An ignorant, racist and highly prejudiced American electorate has re-elected an evil administration with an appalling record of lying, war-mongering and war crimes. In reality America had a very limited moral choice since the alternative candidate while an intelligent, articulate, relatively humane war hero nevertheless backed the Iraq War and its appalling continuance.
Television and the US mainstream media in general must take much credit for the result of the US election that has left the rest of the world stupefied. Television has made the US a nation with a substantial proportion of people who essentially do not read.
The US mainstream media have reported national and international affairs – and most notably Iraq – in an overwhelmingly disgraceful fashion that can be most simply described as "lying by omission and commission", as illustrated by their resolute and near-comprehensive failure to report horrendous Iraq civiilian deaths.
The US invasion of Iraq was illegal – it constitutes a War Crime.
The huge post-invasion civilian deaths in Occupied Iraq total about 0.2 million – this also constitutes a War Crime.
The continuing war by the US Coalition in Iraq is demonstrably racist – it is inconceivable that such long term violence and horrendous mass mortality would be imposed by the US Coalition on European countries.
The US Coalition is dominated by largely the white, Anglo-Celtic countries of the US and UK acting in concert with largely Anglo-Celtic Australia, a smattering of European countries, the Japanese (who you will remember were made "honorary whites" by the neo-Nazi white minority regime in Apartheid South Africa) and several other non-European countries.
It is inconceivable that the US or UK would do to any European country today what they have been doing to Iraq for the last 14 years. The "targeted" bombing of Serbia aside, the last time total war was visited on European countries by the US and the UK was during the Second World War in the fight of civilization against genocidal Nazi imperialism.
Of course, Iraq is not a "once off" – most non-European countries have suffered European-imposed occupation, war, militarization or internal conflict since the Second World War at immense human cost as outlined below. Iraq is simply the latest demonstration of the continuing, murderous, 3-century RACISM of the US and the UK.
Horrendous "excess mortality" – the price of war and militarization
The human cost of the Second World War in the European theatre has been estimated at about 40 million, and that of the Eastern theatre at about 35 million. How does this compare with post-war European excesses in the non-European world?
Using UN data it is possible to calculate "excess mortality" for all countries since 1950, "excess mortality" (excess death, avoidable mortality) being the difference between the ACTUAL mortality in a country for a given period and the mortality EXPECTED for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics.
The results from this analysis (that has taken me a laborious 12 months) are horrifying. The total post-1950 "excess mortality" has been about 1.3 billion for the whole world, 1 billion for the Third World and 0.5 billion for the Muslim world i.e. a Muslim Holocaust about 100 times greater than the Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) or the Bengal Famine (that killed 4 million Hindus and Muslims in British-ruled India during World War 2).
The prosperous, powerful, aggressive and imperialist First World bears a major responsibility for this appalling post-1950 carnage in the non-European world through their impositions of colonial occupation, war, militarization, debt for arms, trading exclusion and instigated civil wars.
Just two examples relevant to the current US involvement in Iraq will suffice to illustrate the appalling dimensions of the "problem of US militarism" (many other examples can of course be given).
"Excess mortality" in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been 340,000 since 1967 and the total post-1950 "excess mortality" for Israel’s neighbours with which she has been in conflict amounts to an appalling 24 million.
The post-1950 "excess mortality" in Indo-China (Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia) totals about 32 million (as compared to US deaths in the Vietnam War of about 50,000).
Of course, most of these "excess deaths" are due to deprivation or malnourishment-exacerbated avoidable and treatable disease rather than to explicit violence. However whether a person dies violently or dies avoidably from disease, the end result is the same and the culpability essentially the same.
Indeed the major collateral consequence of current global militarization (US annual military budget US$400 billion and the global annual military expenditure US$800 billion) is the appalling human mortality – some 20 million people (substantially children) die each year from deprivation and malnourishment-exacerbated disease. Oil price rises from the criminal US Coalition War in Iraq will have a big effect on survivability in the Third World.
What has been the human cost of the "War on Terror"?
A US study published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet (on-line, October 2004) estimated 0.2 million civilian "excess deaths" in Iraq since the US invasion in March 2003.
The US study in The Lancet are consonant with existing UN and UNICEF data that are readily available (a few clicks away on the Web) but utterly IGNORED by the disgraceful US and global mainstream media.
UNICEF (2003) estimated that the under-5 infant mortality in 2001 was 1000 in Australia (population 20 million), 109,000 in Iraq (population 24 million) and 277,000 in Afghanistan (population 22 million).
UNICEF (2004) has estimated that the under-5 infant mortality in 2002 was 1000 in Australia, 108,000 in Iraq and 283,000 in Afghanistan.
UN and UNICEF data indicate a post-invasion under-5 infant mortality of 0.2 million in Iraq and 0.9 million in Afghanistan – terror indeed for the over 2 million grieving parents.
In the dishonestly termed "War on Terror" there are two sides – the "jihadist terrorists" (who have barbarically killed 5000 innocent Western civilians over the last 20 years) and the "US Coalition terrorists" who are responsible for 1.5 million deaths in Iraq since 1991 (including 1.2 million children) and 1.2 million deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 (including 0.9 million children) – terrorism on a 1000-fold greater scale than that of 9/11.
"Singular events", "intelligence failures" and immensely profitable US military involvements
America has a long history of "singular events" involving "controversial intelligence" preceding military involvements that have immensely extended US global hegemony and been immensely profitable to sectional US corporate interests.
Here is a brief short list of "singular and controversial events" preceding immensely profitable US military involvements:
– the explosion of the Maine in Havana harbour (precipitating newspaper hysteria and the Spanish-American war that delivered the Philippines and South American hegemony to the US);
– the sinking of the Lusitania (leading to US involvement in WW1);
– Pearl Harbor (notwithstanding prior US and UK intelligence; precipitating US involvement – thank goodness – in WW2);
– the alleged assault on some American citizens (the US invasions of Panama and Granada);
– the Gulf of Tonkin incident (an utter nonsense leading to hugely expanded US involvement in Vietnam);
– the US-encouraged Iraq invasion of Kuwait (initiating the Gulf War that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians and then killed over a million more through infanticidal sanctions).
The 9/11 atrocity was permitted by a succession of massive and extraordinary intelligence failures – indeed it is a very plausible hypothesis that key US "intelligence" and their masters EXPECTED and WANTED a terrorist atrocity on US soil – but were shocked by the magnitude of what actually happened. The subsequent invasion of Afghanistan was eminently avoidable but was clearly part of a "plan". The subsequent invasion of Iraq was justified by a campaign of utter LIES about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq-Al Qaeda links that simply did not exist.
The "War on Terror" has been immensely profitable for sectional US corporate interests
9/11 and the Iraq War have been disasters for Iraq, the Middle East, the World and for ordinary Americans – but they have been immensely profitable for sectional US corporate interests.
However Americans (and indeed the rest of the World) are kept in the dark by the lying by omission and commission of disgracefully dishonest and manipulative US and global mainstream media.
Consult your own understanding and simply look at the cost-benefit associated with the "War on Terror".
The "jihadist terrorists" have killed relatively few people, most notably the some 5000 Western civilians who died at the hands of the jihadists over 20 years. These casualties must be compared with the following casualties of corporate endeavour: the 40,000 who die in car accidents in the US each year (1 million world-wide) and the 0.4 million who die from cigarette-smoking in the US each year (5 million world-wide). There is of course no "War on Cars" nor a "War on Cigarette Smoking" – though clearly there should be; Corporate America decrees otherwise.
However the jihadists have been of immense help to US sectional corporate interests who have profited IMMENSELY from jihadist activity, namely the US military-industrial complex, particular oil interests and particular corporate conglomerates. In contrast to the limited barbarity of the jihadists, the US Coalition have clear responsibility for post-1991 deaths in Iraq and post-2001 deaths in Afghanistan totalling about 3 million – accordingly "US Coalition terrorists" would certainly be an appropriate and thoroughly-justified descriptive for the opponents of the "jihadist terrorists" in the "War on Terror".
"US Corporate terrorists" are the essence of the "US Coalition terrorists" – they have benefited immensely since 9/11 in the following ways: an increased US$250 billion budgeted military expenditure (noting that the US military-industrial complex profits heavily from the the non-US global military expenditure that now stands at US$400 billion); a further over US$140 billion of expenditure on the Iraq War; massive extension of US military power throughout the Middle East and Central Asia; massive US military threat to other areas of the world; massive increases in oil prices that benefit particular US oil interests (but not ordinary Americans or the desperate Third World); and immense suffering and mortality in Iraq and Afghanistan that will fuel hatreds for an endless "war on terror" that will be immensely profitable for the "US corporate terrorists" for the foreseeable future.
How have "US Coalition terrorists" facilitated "jihadist terrorists"?
As outlined above, the "jihadist terrorists" have been immensely beneficial to the "US corporate terrorists", raising the OBVIOUS question (addressed in part by Mike Moore and others) – to what extent have the "US Coalition terrorists" facilitated the "jihadist terrorists"?
In brief, the US supported the Taliban and Saudi-based Al Qaeda mujahadeen against the Russians; helped instal, arm and support the secular, anti-Islamist Saddam Hussein, thereby causing the 1 million deaths of the Iran -Iraq conflict and promoting backlash jihadism and jihadist recruitment; and caused horrendous mass mortality in Iraq and Afghanistan that will provide an endless source of vengeful jihadists.
The "US Corporate terrorists" are profiting immensely from war that is substantially responsible for an "excess mortality" currently totalling about 3 million in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Every "downside" of the "War on Terror" perceived by US citizens – Coalition casualties, recurrent atrocities – works to the advantage of the "US Coalition terrorists" by increasing the desire to "finish the job" (as reflected in the US election result). The consequences ignored by the US and global media – the horrendous civilian casualties – also help the "US Coalition terrorists" through entrenchment of hatred and recruitment of jihadists. The "US Corporate terrorists" are laughing all the way to the bank.
How can the world peacefully combat "US Coalition terrorism"?
The famous Indian writer Arundhati Roy (author of the Booker Prize-winning "The God of Small Things") received the Sydney Peace Prize in Sydney, Australia on Wednesday 3 November 2004. In her acceptance speech, Arundhati Roy lambasted the leaders of the Coalition, notably Bush and Blair, as war criminals and called on the international community to apply sanctions against the war criminal Coalition nations.
PEACE is the only way. Sporting bans, sanctions and boycotts eventually worked against the evil, racist, neo-Nazi minority regime in South Africa. International exposure, sporting bans, sanctions and boycotts against the "US Coalition terrorist" countries can hopefully halt the immensely profitable "US Coalition terrorist" war-mongering that is causing the estimated collateral deaths of about 0.5 million people EACH YEAR in Iraq and Afghanistan alone.
What supporters of the US Coalition call "democratic imperialism" is actually "democratic Nazism". "Democratic Nazism" is not an oxymoron – the Nazis were initially democratically elected in Germany in 1933 but then went on to aggressive, militaristic, one party dictatorship through racism, fear, propaganda, jingoism and human rights constraints. Indeed there is an awful "if" in history – what if Hitler had played cricket, had exhibited good manners and had generally been more sophisticated and ostensibly "democratic"?
The recent American election demonstrated the same pre-totalitarian ingredients of fear, racism, propaganda, blinkered media, religious and nationalistic fanaticism, jingoism and war mongering that returned an evil gang of war criminals to power. And yet over the issue of the illegal invasion of Iraq and its horrendous human consequences there was essential agreement between the two parties in the election (as in the UK).
The world must respond positively to Arundhati Roy’s call for sanctions against the war criminal Coalition countries. International exposure of the actuality of ongoing Coalition crimes, sporting bans, sanctions and boycotts must be applied. The war criminals leading the "US Coalition terrorists" must be brought to account for their appalling crimes before the International Criminal Court.
Of course many will be intimidated by the magnitude of the Bush victory. They should not be. War-mongering, illegal war and mass human mortality are utterly unacceptable – as is sustained public deception. Silence kills. Silence is complicity. Please inform everyone. Save the children.
