Liberation Takes More Lives than Genocide

A recent study published in Lancet places the total death toll resulting from the US-led invasion of Iraq at 655,000 people as of 2006. In Darfur the total deaths are estimated to be 450,000 resulting from genocide. The USA states that one of its overall purposes for being in Iraq is to liberate the people from an oppressive regime and install democracy. However, when we look at the numbers it appears that even genocide takes fewer lives from a country than liberation.

In both cases the number of lives taken is outrageously high and similarly in both cases it can be equally argued whether the ends justify the means. If the world’s nations are united in saving the people of Darfur, then where are they assembling to save the people of Iraq?

All nations have common interests in the Middle East, however the military solution has already proven fatal for more than 2.5% of the population of Iraq, 4 million Iraqi’s have been displaced (14%), 60,000 people continue to be displaced every month, and scores of others are wounded. It seems prudent at this point to consider a multi-lateral diplomatic approach to the achievement of our goals, lest we find ourselves with no one left to liberate.

UNHCR - UN Refugee Agency - Iraq Situation

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Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran

September 2, 2007 --- The Sunday Times --- Sarah Baxter, Washington

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.

President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of...(read full article here)

War Cannot be Justified to the Dead

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" - Ghandi

Former Head British Army Attacks US Handling of Iraq War

By Tim Shipman in Washington

01/09/2007

General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the British Army, has come under fire from America for his outspoken criticism of the US handling of the war in Iraq.

One of Washington's leading commentators on the transatlantic alliance warned that Gen Jackson's denunciation of the US government would damage the special relationship at a highly sensitive moment.

In an interview ahead of the serialisation of his memoirs in the Daily Telegraph from Monday, Genl Jackson said the approach taken by former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was “intellectually bankrupt” and “one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq”.

He described Mr Rumsfeld's insistence that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".

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Gen Sir Mike Jackson's attack draws US ire - Telegraph