Iraqis are People, Too

In the article entitled: Americans underestimate Iraq death toll,
Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University political scientist who tracks
public opinion on civilian casualties in war said:

A better understanding of the Iraqi death toll probably wouldn’t
change already negative public attitudes toward the war much. People in
democracies generally don’t shy away from inflicting civilian
casualties and they may be even more tolerant of them in situations
such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other
Iraqis.

This above statement is unspeakably appalling Why do people in
democracies not shy away from inflicting human casualties? If this
statement is true then why are we spreading American brand of democracy
(fake elections and puppet leaders, i.e.: Bush and Malicki) all over
the world. Why do we want more democracies around the world? To inflict
more civilian casualties? This is not acceptable to me and I renounce
governments and shy away from other humans who do accept these
casualties.

This statement ignored a very basic fact, also. The
invasion/occupation of Iraq is a horror that was based on lies,
deceptions and greed. The people of Iraq are suffering terribly in
THEIR country while George Bush, Dick Cheney, and 99% of the American
public do not have to sacrifice one iota of comfort or concern because
of the terror that is being inflicted on a civilian population that
have done nothing to be punished so harshly.

Another one of our fellow Americans had this to say about civilian casualties:

“You have to look at who’s doing the killing,” said Neal Crawford, a
restaurant manager in Suttons Bay, Mich., who guessed that about 10,000
Iraqis had been killed. “If these people are dying because a roadside
bomb goes off or if there’s an insurgent attack in a marketplace, it’s
an unfortunate circumstance of war – people die.”

This comment also ignores the fact that the occupation of Iraq is a
war of choice that never should have been waged. No insurgency existed
before American troops were forced to roll their tanks into a country
that was filled with innocent people. Would Americans take such a
cavalier attitude towards “unfortunate circumstances of war” if it were
an equivalent amount of Americans being killed? I don’t think so, 3000
of us were tragically slaughtered on 9-11 and we have used this as a
justification to destroy two countries that didn’t attack us and commit
genocide on people who just want to be left alone. Now Bloody George
has killed more Americans than Osama bin Ladin and many, many times
more Iraqis.

During the seminar in Turkey, attendees got up to congratulate the
Iraqi men on the resistance in Iraq. Human beings across the world, but
especially in the Middle and Near East are proud of the insurgents in
Iraq for holding off the “mightiest” military in history. This makes me
sick to my stomach. As the people of Iraq are victims, so are our
soldiers who are oftentimes there for their 3rd or 4th deployments.
What George Bush has done by bending over backwards, frontwards, and
sideways to the oil companies and war profiteers is to make the USA the
detested laughing stock of the world and make our soldiers targets of
people who don’t hate them, but hate what they represent.

In the article from the AP the median number of Iraqis killed that
those polled guessed was: 9890. A recent very scientific (yes, science
does work, George) study put the median Iraqi death toll at 655,000,
and my contacts in Iraq, including the Sheik who spoke yesterday claim
that it is well over one million. An equivalent amount of Americans
would exceed ten million! I don’t think that anyone would call that an
“unfortunate circumstance of war.” Would the deaths be more acceptable
if it was a “democracy” that attacked us?

Now Doomsday Dick is traveling the world reinforcing the nuclear
option for Iran. Saying that every option is still on the table (for
pity’s sake, Democrats, can you put impeachment for these murderers on
the table?), is frightening to say the very least. To prevent one
country from developing nuclear energy technology, the US is
threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran where millions of moderate
Arabs will be endangered. A supposed “democracy” that “spreads peace”
is willing to use some of its thousands of nuclear bombs, again, on
innocent people. Who will stop these maniacs?

The crimes against humanity keep piling up on the Bush Regime. If
one stipulates that the invasion of Iraq was justified then Geneva
Conventions require that the occupying power protect the occupied, make
sure they have medicine and medical attention and clean water and food.
BushCo has failed its responsibilities to the Iraqi people miserably
and the Iraqi people want our troops out of their country. Dropping
nuclear, or our devastating conventional weapons, on Iran would be
another crime against humanity for the Bush Regime to paste in its
scrap book.

A majority of Americans do find the casualties on both sides
unacceptable, but now it’s time to go from thinking “unacceptable” to
action. We need to get out of our comfy homes and hit the streets in
the millions on March 17th, especially in Washington, DC, if for
anything else, to demonstrate to the people of the world that citizens
in democracies do not sanction killing innocent people. We need to do
it for our soldiers, but more importantly for the innocent citizens of
Iraq. We need to demand an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and
we need to demand impeachment for BushCo to restore the peace and to
restore our reputation in the world.

After the program, the Sheik approached me with a translator and
apologized to me for Casey’s death saying that: “We don’t want to kill
your soldiers, but we are protecting our country, it is our country.”

Time to give the Iraqis their country back.

We never should have allowed Bloody BushCo to go there in the first place.