Submitted by John Stauber on
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have a chapter in The Best War Ever titled "Not Counting the Dead," reporting on how the US government has chosen to hide the horrific impact of the US invasion and occupation. Now the authors of a major study examined in the book have a new study out. The New York Times reports, "A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 650,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here. ... It is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. ... The study comes at a sensitive time for the Iraqi government, which is under pressure from American officials to take action against militias driving the sectarian killings. In the last week of September, the government barred the central morgue in Baghdad and the Health Ministry — the two main sources of information for civilian deaths — from releasing figures to the news media. Now, only the government is allowed to release figures."
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stephane mot replied on Permalink
how about "saving American lives" ?
President Bush declared The Lancet "not credible" when it announced over 650,000 Iraqi deaths, but The Lancet already was "not credible" for supporting science over creationism, intelligent design and other revisionist theories.
President Bush proudly signed the death certificate of Habeas Corpus over a "Protect Amerika" billboard Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of. Dubya even dared add this was "a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives".
Tell that to the relatives of the 2,783 Americans "saved" from life in Iraq (3,020 overall for what's left of the pretended coalition, according to Icasualties.org). Not to mention non-lethal US casualties (somewhere between 30 and 50,000). So far.
The fact is Bush has never had any occasion of actually saving American lives. Beyond his own, that is, for instance during the Vietnam War as an outfielder Washington Dodger.
I'll tell you what Dubya : not only American lives are not saved, America's soul his being repeatedly tortured and raped by your abject Administration.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't know if I should visit the US again. I love the country but I don't feel quite secure under a fascist regime where anyone can be abducted anytime anywhere, deprived from any justice, tortured and even supersized (in Amerika, even Guantanamo residents are overfed with junk food). And even before landing I'm compelled to sign a paper where I give up my rights. After landing it's rather Get Up Stand Up, Just Give Up Your Rights.
I don't know if I should confess... Are you or have you ever been a humanist ?
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Stephane MOT -
http://e-blogules.blogspot.com
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