Collateral Genocide
By Mike Ferner
05/14/07 "ICH"
-- -- Two elements are necessary to commit the crime of
genocide: 1) the
mental element, meaning intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,
and 2) the
physical element, which includes any of the following:
killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life
calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction
in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent
births; or forcibly transferring children to another group.
Considering that such clear language comes from a UN treaty
which is legally binding on our country, things could start
getting a little worrisome – especially when you realize
that since our government declared
economic and
military warfare on Iraq we’ve killed well over one
million people, fast approaching two.
This summer will be one year since researchers from Johns
Hopkins University collected data for a study which
concluded
655,000 additional deaths were caused by the military
war, and things have only gotten worse since then. Then
consider that the economic war killed an additional 500,000
Iraqi kids under the age of five during only the first seven
years of sanctions which were in force for a dozen years,
according to a
1999
U.N. report.
Based on the Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqis killed in the
war, one could conservatively estimate that another 2.6
million people have been wounded. The
U.N.
estimates that between 1.5 million and 2 million Iraqis
are now “internally displaced” by the fighting and roughly
the same number have fled their country, including
disproportionate numbers of doctors and other
professionals.
If you are sitting down and possess a healthy imagination,
try conjuring up similar conditions here in our land.
-
Start with the fact that few people buy bottled water
and what comes out of the tap is guaranteed to at least
make you sick if not kill you
-
Three times as many of our fellow citizens are out of
work as during the Great Depression
-
On a good day we have three or four hours of electricity
to preserve food or cool the 110-degree heat
-
No proper hospitals or rehab clinics exist to help the
wounded become productive members of society
-
Roads are a mess
-
Reports of birth defects from exposure to depleted
uranium have begun surfacing around the country.
Reflect for a minute on the grief brought by a single loved
one’s death. Then open your heart to the reality of life if
we suffered casualties comparable to those endured by the
people of Iraq.
-
In the former cities of Atlanta, Denver, Boston,
Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San
Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia every single person
is dead.
-
In Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada,
Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina and
Colorado every single person is wounded.
-
The entire populations of Ohio and New Jersey are
homeless, surviving with friends, relatives or under
bridges as they can.
-
The entire populations of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky
have fled to Canada or Mexico.
-
Over the past three years, one in four U.S. doctors has
left the country.
-
Last year alone 3,000 doctors were kidnapped and 800
killed.
In short, nobody “out there” is coming to save us. We are
in hell.
Of course our government didn’t intend to commit
genocide, it just sort of happened. The Iraqis kept getting
in the way while we were trying to complete the mission.
Mistakes were made as we were building democracy, but
surely no genocide was intended. After all, we are the
international deciders of what is and what isn’t genocide,
and we know full well that intent is a requirement.
It was only “collateral genocide” and lord knows we did our
very best to avoid it.
Mike Ferner, a freelance writer in Ohio, tries not to
dwell on these thoughts all the time. Write him at
www.mikeferner.org.
© 2007 Mike Ferner
