Monday, March 19, 2007

ONE MILLION DEAD


Enough is enough. How many must die before Bush and his supporters acknowledge the crimes they are committing and get US soldiers the hell out of Iraq. At that point Mr. Bush should throw himself before an international war crimes tribunal and beg for mercy.

As Democracy Now reports today:

Protests to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion are continuing today across the country. In New York peace activists are taking part in mass civil disobedience on Wall Street. In San Francisco, activists are planning to stage a die-in at the Federal Reserve Building. On Saturday tens of thousands of protesters took part in a March on the Pentagon. Protests were also held over the weekend in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, and scores of other cities.

As the protests take place a new study says the number of deaths in Iraq since the start of the conflict could be as high as one million.

On the fourth anniversary of the invasion by Allied troops, an Australian scientist insisted the true death toll dwarfed previous estimates.

Dr Gideon Polya said: "Using the most comprehensive and authoritative literature and UN demographic data yields an estimate of one million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq."

In addition according to UN sources, the number of Iraqi refugees now total 3.7 million - 2.0 million outside Iraq and 1.7 million inside Iraq – and UNHCR predicts that there will be up to 2.3 million internally displaced people within Iraq by the end of this year.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He is a Melbourne scientist and writer and is currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his websites:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html and
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/).


The following letter fro Dr. Polya was taken from the Atlantic Free Press.


Dear Sir/Madam,


Four years after the illegal US-UK-Australian invasion of Iraq, how many Iraqis have died post-invasion?

Post-invasion Occupied Iraqi excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) now total ONE MILLION as of March 2007, after 4 years of war and as estimated from data from the top US medical epidemiology group in the World’s top Public Health School (the Nobel Laureate-containing Bloomberg School of Public Health) at the top US Johns Hopkins University, published peer-reviewed in the top UK medical journal The Lancet and endorsed by 27 top Australian medical experts. [1-3]

Consonant with post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories totalling 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively, the post-invasion under-5 year old infant deaths total 0.5 million and 1.9 million, respectively; the number of refugees total 3.8 million and 3.8 million, respectively; and, according to WHO, the annual per capita medical expenditures permitted by the Occupiers are $64 and $23, respectively, as compared to $2,874 (Australia), $2,389 (UK) and $5,711 (US). [4-10]

The accrual cost (i.e. the long-term committed cost) of the Bush Iraq and Afghan Wars is now $2.5 TRILLION, this estimate coming from 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate and former Chief Economist of the World Bank US Professor Stiglitz (Columbia) and Professor Linda Bilmes (Harvard), who also estimate a cost of $6.5 million for each US soldier killed. Assuming the “all men are created equal” this leads to a Reparations Bill of $ 6.5 million x 3.4 million = $22 trillion. [11 -12]

These horrendous outcomes indicate gross violation by the US Alliance of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (notably Articles 38, 55 and 56), UN Genocide Convention (specifically Article 2) as well as of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Rights of the Child Convention. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are inescapably obliged to inform everyone about horrendous abuses of humanity. [13-16]

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya

Melbourne, Australia


Key references:

[1] http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

[2] http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-iraq-deaths-study-was-valid-and-correct/2006/10/20/1160851135985.html

[3] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12904/42/

[4] http://esa.un.org/unpp/

[5] http://www.unicef.org/index.php

[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1986147,00.html

[7] http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/country?iso=afg

[8] http://www.who.int/en/

[9] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11968/42/

[10] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12741/42/

[11] http://www.newstatesman.com/200703120024

[12] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/42/

[13] http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm

[14] http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm

[15] http://gpolya.newsvine.com/

[16] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/

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