G
gaelen
Guest
http://www.alertnet.org/printable.htm?URL=/thenews/newsdesk/L04731714.htm
This article is just one in an endless stream that barely make it to the front pages of the mainstream media.
The innumerable ways that children can die out there is shocking enough - from cluster bombs to depleted Uranium - but the lack of apathy and outrage both at the UN and from governments in general is perhaps even more frustrating. Well, maybe we know why, but it doesn't stop the mouth from hanging open at the sheer audacity of psychopathic glee that seems to be apparent amid the vacuous party politics and diet of "cultural" trivia that is served up to replace reporting the truth.
Again, it's amazing what distance will do for our capacity to "switch off." The direct relationship to Iraq and America will see the latter fall from a weighty karmic debt indeed, and very soon. Perhaps this is not quite the correct concept but if we can describe it in those terms.
take for example a recent study I saw which painted a very bleak picture so far removed from any notion of democracy and freedom that it is becomes a deep insult to any person capable of feeling any empathy for our fellow human beings, most especially the most vulnerable i.e. women and children. In the study of around 21,000 housholds in iraq (I think published last summer) showed that the Iraqi people suffered widespread death and war-related injury with extremely high rates of infant and child mortality, chronic malnutrition and illness with low rates of life expectancy and severe curtailments of women's rights and staus in what is left of Iraqi society. A substantial number of Iraqi women and girls are effectively prisoners in their homes, mostly due to the fear of of abduction and criminal abuse. Human rights are worse than under the Hussein regime.
Official estimates put Iraqi casualities at around 24,000 as of 2004 but they are climbing rapidly. However, these official stats are believed to be extremely conservative. After the half a million estimates of child deaths from the appalling sanctions from the last gulf war, we have generations of women and children losing there lives topping around 100,000 deaths overall of civllians as we no doubt remember. (According to the Lancet article in 2004). This however, excluded the slaughter of Fallujah and other attacks on "insurgents" strongholds. Yet as the Pentagon doesn't keep tallies of deaths due to the fact they see Iraqis as little more than fodder under the heel of expansionism it is no surprise that the actual figure is sure to be well beyond official estimates. One shudders to think what it may be as we approach mid-2006.
The full magnitude of this invasion doesn't get any easier to swallow after the realisation that Iraq is, in effect, a wholesale genocide against children, bearing in mind that children make up almost half the Iraqi population. If kids avoid getting blown to bits (so too their parents) then they'll have to cope with chronic malnutrition which effects over 1 million children across Iraq. Meanwhile, prostitution of young boys and girls is also rising along with a rise in domestic abuse and rape cases of women which have rocketed since the invasion. Add to this a 70% unemployment rate and the emergence of mafia gangs who favour kidnapping and narcotics, no doubt helped along by the private security firms reputation for a little wheeling and dealing on the side. The Iraqi people now have psychopaths rising to the surface from their own people as well as dealing with those from Uncle Sam trained to be that way and those who joined up so they could BE all they could be. What an absolute hell. Keep that Statue of liberty in mind and pass the sick bucket.
For a U.S., puppet led constitution written in a war zone it means little for human rights and most especially for the basic rights of children who are directly and indirectly living with a legacy of geo-political hatred that shows no signs of decreasing. Next stop Iran and IT'S children.
Jeeze. let's do all we can to open a window that may at least divert such a possbility.
J.
This article is just one in an endless stream that barely make it to the front pages of the mainstream media.
The innumerable ways that children can die out there is shocking enough - from cluster bombs to depleted Uranium - but the lack of apathy and outrage both at the UN and from governments in general is perhaps even more frustrating. Well, maybe we know why, but it doesn't stop the mouth from hanging open at the sheer audacity of psychopathic glee that seems to be apparent amid the vacuous party politics and diet of "cultural" trivia that is served up to replace reporting the truth.
Again, it's amazing what distance will do for our capacity to "switch off." The direct relationship to Iraq and America will see the latter fall from a weighty karmic debt indeed, and very soon. Perhaps this is not quite the correct concept but if we can describe it in those terms.
take for example a recent study I saw which painted a very bleak picture so far removed from any notion of democracy and freedom that it is becomes a deep insult to any person capable of feeling any empathy for our fellow human beings, most especially the most vulnerable i.e. women and children. In the study of around 21,000 housholds in iraq (I think published last summer) showed that the Iraqi people suffered widespread death and war-related injury with extremely high rates of infant and child mortality, chronic malnutrition and illness with low rates of life expectancy and severe curtailments of women's rights and staus in what is left of Iraqi society. A substantial number of Iraqi women and girls are effectively prisoners in their homes, mostly due to the fear of of abduction and criminal abuse. Human rights are worse than under the Hussein regime.
Official estimates put Iraqi casualities at around 24,000 as of 2004 but they are climbing rapidly. However, these official stats are believed to be extremely conservative. After the half a million estimates of child deaths from the appalling sanctions from the last gulf war, we have generations of women and children losing there lives topping around 100,000 deaths overall of civllians as we no doubt remember. (According to the Lancet article in 2004). This however, excluded the slaughter of Fallujah and other attacks on "insurgents" strongholds. Yet as the Pentagon doesn't keep tallies of deaths due to the fact they see Iraqis as little more than fodder under the heel of expansionism it is no surprise that the actual figure is sure to be well beyond official estimates. One shudders to think what it may be as we approach mid-2006.
The full magnitude of this invasion doesn't get any easier to swallow after the realisation that Iraq is, in effect, a wholesale genocide against children, bearing in mind that children make up almost half the Iraqi population. If kids avoid getting blown to bits (so too their parents) then they'll have to cope with chronic malnutrition which effects over 1 million children across Iraq. Meanwhile, prostitution of young boys and girls is also rising along with a rise in domestic abuse and rape cases of women which have rocketed since the invasion. Add to this a 70% unemployment rate and the emergence of mafia gangs who favour kidnapping and narcotics, no doubt helped along by the private security firms reputation for a little wheeling and dealing on the side. The Iraqi people now have psychopaths rising to the surface from their own people as well as dealing with those from Uncle Sam trained to be that way and those who joined up so they could BE all they could be. What an absolute hell. Keep that Statue of liberty in mind and pass the sick bucket.
For a U.S., puppet led constitution written in a war zone it means little for human rights and most especially for the basic rights of children who are directly and indirectly living with a legacy of geo-political hatred that shows no signs of decreasing. Next stop Iran and IT'S children.
Jeeze. let's do all we can to open a window that may at least divert such a possbility.
J.
