Just say that to yourself a few times. One Million Dead Human Beings. One Million Dead Human Beings. One Million Dead Human Beings.
And, this wasn't because of some natural disaster. It wasn't because of a drought or a flood. This was the deliberate act of one set of human beings taking actions they knew would cause massive amounts of pain and suffering and death to other human beings.
What do you think of that? Is that something you support? Or, do you consisder that to be something horrible that you'd oppose as a righteous and moral human being?
I'm talking about the United States' invasion and occupation of Iraq.
One million dead by Danny Lucia.
OVER A million Iraqis are dead from America's war.
That sentence is a cognitive litmus test. Some people's immediate reaction is, "That can't be right," because the United States couldn't do that. Or because crimes on that scale don't still happen. Or because they do happen, but only in horrible places that the United States hasn't rescued.
One million is a "Grandpa, what did you do to stop it?" number. It's a number that undeniably puts the American state among history's villains. Those who are not willing or able to accept this are physically unable to retain the fact that over a million Iraqis are dead. Their brains expel it like a foreign germ.
By the way, that one million number is both an understatement and rather dated by now. The real number is most certainly more. The study that number came from actually said about one and a quarter million dead Iraqis. And, its from 2007, so it doesn't even include the last two years of Dubya's killings in Iraq, and none at all of Saint Obama's dead people.
And, even back when the Democrats used to pretend to be shocked, shocked I say, at the dead bodies piling up in what they termed Dubya's Wars, it was always worth remember that Bill Clinton had killed probably as many Iraqis with his sanctions policies. The most famous spine chilling number of that era had some 500,000 extra deaths in Iraq, and that number was only for pre-school-age children back when the Clinton Democrats were working so hard to keep food and medicine out of Iraq. Surely that's only a piece of the deaths that results from such a medieval policy. If the children are dying, no one knows how many others of the ill or infirm or elderly were dying at the same time. A medieval siege always kills off the weakest members of a society, and pre-school-age children are only one aspect of that.
So, could you say Two Million Dead Human Beings? Two Million Dead Human Beings. Two Million Dead Human Beings. Two Million Dead Human Beings.
And that's two million dead human beings that are the direct result of America's policies towards Iraq over the last two decades. Is this something you support?
If you are an American reading this, the answer is almost certainly yes. A vast and huge majority of American voters have been voting for politicians who support and implement this policy. The policies span Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barrack Obama, and its only a tiny fraction of a percentage point or two of Americans who haven't voted for one of those three. And, the policies have been steadily supported by huge majorities in Congress, with the seeming opposition fading away and shifting sides of the aisle as the occupant of the White House changes. In general, the members of Congress elected by Americans are typically either supportive of their party when in control of the mass murder, and then even more shrill and bloodthirsty when in the opposition when they typically decry the current Administration's inefficiencies and mistakes that result in not enough dead human beings.
Two million dead human beings. And that's just in Iraq. It doesn't include the deaths in Afghanistan, which started with the US blockading food supplies to a country dependent on relief aid at the beginnings of the Afghan winter. That was back just after 9-11, and at the same time we were bombing Red Cross/Red Crescent food warehouses inside Afghanistan.
And, it doesn't count Iran, which is now the target of the Democratic and Republican unity in imposing yet more sanctions upon yet more people. With the full support of the Democrats, and with cries from the Republicans that starving people to death is too slow a way to commit mass murder and that we need to start bombing immediately to get our kill rates up to acceptable levels.
Two million dead human beings.
At what point do we become monsters? Do we have to kill more people than Hitler to be consider as big of a mass murdering monster? Does three million get us an honorable mention in the club of mass murdering tyrants? Maybe a portrait on the wall next to Stalin and Hitler and Mao and the other mass murderers of the 20th century? Maybe a little smaller and a little less prominent to reflect the fact that we haven't killed quite so many people, but still an honorable mention in the mass murderer wall of fame?
Its an election year. If you don't like this, vote for someone different. There are almost always other choices on the ballot. Other choices that would oppose this policy of mass death and destruction. There were at least three such candidates on the 2008 Presidential ballot (Barr, McKinney and Nader) as well as two more on the primary ballots (Kucinich and Paul). In 2012, there is Ron Paul running strongly in the Republican primaries, and several independent candidates gearing up for Presidential runs. All of whom would oppose and change this policy of worldwide mass murder. In the last Presidential election, the three anti-war, anti-empire opposition candidates got somewhat less than 3% of the total vote.
If you don't like knowing that you are responsible for electing politicians who are competing with Hitler and Stalin and Mao on the mass murderer wall of shame, then vote for someone different this time.
