[Marxism] Iraq: starving the people into democracy

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

> From Counterpunch:

"If there is anything that should fuel the outrage of the antiwar movement,
it is surely the destruction of Fallujah and the war crimes being inflicted
by US commanders on its civilian population, who are now being denied the
most basic and essential source of life, water. This is not the first time
that US forces have cut water supplies, something explicitly forbidden under
Article 14 of the second protocol of the Geneva Conventions (...) Back in
1991 the US war planners targeted and destroyed the infrastructure of
Baghdad's water supplies, and the sanctions thereafter denied new equipment
necessary to repair it. In consequence civilians, particularly babies and
young children died in vast numbers." Complete text:
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Contrast this reality with Colin Powell's rhetoric about the Fallujah
offensive: "Our troops will conduct this mission in a way that minimizes
loss of civilian life, damage to civilian property. But it is a military
action, and lives will be lost, on our side, on the side of the insurgents,
and regrettably innocent people who would just as soon not have
this insurgency in their city." Powell claimed insurgents had denied
Fallujah residents and other
Iraqis the opportunity to participate in the political process leading to
elections in January.

Obviously the residents, starved of food and water, will be in great shape
to enjoy their "American democracy" next year (sic.).  A report from the
scene:

"Rasoul Ibrahim, who fled Falluja on foot with his wife and three children
on Thursday, said families left in the city were in desperate need. Doctors
at Falluja's hospital said there had been an increase in typhoid cases.
"There's no water. People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying,"
Ibrahim told aid workers in Habbaniya, a makeshift refugee camp 20km to the
west of Falluja where some 2000 families are sheltering. "People are eating
flour because there's no proper food." "

Meanwhile though, back in New York,

"the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was deeply disturbed by a new
directive from Iraqi authorities warning news organisations to stick to the
government line on the US-led offensive in Falluja. "We are very troubled by
this directive, which is an attempt to control news coverage through
government coercion," the committee's executive director Ann Cooper said in
a statement. "It damages the government's credibility in establishing a free
and democratic society.""

From:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3609990&thesection=news&thesubsection=world&thesecondsubsection=

If the Americans cannot even add up votes correctly in their own country,
how can they succeed in establishing honest elections on the point of a
bayonet somewhere else?

Dr Gideon Polya, a senior biological scientist who studies mortality rates,
recently wrote from Melbourne, "If we assume a conservative estimate of an
annual death rate in a peaceful, non-occupied Iraq of about 4 persons per
1000 then we would EXPECT 97,600 Iraqi deaths per year - as compared to the
post-invasion estimate by the US scientists of 300,120. The difference - the
"excess mortality" due to the US invasion and continued war and occupation -
is 202,520 deaths per year or about 340,000 after 20 months of US-imposed
war and occupation."

From:
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/11/11/1435245&mode=nested&tid=1

Jurriaan





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