printThe “SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 VICTIMS” is a site dedicated to America’s victims of the September 11, 2001 assault. It is profoundly moving (even if the hyperlinks to each individual profile do not display). The list, however, is woefully incomplete. All told, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians have died due to the actions the American state took to avenge the murder of those who perished in the WORLD TRADE CENTER, on AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHTS 11 and 77, on UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHTS 175 and 93, and in the PENTAGON.
On 10.11.06, I made a point of clarifying a study in The Lancet detailing the direct and indirect casualties of our invasion of Iraq:
“In the final days of Saddam’s reign of terror, i.e., in the 15 months preceding the invasion, the primary causes of death in Iraq were natural: heart attack, stroke and chronic illness. Since Iraq became another neocon object lesson, the primary cause of death has been violence, according to the report.”
Moreover, “since March 2003, Iraqis have suffered from an excess of deaths, if you will.”
The relative risk, the risk of deaths from any cause was two-and-a-half times higher for Iraqi civilians after the 2003 invasion than in the preceding 15 months. But ‘the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the U.S.-led invasion.
In 2006, The Lancet cited a figure of 650,000 Iraqis, over and above the mortality rate during the Saddam era. Among these deceased Iraqis were thousands of individuals who had died because, since the invasion, the incidence of heart attacks, cancer, strokes, stress and displacement-related deaths, deaths associated with a lack of health care and potable water, etc had increased twofold, at least.
The total figure is now out of date.
Tomorrow, Sept. 11, think of our casualties—and of those innocent lives we shattered to avenge our dead.
UPDATE I (Sept. 12): NEED TO KNOW. “September 9, 2011: 9/11, ten years later” is a PBS program that offered decent 9/11 programing.
UPDATE II (Sept. 13): “9/11” by Nebojsa Malic of the “Gray Falcon” fame.
UPDATE III (Sept. 19): THE RECKONING: AMERICA AND THE WORLD A DECADE AFTER 9/11.
Yes, no doubt there are numerous innocent people in both Iraq and Afghanistan who have directly and indirectly been killed / murdered / slaughtered…from all sides in this conflict. My wife’s friends were directly murdered when the Towers collapsed.
Here is a very simple situation: Your family members are walking home and you and some friends are sitting on your porch see them attacked and being robbed. What do you do? Change it now to an unknown lady and her kids being attacked and robbed?
The M-E is not so simple. Please note: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0911/may090811.php3
The reality of what is going on there and in other areas will present itself as the uprisings evolve.
I am not a Pacifist. Slap me and I will slap back. But, neither am I a murderer or promoter of violence.
Excuse me…I should go now since my wife just saw the name of one of her friends on the streaming ticker of those who died on 9-11. Where does anyone see a streaming ticker of the innocents murdered by the Jihadists in the M-E as well as ones our Military has terminated?
ps: Who attacked the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and why?
My wife died on 28 August 2001. Now, if I had demanded that the US have an Internal Revenue Service to extract $ 10,000,000 in reparations from the taxpayer … AND … bombed 20 fertility clinics … AND … tortured some self-centered negligent oncologists … AND … insisted that all women 20-70 either be regularly “inspected” in the shower by their husbands, Myron Pauli, or the TSA (Tit Safety Administration), you would call me a blithering nutjob.
Somehow, when the government does it, it is supposed to make sense. As Charles Chaplin said in the movie Monsieur Verdoux (about an individual killer compared with war profiteers) “numbers sanctify”.
Additionally, I do not consider the land where the father of my friend (who got married last month in Bellingham WA) lost his job due to eminent domain abuse by the Rockefellers to be some “hallowed holy soil” either.
Nor do I consider Obama, Bush, and Cheney to be prophets or Messiahs of some World Trade Center & Pentagon Religion! People who lost their loved ones can do their mourning in private – I am not into this government-media orgy of collectivized grief.
I spent most of my life in government service, Military and Corrections. I always had been taught by my job that I was to fight for justice. You arrest the criminal and thereby protect the innocent. Al-Quida has maybe five thousand members, we have the best inteligence agencies money can buy. Why haven’t they interdicted and destroyed Al-Quida? Al-Quida had already left Afghanistan when we started bombing it, then Iraq, Libya, and we encouraged revolutions in how many countries now? More than a hundred thousand civilian deaths at our door and Al-Quida is just as strong as ever. Where is the justice?
I have never directly served in the military, but I have worked as an Engineer for a major billion dollar defense contractor corporation, where I had a low level security classification, for which I had to sign an agreement of secrecy with the Government. Probably hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans have signed similar secrecy agreements with the Government. Is it any wonder that the treasonous Government 9-11 conspiracy is still mostly secret? Except for a few 9-11 conspiracy book authors, who are ignored by the treasonous establishment news media.
I partially agree and disagree with Robert Glisson’s points.
Al Queda might have had 200 – 1000 significant people in its “network” that needed to be negated – another group consisted of disposable thuggish malcontents willing to strap on a suicide vest or serve as muscle to the hardcore group. By wiping out many and making them go deep underground, America has been largely effective (I disagree with the “as strong as ever” remark).
But America has spent well in excess of $ 10 trillion since “9/11” on Defense, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, etc. – most of it having little relationship to punishing Al Queda. The Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, troops stationed everywhere, the Libya “kinetic operation”, etc. are just part of the Empire, not about protecting America. Our idiotic shoe-removal policy (done nowhere else) in response to a psycho putting a firecracker in his sneaker cost the order to $ 10 billion of waste. Laws like the Patriot Act and torture memos have damaged this country far more than Atta and Bin Laden.
“9/11” has become an all purpose excuse for a collective self-lobotomization and an excuse to shred the constitution and drive us into bankruptcy. We have done that to ourselves.
Myron: I don’t see anything to quibble about. Strong as ever or not strong as ever is the same as saying- the cup is half full or half empty. We’re both making the same point overall. I agree with your assessment, without quibbles.