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From
homepage of ANSWER
At Least
100,000 Dead in Iraq: U.S. War is a Bloodbath for Iraqi People
Thursday October 28, 2004
Scientists
have concluded that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the
deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqis, "and may be much higher." The study
was conducted by Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the
Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.
At
Least 100,000 Dead in Iraq
U.S. War is a Blood Bath for the Iraqi People
Pledge
to Take Action to End the War
In a
medical study being published today, scientists have concluded that the
U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of at least
100,000 Iraqis, "and may be much higher." It further revealed
that most of the 100,000 Iraqis who died were killed in violent deaths,
primarily carried out by U.S. forces airstrikes. "Most individuals
reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," according
to the study. The study was designed and conducted by researchers at Johns
Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in
Baghdad (The Lancet, October 29, 2004).
The population of Iraq is approximately 25 million people. Were this slaughter
carried out on an equivalent scale in the United States, it would be comparable
to a death toll of one million people. Even the youngest and most vulnerable
have not been spared: as a consequence of the U.S. war against the people of
Iraq, infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war
to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,
78 U.N.T.S. 277, executed in 1948, and ratified by the United States,
and which carries the binding force of the law of nations, prohibits genocide or
complicity in genocide. See, also, 18 U.S.C. 1091.
"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial
or religious group, as such:
(a)
Killing members of the group;
(b)
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c)
Deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part..."
This is a criminal war just as the Vietnam war was a criminal war.
It isn't enough to advocate that replacing Bush with Kerry should be the goal of
anti-war advocates. The Pentagon is preparing to rain down their favored
"shock and awe" violence on the devastated people of Fallujah
who have already been subject to terrorizing bombing raids and the killings of
entire families night after night for months. By demanding the unconditional
withdrawal from Iraq we are sending a message to the Iraq people that we respect
their right to determine their own destiny and we send a message to the U.S.
soldiers that their lives and dignity are too important to be used in the
commission of war crimes or to serve as cannon fodder in a war that only
benefits corporate and banking elite.
Bush and Kerry have pledged to continue this violent occupation in order
to "win" in Iraq. The people of Iraq are desperately trying
to regain their sovereignty and right to determine their own futures without
outside intervention. While some feel that the "final stretch" is in
these next few days culminating at the polls, for the people of Iraq and all
those around the world who stand in solidarity with them, the "final
stretch" is from now until the U.S. troops and all occupation forces are
removed from that sovereign land.
We must deepen the fight in the United States to bring this war to an
end unconditionally. It is completely bogus to insist the intervention
must continue based on some humanitarian argument that since U.S. intervention
wrought so much devastation, the U.S. must now stay the course in order to
prevent "civil war," "chaos," or "a blood bath."
These were the same arguments that were used to justify the prolongation
of the U.S. war in Vietnam. The only thing that happened when the U.S.
finally left Vietnam was that the real blood bath ended. That's why
thousands of people are planning to take action starting on November 3 and
culminating in a mass action all along the route
of the Inaugural parade on January 20 in Washington, DC.
Only the anti-war movement will end the criminal war in Iraq. We
urgently need your support
to
carry out these activities to stop the blood bath in Iraq. Please
make a contribution now online through the secure server by clicking here.
Anti-war activists who are out in the streets, both before the election fighting
against racist disenfranchisement and after the election, are prominently
displaying the most important anti-war message of our time: Bring the
Troops Home Now! on T-shirts,
stickers
and signs --
which you can get at the VoteNoWar
Resource Center,
along with ANSWER's beautiful own "End All Occupations" shirt by
clicking
here.
Pledge now to support the January 20
demonstration against the war - no matter who is elected. Click
here to endorse and
say Bring the Troops Home Now!
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