Under-counting the dead
Lesley Stahl asking about U.S. sanctions prior to that country’s invasion of Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price? We think the price is worth it.” [39]
Various wars for oil by the United States, Britain, and various hangers-on (Canada, Germany, Australia, etc.) have seen military operations in Nigeria, Venezuela, Afghanistan (attacked because it is the favoured route for the oil pipeline from Iraq, as well as it vast mineral resources), Suez, the Bospherous, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Somalia, Georgia, to mention merely the better known venues. There have of course, been others.
Most of the governments ording these invasions have been largely ’Christian’ in ethnicity. For example, more than 34% of those in the United States believe the Christian holy book to be the literal, actual word of their particular deity. 47% believe that that book is the ’inspired word’ or their god. And a whopping 87% identify themselves as Christians. Perhaps the old saying that fascism comes holding a gun, wrapped in a flag, and waving a cross has some relevence?
The ethical pros or cons of these invasions, genocide, and wars for oil is for history to judge. Although already as you may know, numerous war crimes tribunals have found guilty those who began and perpetuated the oil wars. Every barrel of oil is conflicted with blood, corruption or environmental degradation. Those perpetrating these wars have been found guilty of horrific disregard for human life, as a wealth of research has shown (see below). Under the Nuremberg rules in particular, the leaders of several countries are guilty of massive human rights abuses and war crimes. These leaders have acquiesced and encouraged torture, mercenary abuses, burning of hundreds of thousands of people alive (with napalm, white phosphorous, thermobaric weapons, etc.), depositing depleted uranium in target areas (thereby causing acute myeloid leukemia in civilian populations), and similar atrocities. All crimes against humanity under UN conventions, Geneva conventions, and of course, international law and the Nuremburg findings. The data and findings of some of the better known war crimes tribunals may be had from: [Bhagwat], [Santino], [Penketh], [Byrne], [Foulkrod], [Yuen], [Russel(1)], [Clark], [Jury], [Russel(2)], [Grey(1,2)], [Parker] as well as many others. Sadly these reports are not well known in the countries perpetrating said wars, although they are very well known in the rest of the world.
“Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot... It’s fun to shoot some people." — Lt. Gen. James Mattis, a three star Marine general and commander of US Marine expeditions during wars to seize oil resources [CNN (1)], [DoD transcripts(2)], later appointed top Marine General at U.S. Central Command
At any rate, one of the well substantiated findings has been that millions have died in these oil war/invasions, which began in earnest in the early 1950’s. By way of illustration, consider perhaps the best known of these wars: In the early stages of invasion on obviously trumped up grounds, more than 654,000 civilian deaths occurred [Burnham], [Lancet(3)]. But as the war continued, ever more and more civilians were killed by the invaders. Using a different methodology than these earlier studies ORB found that over one million humans had been killed by the invasion [Baker]. Just Foreign Policy in an update [JFP(1((2)], [OR(1)] to the original John Hopkins study estimated at least 1.3 million civilian deaths at the hands of the invaders. (Update: Now 1,500,000 confirmed Iraqi deaths at the hands of the United States alone [ JFP(2)].) This number is far, far greater than numbers cited by U.S. media. These deaths have led to more than five million Iraqi orphans [IMI-1].
However since these numbers excluded areas where the vast majority of causalities occurred [ibid], the actual numbers are thought by most NGO researchers to be substantially greater. Reports from Reporters sans Frontières and Amnesty International in particular indicate the numbers may be orders of magnitude higher. These higher estimates - depending upon source - are double to triple the ORB numbers if civilians who have been maimed for life are included.
Additionally there were a multitude of dispossessed peoples - refugees fleeing the slaughter. And the orphans mentioned above. Statistics gathered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR(1,2,3,4)], particularly [UNHCR(2)], indicated at least 4.7 million refugees. Hence when this is augmented by the numbers of maimed and dead, there may have been as many as 6,000,000 persons either killed outright or displaced to other countries as fleeing refugees - a holocaust of mammoth proportions. (See also [Polya] and [UNICEF(1)] - studies which indicate that even this massive slaughter may be too leanest - they indicate the numbers to be higher yet.)
“We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder,
misery, degradation and death ... and call it ’bringing freedom and democracy’.
-- H. Pinter, from the acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize
Following US President Truman’s order to drop the atomic bomb upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki after [Ogino] Japan had surrendered, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed film shot in the bombed cities [Aferson]. This was of course to keep the U.S. public ignorant of the true extent of civilian deaths in Japan. Only later, after considerable research by historians around the world was the true extent of civilian death made known: In the first nine seconds following the bombings, 700,000 people were vaporized.
Over the following years several million more innocent civilians died prematurely from cancers caused by the bombings. They are still doing so. Western governments deployed considerable effort to hide this. They even called in their expert Jason group (see [Orvo] regarding this secretive U.S. group) to strategise censorship methods. No photographs, films, or body counts were allowed into any mass media [Kogawa]. The U.S. Secretary of Defence at that time went so far as to deny any knowledge of the extent of death and disease [Snow]. He claimed that the military did not count the dead. A statement which a leaked Pentagon report two years later proved to be false , like so many other similar lies by those government leaders [Monbiot].
In a similar fashion, the number of civilian deaths at the hands of the invaders during the Vietnam war was in the millions [AFP], [Smith]. Yet at the time the invading government insisted repeatedly, that only a handful of persons were killed. Nor were the several generations be born horribly mutated from the herbicides and defoliants dropped during Operation Ranch Hand, counted as casualties.
“War is disgusting and horrific. It never leaves the people who were involved in it. The damage is far greater than the lists of casualties or cost in dollars. It permeates lifestyles. It infects cultures and people and worldviews. The war is never over for us. The fighting stops. The troops get called back. But the war goes on for those damaged by war.” — Chis Hedges, foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans
The perpetrators of the wars/invasions for oil mentioned above also followed these well establish methods of censorship and propaganda, masking the realities of slaughter from the taxpayers who funded it.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.“ — Reverend Martin Luther King
Again, history will decide the merits here. I merely wish to point out that in all wars, perhaps particularly wars/invasions for oil, the numbers of civilian dead are always vastly understated by the invading governments. In a media owned and operated by the same barons who perpetrate whatever war is currently to their fiscal advantage, this is perhaps no surprise. Very sad. Almost all wars despite the egregious propaganda to the contrary , are for the enrichment of these barons.
It has been said that fascism comes wrapped in a flag, waving a cross, and holding a gun. Or as the most highly decorated military officer in U.S. history said:
‘‘I have spent 33 years ... being a high class muscle man for Big Business... In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers ...I helped rape half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.... I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.... I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotions." [Evan(3)] — U.S. Major General Butler, recipient of two United States Medals of Honour and the most highly decorated military officer in U.S. history
