UK-US Wars on Iraq & Afghanistan have COST 2.7 MILLION excess deaths & $1-2 TRILLION

UK-US WARS ON IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN HAVE COST (so far) 2.7 MILLION EXCESS DEATHS & US$ 1-2 TRILLION

18 MARCH 2006 is the THIRD ANNIVERSARY of the US-LED INVASION OF IRAQ. It has been marked by demonstrations around the world. However, lying, racist, holocaust-denying mainstream media continue to IGNORE the FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION - WHAT has been the HUMAN COST of Bush’s Wars?

IN SUMMARY, the HUMAN COST has been a total of 2.7 million excess deaths (so far) and the ECONOMIC COST to the US (as estimated by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate & Columbia Professor Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor Linda Bilmes) amounts to $1-2 TRILLION (for a detailed, documented account see Newsvine: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/20...)

SOME KEY STATISTICS (AS OF MID-MARCH 2006) ARE PRESENTED BELOW:

THE LATEST UN FIGURES (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/) indicate that the post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality, man-made mortality) is 0.5 MILLION (US-occupied Iraq) and 1.8 MILLION (US-occupied Afghanistan); the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality totals 0.4 MILLION and 1.4 MILLION, respectively.

THE LATEST UNICEF FIGURES (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry...) indicate that 0.5 MILLION under-5 year old infants die in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan annually (1,300 daily and 90% avoidably) due to NON-PROVISION by the Occupying UK-US-led Coalition of the life-sustaining requisites demanded of Occupiers by the Geneva Conventions (passive genocide) (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm).

THE LATEST UN OFFICE FOR DRUGS & CRIME (UNODC) FIGURES (see: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/v...) indicate that the post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths total 0.4 MILLION due to restoration by the US-led Coalition of the globally-dominant Afghan opium industry destroyed by the Taliban in 2000/2001; in the major “White”, Anglo-Celtic countries the post-2001 opiate drug deaths total about 1,200 (Scotland), 1,600 (Australia), 3,000 (Canada), 3,200 (UK) and 50,000 (US) (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-p...).

THE COALITION LEADERS ARE RESPONSIBLE for an avoidable post-invasion death toll of at least 2.7 MILLION including a post-invasion avoidable mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (2.3 MILLION) and post-2001 global opioid drug deaths (0.4 MILLION). These estimates IGNORE the global economic impact of the war and increased oil prices on the largely Third World post-2001 global avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality that total 64 MILLION and 42 MILLION, respectively (16.0 MILLION and 10.6 MILLION annually and about 44,000 and 29,000 daily, respectively) (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blo...).

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC) has now stopped dealing with the crimes of the late Slobodan Milosevic (complicity in 0.2 MILLION deaths in the Balkans War) but REFUSES to deal with the war crimes of the Coalition leadership (currently totalling 2.7 MILLION avoidable deaths) (see FORMAL COMPLAINT TO ICC in MWC News: http://www.mwcnews.net/index.php?op...).

OVER 2,300 US SOLDIERS have been killed in Iraq and 17,400 wounded - and the ECONOMIC COST to the US of of the Iraq War has been estimated by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor Linda Bilmes at between US$1 TRILLION and US$2 TRILLION (see: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opini...).

BUSH, BLAIR, RUMSFELD, RICE (DR DEATH) and other Coalition leaders and officials should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for egregious war crimes, most notably complicity in excess deaths totalling 2.7 million (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-p...).

SILENCE KILLS AND SILENCE IS COMPLICITY - we are OBLIGED to INFORM EVERYONE and to VOTE OUT and PROSECUTE the war criminals. PLEASE INFORM EVERYONE - SAVE THE CHILDREN.

WHAT ELSE CAN DECENT, PEACEFUL WORLD CITIZENS DO? SANCTIONS and BOYCOTTS have been effective in the past against human rights-abusing pariah states such as the racist, Minority Apartheid regime in South Africa. Decent people should ACT ETHICALLY in all their dealings with Coalition countries - they should realize that purchases of ANY goods and services from countries engaged in gross abuses of humanity make the PURCHASER COMPLICIT in such crimes. "FREE CONSUMER CHOICE" in the global "FREE MARKET" may be the most effective approach to bringing the racist, genocidal war criminals of the Coalition to heel and to justice.

Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne, Australia
(see: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpo...)