Heart Hurt
One of the legitimate complaints about the misbegotten and illegal invasion of Iraq has been the dearth of actual news being reported. True, western reporters are pretty much locked into the Bagdhad Green Zone because it simply isn't safe to venture outside of those protective walls. Still, there has to be some way to report what's actually going on in Iraq, some way besides stenographically reproducing the government handouts.
I finally found a solid bit of reporting in this morning's Sacramento Bee. Written by Leila Fadel of the McClatchy Baghdad Bureau, the article tries to answer one question we probably will never get a full answer to: how many Iraqis have died as a result of this war. Here is Ms. Fadel's partial answer and her valuable reflections on it.
The official numbers differ if you can get them, and numbers leaked to us from Iraqi ministries are incomplete pictures.
This week a poll by the British market research company, Opinion Research Business, put the number at 1,220,580 deaths that were not natural causes, since the 2003 invasion. According to the poll, one in two households in Baghdad has lost someone.
One in two households. Can you imagine? If you haven't lost someone, then your neighbor has. The next most deadly provinces were Diyala and Nineva in the north, notable because Baghdad and Diyala are inhabited by both Sunnis and Shiites. ...
Among those polled, 22 percent of people had lost at least one person in their household due to a non-natural cause. Five percent of them lost two people, 1 percent lost three and less than 1 percent lost four or more.
One thing piqued my interest: Nearly half of the people polled who had lost someone in their household said it was due to a gunshot wound.
While the military has touted the drop in car bombs as a major victory, that only accounts for 20 percent of the deaths. Forty-eight percent of people were shot to death. The murder rate implies sectarian violence. [Emphasis added]
And yet we are being told that the surge is working, that things are getting better. The disconnect is mind-numbing, which apparently is exactly what is intended. Ms. Fadel recounts a meeting with a general which implies as much:
I thought back to a media luncheon with a U.S. general earlier this month. The general asked the media to please change the perception that Sunnis and Shiites were killing one another in Iraq. He asked that when we go back to the United States, we try to change that perception.
I couldn't believe it. Doesn't he know? Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq don't necessarily hate one another, but right now they have no choice but to fear one another. [Emphasis added]
And this is what the US has wrought.
Iraqis are not barbaric, and all Sunnis and Shiites don't hate one another, but right now the fear trumps all. No one wants to end up a corpse on the side of the street. This is the reality that we report every day. This is the reality.
Well said.
To our everlasting shame, well said.
I finally found a solid bit of reporting in this morning's Sacramento Bee. Written by Leila Fadel of the McClatchy Baghdad Bureau, the article tries to answer one question we probably will never get a full answer to: how many Iraqis have died as a result of this war. Here is Ms. Fadel's partial answer and her valuable reflections on it.
The official numbers differ if you can get them, and numbers leaked to us from Iraqi ministries are incomplete pictures.
This week a poll by the British market research company, Opinion Research Business, put the number at 1,220,580 deaths that were not natural causes, since the 2003 invasion. According to the poll, one in two households in Baghdad has lost someone.
One in two households. Can you imagine? If you haven't lost someone, then your neighbor has. The next most deadly provinces were Diyala and Nineva in the north, notable because Baghdad and Diyala are inhabited by both Sunnis and Shiites. ...
Among those polled, 22 percent of people had lost at least one person in their household due to a non-natural cause. Five percent of them lost two people, 1 percent lost three and less than 1 percent lost four or more.
One thing piqued my interest: Nearly half of the people polled who had lost someone in their household said it was due to a gunshot wound.
While the military has touted the drop in car bombs as a major victory, that only accounts for 20 percent of the deaths. Forty-eight percent of people were shot to death. The murder rate implies sectarian violence. [Emphasis added]
And yet we are being told that the surge is working, that things are getting better. The disconnect is mind-numbing, which apparently is exactly what is intended. Ms. Fadel recounts a meeting with a general which implies as much:
I thought back to a media luncheon with a U.S. general earlier this month. The general asked the media to please change the perception that Sunnis and Shiites were killing one another in Iraq. He asked that when we go back to the United States, we try to change that perception.
I couldn't believe it. Doesn't he know? Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq don't necessarily hate one another, but right now they have no choice but to fear one another. [Emphasis added]
And this is what the US has wrought.
Iraqis are not barbaric, and all Sunnis and Shiites don't hate one another, but right now the fear trumps all. No one wants to end up a corpse on the side of the street. This is the reality that we report every day. This is the reality.
Well said.
To our everlasting shame, well said.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Diane at 10:38 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home