http://www.antiwar.com/orig/rockwell2.html
War on Iraq:
An Unnatural Disaster
By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
August 27, 1999
The outpouring of sadness about the earthquake in Turkey reflects an admirable
sympathy for the suffering of others. But why has there not been a similar
outpouring, and nowhere near the same media attention, about the unnatural
disaster in Iraq? Could it be because Turkey is a US client while Iraq
is a sworn enemy? As is typical, the level of official media attention
given to human suffering reflects the priorities of official Washington.
Just as the US empire is now trying to prop up the government of Turkey,
and protect it against popular outrage, it has been trying for 10 years
to overthrow the government of Iraq.
There’s nothing about the two regimes that should mandate one as
a friend and the other as an enemy. No, this is all about politics.
The government of Turkey is slavishly loyal to the evil empire, whereas
Iraq is not. Only in light of this political reality can we understand
the immoral position of the US government: death in Turkey is a humanitarian
catastrophe while death in Iraq is just one of those things that happens
when you don’t obey the State Department. To correct the imbalance,
let’s take a closer look at what the US has done to Iraq. On August
12, UNICEF
released an extremely detailed report on child mortality in that
country. It received very little attention. But if you are willing to
look at the human cost of the US war and sanctions against Iraq, you
can’t help but be shocked and appalled at what has happened.
From 1960 to 1990, the under-five child mortality rate declined steadily
as the country grew more prosperous. From an appalling 170 deaths per
1,000 children in 1960, the rate fell to 50 per 1,000. Iraq was developing
into one of the most technologically and medically advanced societies
in the region. If there had been no bombings and no sanctions, the child
mortality rate would have fallen to 30 today, meaning that 97 percent
of children born would have been likely to live past the age of 5.
As it is, the rate soared in 1990, so that it is up to 130 per 1,000
births today. That means that more than 1 in 10 children born are going
to die early of disease and malnutrition. Because of contaminated water
and unsanitary conditions all around, a simple cut on the finger can
lead to poisoning and death. Today, less than half the population has
access to clean water; before the bombings everyone did.
In the past 9 years, 1.7 million people have died as a direct result
of US sanctions. Read that figure again, aloud. That is roughly 117 times
as many as have died in the Turkish earthquake. Also consider that every
day in Iraq, 250 more people die as a result of sanctions. But it’s
not just the figures alone that we need to consider; we must look at
the cause. Earthquakes are natural disasters. Sanctions and bombings
are government-made ones.
And the bombing doesn’t stop. Day after day, the US drops more
bombs in a continued attempt to overthrow the government. The planes
take off from a base in Turkey, which has been a leading backer of the
US war against Iraq. This fact sheds a little light on how it is that
the US has been so forthcoming with earthquake aid in Turkey while actually
bringing about a disaster in Iraq.
The bombs don’t just hit military installations. In January, a
2,000 lb. bomb was dropped on a residential neighborhood in Iraq’s
second largest city of Basra. Eleven people were killed and 59 were
wounded, among which were children and their mothers. The official reason
for the bombing was that Iraq flies planes in a part of its own country
that the US has named the “no-fly zone.” Does anyone think
that killing shopkeepers and moms in Basra is a just response?
The policy of starving out Iraq is nothing short of genocidal, and yet
Clinton administration officials continue to defend the policy. While
thousands of organizations and countries are bringing food and medicine
to Turkey, humanitarian organizations are forbidden by law to take food
and medicine into Iraq, even baby formula. While a courageous few have
ignored the law, they do so at their own peril and face legal harassment
on their return. Most groups that deliver aid have felt that they could
not take the risk.
Meanwhile, all of Iraq’s provinces have experienced outbreaks of
viral disease. A huge percentage of Iraqi livestock is afflicted with
hoof-and-mouth disease brought on by US bombings. You see, in 1993,
the US bombed Iraq’s vaccine laboratory in Baghdad, a facility
that had managed to eradicate hoof-and-mouth in the prior decade.
Iraq’s GDP is one-tenth of its pre-war size, and is a mere 2 percent
of the US military budget. Its economy is now smaller than countries
in sub-Saharan Africa. This year’s budgetary increase for the Pentagon
is more than twice the entire GDP of Iraq. Despite this, the US continues
to portray Iraq as some sort of threat to international peace.
Where are the pictures of the dying children in Iraq? Certainly not
on the cover of Time or Newsweek. Most people don’t
even know that the US continues to wage an undeclared war against this
suffering country. All they know is that Iraq is led by a Very Bad Man,
a fact that might be said of virtually every country in the world, including
the US. That is no justification for genocide. There is no justification
for genocide.
Natural disasters are a fact of life. When they occur, it is right and
moral to do anything in our power as individuals to relieve the suffering.
Unnatural disasters like killer sanctions and unjust wars, on the other
hand, are fully preventable. If the US government and its kept media
were really concerned about the sanctity of life, they would take the
first step and stop the killing in Iraq.
Rockwell is founder and president of the Ludwig
von Mises Institute, and vice president of the Center
for Libertarian Studies.
