Class Struggle Anarchist Statement on Gaza‏‏

Posted on January 14, 2009

A newly released statement from the Workers Solidarity Alliance about the massacre in Gaza (I refuse to use the word “war” because it implies a two way conflict when what is happenning in Gaza is anything but that – the latest count I heard on NPR this morning was over 1,000 Palestinians dead compared to 13 Israeli’s).

Gaza is in flames. Its population terrorized by the incessant bombing of Israeli warplanes against its public and residential districts and even its schools (3). Countless of the Gaza Strip’s mostly impoverished residents are dead, many of these children, women, and the elderly. Many more Palestinians have lost loved ones, have been maimed, both physically and psychologically, and all are living without access to basic necessities, water, food, medical care, etc. All of this as the consequence of the largest military assault (codename: “Operation Cast Lead”) waged by Israeli armed forces since 1967 against the Gaza Strip and its approximately 1.5 million residents.

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Online documentaries on the Iraq War

Posted on January 3, 2009

Part of the America at a Crossroads documentary series aired on PBS earlier this year, Operation Homecoming is a unique approach at representing the war. Taking writings from soldiers deployed in Iraq, the producers of Operation Homecoming created a series of visual vignettes, attempting to create a wide variety of visual approaches to the writings and the subject matter. The visual styles range from animation, cinema verite, re-enactments, and CGI graphics.

The videos are terrifying, moving, heartbreaking.  Nonfiction personal narratives from soldiers in Iraq about their experiences there, set to video.   http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/iraq/operation/

Iraqi death toll passes 1 million

Posted on November 17, 2008

the number 1 story from Project censored – the death toll for the iraq war has almost definately passed 1 million (it’s hard to confirm because the US hasn’t bothered to count the bodies reliably).

Now stop and think to yourself how your average American would feel if a hostile foreign power that we had never once attacked or done any harm too (remember, Iraq didn’t have a damn thing to do with the destruction of the WTC) invaded the USA, occupied our country for 8 years, and murdered a million people.  Now take into account how tiny Iraq’s population was to start with and realize that 1 million people is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/6th of their total population.   Think about that for a second.  1 in 6 Iraqi’s have been killed in a war ostensibly launched to eliminate an oppressive (US backed) dictator and his (nonexistant) WMD’s and “liberate” them.

Now that’s some kind of liberation.

Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.

ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.

Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored 2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are directly US perpetrated.

Even with the lower confirmed figures, by the end of 2006, an average of 5,000 Iraqis had been killed every month by US forces since the beginning of the occupation. However, the rate of fatalities in 2006 was twice as high as the overall average, meaning that the American average in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or over 300 Iraqis every day. With the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.

Check out the full story at ProjectCensored.