The real cost of the Iraq war
Robert W. Merry does the math on the price of ousting Saddam Hussein:
Consider that documented civilian deaths in Iraq since Bush’s 2003 invasion—noncombatants killed by military or paramilitary acts or because of the breakdown in civil society—have numbered nearly 120,000. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, some 4.7 million Iraqis have been displaced by the chaos unleashed by Bush’s war. This number includes 2.4 million internal refugees, some half a million of them living as squatters in slums. Another 2.3 million have fled the country altogether and have not returned.
This is a civic catastrophe that gets little attention in America. By way of illustration, a proportional civilian death toll in the United States would be nearly 1.2 million. The proportional refugee total would be 45 million.
He doesn’t even break out the devastation of the Christian community there.
Via The Dish.
Robert Merry discusses President Nixon’s visit to China. However, not all Americans applauded Nixon’s visit to China. Those conservative Americans who did not applaud Nixon’s visit to China included some conservatives who cheered on President George W. Bush’s pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Such militaristic conservatives are still with us in the Republican party today. Unfortunately, they are not the kind of people who would be interested in the number of non-combatants killed or displaced in Iraq. Such militaristic conservatives are militaristic zealots. Their militaristic zealotry is aimed at eradicating what they consider to be evil, regardless of the loss of life among non-combatants.
Hardly anyone mentions the plight of Iraqi Christians. I have heard it covered on EWTN (Raymond Arroyo’s program) but not much anywhere else.
And the American bishops silence continues to be deafening… except about contraception and “religious liberty (sic)
“Their militaristic zealotry is aimed at eradicating what they consider to be evil, regardless of the loss of life among non-combatants.”
Given the cost of war to American combatants and their families: divorce, suicide, repeated separations, injuries, long-term and permanent disabilities, as well as psychological and spiritual consequences, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest they care little for those who were sent off to this sorry adventure. It would also not be exaggerating to say that some have enjoyed financial windfalls on the backs of Iraqi civilians, if not American soldiers.
Let me offer some other words and phrases here in association: profiteering, treason, grave moral sin.
As for the American bishops, they seem to have an indulgence for doing the wrong thing, and not doing nearly enough for the right.
I write this as one who opposed the invasion of Iraq.
Merry’s article hardly does justice to the ruthless genocide that marked Hussein’s reign. In fact, and rather unforgivably, he seems to minimize it. If we are going to measure the outcome of the Iraqi invasion by lives lost, then it seems simple fairness to note that Saddam Hussein killed many more of his own people (if we consider “people who lived under his political authority” to be “his people” – it’s doubtful he considered the victims of his campaigns of genocide to be “his people”) than were killed because of the American/allied invasion. The numbers given here suggest that Hussein was responsible for at least three times (probably a larger multiple) the number Merry reports in his article. And Hussein also was responsible for displacing millions of people – his own people – as refugees.
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/internationalhumanrights/p/saddam_hussein.htm.
Do we now ask about the deafening silence of the US bishops while Hussein was in power?
jim P. ==
Indirectly you raise an important question. You were against the Iraq War, and you recognize that Hussein was a tyrant. The Iraqis are not a simple, uneducated people without resources and communications system (characteristics which seem necessary for a successful revolution). Were they *obliged* to have a revolution to overthrow their own government? Is there an obligation to depose tyrants physically? Is revolution a moral *obligation*?
If it is, what are the obligations/rights of the country’s neighbors (who are also affected by the tyrant?
And what of the obligations of a country’s people to paramilitary organizations which disrupt the country? (I’m thinking of Mezico.)
Obviously, I don’t think that the old theory of just war covers all such situations.
A country with a paramilitary problem obviously requires police action. Is something analogous to police action permitted/required in the other situations? How would it differ from all out war?
Hi, Ann, these are important questions, and with obvious applicability to Iran. Both with Iraq during the Clinton administration, and with Iran now, we are trying to get a ruthless, aggressive and not always rational regime to change its behavior via sanctions – and in particular, to get it to stop the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Arguably, the pre-invasion UN inspection regime in Iraq demonstrated that the sanctions were effective – and (tragically) post-invasion, the Americans were able to confirm that. That’s a powerful practical argument for sanctions (I trust the moral argument for the preference of sanctions over unilateral military aggression doesn’t need to be made on dotCom). What we can say about Iran is that sanctions have worked so far, in the sense that Iran doesn’t seem to have nukes – yet. To what extent Iran has been deterred in its pursuit is a subject of hot debate.
To your questions, I would add this one: as the world’s only superpower, does the US have a special obligation to ensure peace, even among internal factions in countries that aren’t its neighbors? Should the US have intervened to help the Marsh Arabs or the Kurds when Hussein was intent on exterminating them? What is it that justifies our intervention in Libya that wouldn’t have justified our intervention for those peoples?
Excellent points, Jim P. May I add a couple of thoughts:
- need to know the estimated loss of life over ten years of Hussein rule and also how many were displaced? Not sure that those numbers would equal what these writers have submitted
- Sunni vs. Shia – this muddies the water given that you had a nation that is majority Shia being dominated/abused by a minority, Sunni (yet, what we have now is not really a democracy and in some ways we have moved to Sunni perscution). Will things just change?
- Kurdish – we do know that thousands were killed by gas attacks by Hussein. Yet, before the First Gulf War started, the No Fly Zone was actually working and the Kurdish had basically set up their own government and territory that was economically expanding and increasing. What if that had been allowed to play out? Instead, it continues to be a mess
- The data alos does not really reflect my experience in working with US vets and families – the long term impact, suicides, family disintegration will continue.
So, this just muddies the water but your reframing might add to the context and the impact of this data.
- What this data does do is illuminate the simplistic bombast we hear from some of the Republican presidential candidates. It also is connected to the Arab Spring – how we move forward with Anne’s questions; whether the Arab spring will support growing democracy or not – way too early to tell but would suggest that removal of dictators such as Assad, Hussein, Gadaffi, etc. needs to happen. The struglle is – how so that millions of citizens are not killed, forced to flee, etc.
Merry forgets to mention the 500,000 Iraqi babies which died as a result of the sanctions which were placed on Iraq during the time after Desert Storm and Bush Jr.’s dirty little war.
When Madelline Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, was interviewed by Leslie Stahl on CBS 60 Minutes whether those deaths of the innocents were worth it she replied to the affirmative. Can’t get any blood thirstier than that.
“If there is a just God I tremble for my Country.” Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the USA
What’s remarkable is that the Neo Cons that lied the US public into the Iraq war are now once more doing it again using the same arguments to lie the US public into a war with Iran.
Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.
And consider that Saddam Hussein was sanctimoniously prosecuted and unceremoniously hanged for crimes against humanity. He was convicted of the murder of 148 Iraqi Shi’ite in the town of Dujail in 1982, an action taken in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him.
No one disputes Hussein’s villainy but the larger body count is the consequence of the willful actions of Bush and Blair. Good intentions make great paving stones.
Btw, here is Leslie Gelb in the Daily Beast: Headline: “War looms for Obama in Iran, Syria and North Korea”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/12/war-looms-for-obama-in-iran-syria-and-north-korea.html