On Civilian Casualties
The topic of civilian casualties has been strangely absent during America's great debate over the war in Iraq. Generally, the costs of war are generally portrayed in more polite terms. It is o.k. to talk about the number of America soldiers who have died, or the billions of tax dollars being forked into the hungry mouth of the war machine. But when was the last time you heard a politician sincerely mourn the loss of civilian life that has resulted from our military adventures abroad?
Yes, studies are being done, statistics are being issued by researchers. Newspapers are running stories about recent civilian deaths. But these efforts do little to portray the reality of war. The media censors itself. Images and footage deemed too brutal are discarded in favor of more family friendly fare.
On September 11, 2001 America remembered what civilian suffering looked like. Images of suffering and horror filled webpages, newspapers, magazines, and every TV screen in the country was adorned with the flaming wreckage of the Twin Towers. Where is the journalistic dedication to truth that was shown on that day? Perhaps we do not want to know the true consequences of our actions. When the violence is happening a world a way, it is easy to ignore it.
War in practice is always vulgar, violent, and inhumane. The best intentions cannot erase the suffering of the thousands of innocent human beings who are caught in the crossfire. The rest of the world is not turning a same blind eye to the civilian suffering taking place in Iraq. When millions of people around the world think of America, they remember images of maimed children. They mourn for the thousands of individuals who have lost homes, friends, and families in the blink of an eye. Who will we blame when their anger leads to more violence against Americans in the coming years?
Estimated number of civilian casualties in Iraq: Up to 654,965 dead (John Hopkins University Study)
President Bush :
"The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children."
Osama Bin Laden:
"Through history, American has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians or between men and women or adults and children. Those who threw atomic bombs and used the weapons of mass destruction against Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Americans. Can the bombs differentiate between military and women and infants and children?"
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Soon the death toll will exceed any of the numbers bandied about regarding Sadaam's mad killings.
Enter John 'Mr. Death Squads' Negroponte he of the notorious incrementation in death squads in Central America. Negroponte's reputation as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 earned him a reputation for supporting widespread human rights abuses and campaigns of terror. Back in April of 2004, Negropnonte replaced Paul Bremer at the Baghdad embassy. I told fellow bloggers that they could expect the implementation of death squads that would result in Iraqis fighting Iraqis and thus lower the casualty rate of coalition forces. Once the death squads are enabled a vendetta type of reciprocal violence sets in. This is exactly what has happened...higher numbers of violence by Iraqis on Iraqis. The coalition forces have pretty much retreated into the save zones like the Green Zone and Basra (for the Brits) meanwhile the incongruity of this war being one of the Iraqis fighting each other rather than fighting the real enemy.
As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in coordinating US aid to the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras. During his term as ambassador there, diplomats alleged that the embassy's annual human rights reports made Honduras sound more like Norway than Argentina.
According to a four-part series in the Baltimore Sun, in 1982 alone the Honduran press ran 318 stories of murders and kidnappings by the Honduran military. In a 1995 series, Sun reporters Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson detailed the activities of a secret CIA-trained Honduran army unit, Battalion 3-16, that used "shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves." In 1994, Honduras's National Commission for the Protection of Human Rights reported that it was officially admitted that 179 civilians were still missing.
Former official Rick Chidester, who served under Negroponte, says he was ordered to remove all mention of torture and executions from the draft of his 1982 report on the human rights situation in Honduras. During Negroponte's tenure, US military aid to Honduras skyrocketed from $3.9 million to over $77 million. Much of this went to ensure the Honduran army's loyalty in the battle against popular movements throughout Central America.
In the hearings on Negroponte's appointment to his post as UN ambassador, he was questioned by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff members on whether he had acquiesced to human rights abuses by death squads funded and partly trained by the Central Intelligence Agency.
During the confirmation hearings many Democrats indicated that they would not question Negroponte about his record in Central America, calling it ancient history. Well, history has repeated itself.
Here's an excerpt from an interview by Amy Goodman of a Catholic nun, Sister Laetitia Bordes:
"AMYGOODMAN: Sister Laetitia Bordes is with us, a Catholic nun with the society of Helpers, a Catholic community of woman, speaking to us from San Bruno, California. You were involved in opposing Negroponte's appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, why?
SISTER LAETITIA BORDES: Good morning, Amy. Yes. I was really involved in that. When I found out that John Negroponte was going to be nominated as the ambassador to the UN, I just was in complete shock. At that time, my mind went back to 1982. In 1982, I had gone to Honduras on a fact-finding delegation because there were 32 women from El Salvador who had taken refuge in Honduras. They had taken refuge from the Salvadorian death squads. These women had been followers of Archbishop Romero. And after his assassination in 1980 they fled to Honduras. Shortly after they got there all these women disappeared There were witnesses to the disappearance. They were living in a house of refuge, and they were taken out of that house, put in a van, and nothing more was heard about them. So, in 1982, I went with the delegation to Honduras, and during those eight long days that we were there, twice we met with John Negroponte, who absolutely denied that he knew anything about the disappearance of these women. Also, I remember so well, John Negroponte kept on saying that the U.S. Embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran government, and that we would have to deal with that issue with the government. We would return to the Honduran government, who in turn would send us back to John Negroponte and they would tell us that our embassy were the best people to help us in this case. This went on for eight days, this back and forth. When we were not meeting with him, we were meeting with various people, people working in human rights. We were hearing about the horrible, horrible atrocities that were going on in Honduras at that time, and we were reading the paper and even in the newspapers we would read about people disappearing. And John Negroponte kept on insisting that he knew nothing about this, and, of course, we knew that he was lying to us. When I went there, Amy, I must tell you, I was quite naive. I thought we were going to go there and we were going to come back and on the plane with us we would be bringing back these two -- these 32 women. And what I found out when I was in Honduras, I saw how our government was implicated not only in what was going on in Honduras but what was going on in El Salvador, what was going on in Nicaragua, and everything was meshed in that the U.S. Embassy in Honduras just stood for a very, very evil object, right there, that was commanding these people -- things going on in Central America.
AMYGOODMAN: Your thoughts today on John Negroponte being nominated as the U.S. Representative in Iraq, replacing Paul Bremer.
SISTER LAETITIA BORDES: I'm filled with sadness. I'm filled with fear. I fear that the people of Iraq, because I feel that John Negroponte certainly is not concerned about the democracy of Iraq. I think that John Negroponte is concerned about his reputation. He is an expert in counter insurgency tactics. We see that in his background. And John Negroponte will stop at nothing. At nothing. "
The very same day that Bush appointed Negroponte to replace Bremer...April 27, 2007...Honduras announced that it would withdraw from the coalition.
"Is it any wonder that the Hondurans reneged on their commitment to participate in the effort to rebuild just as Bush announced that their former Ambassador from the U.S. was taking over?
During a recent press conference, President Bush recently scolded a reporter to not undermine the importance of our allies contributions in Iraq. There is much evidence that they (Hondurans) may have withdrawn due to his recent appointment of John Dimitre Negroponte to Ambassador of Iraq. To the people of the Honduras, the mention of his name alone undoubtedly conjured up bloody memories of the CIA-backed death squads and countless atrocities.
"The Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned," the IG (Inspector General of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) acknowledged. "CIA reporting linked Honduran military personnel to 'death squad' activities." One CIA cable released with the report identified the "Honduran Anti-communist Liberation Army," a secret military squad that engaged in "surveillance, kidnappings, interrogations under duress, and execution of prisoners who were Honduran revolutionaries." - excerpt [Parascope.com]
Not to mention the murder of approximately 70,000 people in El Salvador [BBC], and 40,000 Nicaraguans [PeaceCorpsOnline.com], as well as 30,000 Guatemalans [NWO.Media].
How closely can all of those atrocities be tied to Bush's nominee for the position of Iraqi Ambassador? As Ambassador to the Honduras, it is possible that he was merely asleep the entire time he was on duty, and it was merely negligence which allowed his assigned country to become a major staging and training grounds for the Reagan-Bush cabinet's Iran-Contra affair. Negroponte may not have meant to misrepresent the abuses by the CIA backed military in his reports, and it may have been only accidental that the years of obfuscation thwarted any possibility of proper Congressional oversight of illegal CIA covert operation.
That's the ticket.
Although the sheer number of mass murders filtered through into U.S. reports, it was only the occasional murder of an Archbishop, that group of nuns, or a Seattle man down there helping to construct a water supply that made headlines.
The widespread use of American aerial surveillance to direct the Contra murderers to villages where only women and children were present to be killed, the routine use of torture, the encouragement of drug-smuggling into the U.S. to provide funding for the U.S.-backed forces all were revealed only after Negroponte had left his post as U.S. Ambassador to the Honduras. And who could forget the Honduran Anti-communist Liberation Army's ever popular practice of dropping victims from helicopters while they were in flight?
Make no mistake about it -- both Iraqi rebels and Al Qaeda terrorists see Negroponte's appointment as the first stage in implementing a policy of covert violence against their right to sovereignty and will effectively use it to recruit and incite radicals to commit more acts of violence against us. It's no coincidence that our Office of Homeland Security issued a heightened security alert just as Bush announced his plans for Negroponte."
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/04/con04178.html
Negroponte has a long and bloody criminal history, dating back to the early 1960s, of overseeing the training and arming of death squads, schooled in the techniques of torture, "forced interrogation," assassination and, as we shall see, even genocide. He has been described as an "old-fashioned imperialist," active for nearly four decades in Vietnam, Central America, the Philippines, Mexico and most recently Iraq. He got his start back in the days of the CIA's Phoenix program, which assassinated some 40,000 Vietnamese "subversives."
I bring this up, David, because it appears that the American public is only concerned about death if it's the death of Americans. They really couldn't care less about the death of demonized foreigners. Not all Americans, of course...but, most. They just fail to see this for what it really is...one humongous, continuous terrorist attack on the people of a country that had done nothing to us...and , yet, they look the part...after all, you've seen one A-rab and you've seen them all...they all look alike don't they?
This whole 'surge' thing is about massive air-bombings...the leveling of towns and villages...like Fallujah. Unlike the foot-soldiers...those good little troopers up in those planes raining down death and destruction...indiscriminately...I repeat, unlike the foot-soldiers...the Army and the Marines...those bombers don't have to look at the faces of their' victims. That's why so many soldiers are coming back insane...they've seen the faces...they've beheld the horror. There are photographs that would rend your' heart...picture of children with their' tiny skulls and brains blown away...mangled and mutilated corpses...you don't have to go to hell to see it...hell is here...behold, your' 40 lbs of enemy. Wouldn't you go insane, also?
I seen the photos...too many photos. I don't recommend it, but, if you want to here's just one site where you can view the horror...that this war of choice has visited upon the Iraqi people:
http://www.iraqvictims.com/default.asp
But, here in the real world these things don't matter. What does matter is Rosie's latest slip-of-the-lip and where is Anna Nicole being buried. That has nothing to do with us...even though our' tax dollars pay for this nightmare in the desert of Mesopotamia. That ancient place we once read about back in grade school. Back home our wounded and crazed are housed in the horror houses...the dozens of Walter Reed's that lie hidden deep in our' heart of darkness. The President was shocked at the conditions at Walter Reed...shocked after the story broke. Wasn't Rumsfeld aware of these conditions during his tenure? Doesn't the President ever pay a visit to those who sacrificed it all? Or does he only bring solace and comfort to the fat cats the head corporate America. How are you not aware of the condition of those that are under your' employment?
Thanks again, David, for putting out in front the real victims of this war.
Felix, great transcript. You should convert it into an article so that more people can see it. All of this is important information. Thanks guys.
The war in Iraq was based on the belief that air power alone could win a war. We now see that reality is far more complicated. Slaughter from above brings with it dire consequences.
The last thing we need is for the people we're fighting to protect to hate us. They've often done this at their own risk, going in with small arms rather than bombs. We also have avoided attacking certain areas because of their cultural sensitivity, like when we went into Samara when the Mahdi militia revolted, we didn't go into the giant mosque there because it was culturally important to the Shiites.
It also doesn't help that the insurgents use human shields. The insurgents who are "fighting for their country" have a hell of a lot less concern for their own population than we do. Plus most of the casualties form car bombings, suicide bombings, IED's, mortars, rockets, and most of the other insurgent tactics kill many more civilians than troops.
If we pull out of Iraq, there will be many times more civilian casualties than there are now. You have a Sunni population that thinks nothing of mortaring neighbourhoods and markets, and Shiite death squads that think nothing of rounding up families and drilling holes in their heads with drills. We get a hell of a lot of crap for not doing anything about Rwanda and Darfur, but then they think nothing of the genocide that will occur if we pull out of Iraq. Hypocracy at it's finest.