (October 11).

The study uses a scientific method known as "cluster sampling." In 87%
of the deaths, the researchers requested death certificates, and more
than 90% of the surveyed households produced the death certificates.
Violence accounted for 601,000 deaths and disease and destruction of
civilian infrastructure accounted for 54,000 deaths. The violent
deaths are attributed to gunshot wounds, coalition air strikes, and
car bombs.

Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Gilbert Burnham says, "We're
very confident with the results." Columbia University epidemiologist
Ronald Waldman says the survey method used is "tried and true" and
that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."

When asked about the report, President Bush stated: "I don't consider
it a credible report." Bush, of course, is not reality-based, and he
knows that any unfavorable news is "enemy propaganda." That's what the
neocons who pull his strings tell him, and that is what he believes.

What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents or "terrorists"?

Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on terror" is, in fact, a
war on Iraqi civilians.

Bush's invasion has also spawned sectarian conflict or civil war,
although the Bush regime denies it. Even Bush is smart enough to know
that "bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq" is not compatible with
setting off a civil war in Iraq. Since Bush, the faith-based, believes
that he is bringing "freedom and democracy to Iraq," he cannot accept
the fact that he has started a civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are not the only innocent
victims of Bush's illegal aggression. The New York Times (October 11)
reports that Department of Veterans Affairs documents show that about
one in five US soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have
suffered at least partial disability.

To date more than 100,000 US troops who are veterans of these wars
have been granted disability compensation. Although the US cannot put
on the ground in Iraq more than 150,000 troops at one time, 1.5
million troops have served so far and 567,000 have been discharged of
which 100,000 are receiving disability payments.

Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, says
that the current rate of injuries will produce 400,000 American
veterans suffering 30% to 100% disability. Apparently, one of the
severe forms of disability is post-traumatic stress, which does not
count as a physical wound.

According to the US National Intelligence Estimate and to practically
every Middle East expert, Bush's invasions have radicalized the Muslim
Middle East, created legions of recruits for extremists, undermined
America's puppet rulers, imperiled Israel, and destroyed America's
reputation.

We are talking about over one million casualties that have no other
cause than blatant lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the
bloodthirsty neoconservative cabal that occupies Bush's subcabinet,
and their corporate media propagandists, especially The Weekly
Standard, Fox News, National Review, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal
editorial page. The Bush regime deceived America and the world with
its lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that
would be turned against the West by terrorists. By giving speeches
that continually mentioned Iraq in the same context as 9/11, the Bush
regime created the widespread impression, still prevalent among
Americans, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.

The same kind of government that fires its own lawyers for doing their
constitutional duty. Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was assigned
the task of bringing Salim Hamdan to a guilty plea before the
unconstitutional military tribunal that President Bush created for
Guantanamo detainees. Instead, Cmdr. Swift did his duty and defended
his client, winning in the US Supreme Court. The Bush administration
retaliated by blocking Cmdr. Swift's promotion, which killed his
military career and sent the chilling message to all US military and
government attorneys that constitutional scruples are career-enders in
the Bush regime. Anyone who stands for the US Constitution is against
Bush and his neocon regime.

The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime proceeded.

First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity from the
government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You are
with us or against us"--a formulation that leaves no place for duty to
the US Constitution. Patriotism is redefined from loyalty to country
and Constitution to loyalty to the government's leader.

Americans are too inattentive and distracted to be aware of the grave
danger that the neoconservative Bush regime presents to American
liberty and to world stability. The neoconservative drive to achieve
hegemony over the American people and the entire world is similar to
Hitler's drive for hegemony. Hitler used racial superiority to justify
Germany's right to ride roughshod over other peoples and the right of
the Nazi elite to rule over the German people.

Neoconservatives use "American exceptionalism" and "the war on
terror." There is no practical difference. Hitler cared no more about
the peoples he mowed down in his drive for supremacy than the
neoconservatives care about 655,000 dead Iraqis, 100,000 disabled
American soldiers and 2,747 dead ones.

When Bush, the Decider, claims unconstitutional powers and uses
"signing statements" to negate US law whenever he feels the rule of
law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar to
Hitler, the Fuhrer, who told the Reichstag on February 20, 1938: "A
man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of
his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or to
a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission placed
upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an enemy of
the people."

"You are with us or against us."


Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Real World

Utter nonsense. This study has already been deemed flawed by most experts. Of course people will take it and use it as hard fact.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

DarrylS

655,000...555,000...455,000...355,000...255,000... 155,000 no matter what the number this whole effort has been completely unacceptable. The majority of those dead in the war are women and children, and somewhere, someday there will have to be some type of reckoning for this disaster.

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"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.

Real World

It's certainly a shame and unfortunate GJ, but what about the Hussein regime under UN Sanctions? Some would say that was a disaster too.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

scout

The Iraq war will be looked at years from now as one of the biggest blunders in American history. Still, people don't get it (38% at last count). First Bush the candidate states he would never invade a country without an exit strategy. He then invades a country for reasons which are still not clear to anyone, congressmen, military personnel, Cabinet officers, and the American citizens. Didn't matter who opposed the plan, what significant administrators and military personnel raised concerns, if they were not in Bush's bubble they had no influence. Not even the Bush supporters on this site agree on the "reason" for invading Iraq. There is substantial evidence that signifies the Iraq war was intended well before 9/11. After the initial confrontation, Bush declares "Mission Accomplished". Today, their are hundreds of Iraq civilians dying each day, still some are in denial that it is a civil war. Bush supporters will state that significant gains have been made toward democracy (if that is the current reason for fighting). If only candidate Bush would have given us his dream while campaigning. That he wanted to invade a country in order to spread democracy to the Middle East. That would be comparable to a naive Miss America contestant saying her desire is for world peace.

DarrylS

So what we have done and are doing is justifiable, I think not, last time I checked two wrongs do not make a right.

__________________
"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.