[Peace-discuss] The Numbers and a letter from Pakistan

[Danielle Chynoweth]

Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 12:15:57 -0600
From: Robert McKim <r-mckim at uiuc.edu>


The toll of a war that has taken Allies to the gates of Baghdad
05 April 2003
The Independent (UK)


130,000 British and American troops are in action in Iraq from a total force
of 250,000 in the Gulf. The Allies have launched 725 Tomahawk cruise
missiles, flown 18,000 sorties, dropped 50 cluster bombs and discharged
12,000 precision-guided munitions. There have been an estimated 1,252 Iraqi
civilian deaths, 57 Kurdish deaths and 5,103 civilian injuries. 88 Allied
troops have been killed in the conflict, 27 of whom are British. At least 12
Allied soldiers are missing, 34 Allied soldiers have been killed in
'friendly fire' incidents or battlefield accidents. 9 journalists have been
killed or are unaccounted for. There have been 2 suicide attacks on US
troops, killing 7 soldiers. 8,023 Iraqi combatants have been taken prisoner
of war. So far, 0 weapons of mass destruction have been found. 1,500,000
people in southern Iraq have no access to clean water. 200,000 children in
southern Iraq are at risk of death from diarrhoea. 17,000,000 Iraqis are
reliant on food aid, which has now been stopped. 600 oil wells and
refineries are now under British and American control. 80bn dollars has been
set aside by US Congress to meet the cost of war. A capital city of
5,000,000 people now stands between the Allied forces and their 1 objective:
the removal of Saddam Hussein





Jemima Khan: I am angry and ashamed to be British

As a dual national of Pakistan and Britain, it is the loss of British 
credibility I find hardest to stomach

02 April 2003  (from The Independent (UK))

Even the moderates here in Pakistan are outraged. Across the board, 
young and old, poor and rich, fundamentalist and secularist are 
united in their hatred of the US and their contempt for Britain. Such 
unprecedented unanimity in a country renowned for its ethnic and 
sectarian divides is a huge achievement.

Qazi Hussein Ahmed, the leader of the combined religious party Majlis 
Muttahida Amal (MMA), announced triumphantly: "The pro-West liberals 
have lost conviction. Islamic movements have come alive."

This new-found unity, which includes for the first time the pro-West 
élites, the liberal middle classes and the mullahs, has been boosted 
by a fear that Pakistan may be on the US target list. We may not be 
seeing burning effigies of Bush and Blair daily (although there has 
been some of that), but many of those with Western connections are 
considering severing those links. Angry and fearful, expatriate 
Pakistanis are returning home, and property prices are soaring 
despite recession. The boycott against British and US goods is 
growing.

The same is happening throughout the Muslim world. A previously 
fractured ummah is finally uniting against a perceived common foe, 
leaving the fundamentalists jubilant and their pro-West leaders, 
despite their dependence on the US, with no choice but to join the 
anti-war chorus.

Bush and Blair have already shown that they care little about world 
opinion, but what about when those feelings of resentment towards the 
US and Britain in Muslim countries translate into votes for 
virulently anti-Western fundamentalist parties? Despite their 
disingenuous talk of freedom and democracy, Bush and Blair must know 
that bringing true democracies to the Middle East, and the Muslim 
world in general, will have the opposite effect to the one they hope 
for and will go against their own interests. It is unlikely that any 
democratic Muslim country today will ever elect a pro-Western 
government.

Pakistan is a good example. Popular anger at the government's 
co-operation with America's bombing of Afghanistan (its provision of 
bases and intelligence) led to an unprecedented victory of the 
religious parties in the October 2002 election. Having never won more 
than 10 seats in the past 30 years, the alliance of Islamic parties 
is now the second biggest party in Parliament with 70 seats, and 
forms two out of the four provincial governments. And with each bomb 
dropped on Baghdad, they are growing in popularity and strength.

America can continue to count on support from the unelected puppet 
governments of oil-rich countries, such as the Middle Eastern 
monarchies. The darlings of Western oil companies, they depend on the 
US to stay in power. Such is the popular outrage, however, that those 
leaders are looking increasingly vulnerable.

As a dual national of Pakistan and Britain, it is the loss of British 
credibility in the eyes of the world that I find hardest to stomach. 
Why has Blair chosen to overlook, and in some cases propagate, the 
lies, misinformation and discredited evidence used by the US to 
justify this indefensible war? Why does Blair perpetuate Bush's 
mendacious claim that Iraq "has aided, trained and harboured 
terrorists, including operatives of al-Qai'da", when no evidence has 
ever surfaced of a link, nor has any Iraqi been implicated in 
terrorist acts against the US?

Why the pretence of "making the world a safer place" when we all know 
an unjust war will incite such hatred that new recruits will be 
queuing up to join al-Qa'ida? Why the persistence in the lie that 
Saddam represents a military threat? Why no contrition over the 
exposure of flawed or faked evidence? Why the lectures on Saddam's 
violation of 17 UN resolutions, when Bush gives military and economic 
aid to Israel, which has regularly flouted at least 64 of them?

Why the sudden concern for the Iraqi people, when there have been 
years of protest against sanctions responsible for hundreds of 
thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths? Why the lack of concern for Iraqi 
children dying of hitherto-unseen cancers linked to the use of 
uranium-tipped shells by the British and Americans? Why the 
convenient amnesia over the fact that the weapons of mass destruction 
Iraq does possess were supplied by the US and Britain, along with 
France, in the first place?

Is the condemnation for dictatorships with human rights records every 
bit as bad as Iraq's and no democracies to speak of, restricted to 
those that are not West- friendly or controllable?

In short, why the double standards, moral hypocrisy and political 
expediency? Do they think it goes unnoticed, or do they just not care?

It is little wonder that Muslims around the world, pondering these 
questions while watching images of maimed Iraqi women and children as 
lucrative reconstruction contracts are doled out to US companies, are 
reacting with increasing incredulity, anger and trepidation.

The only thing that tempers my own rage and shame is the knowledge 
that there are millions like me who oppose war in Iraq not because 
they are Muslims or pacifists or appeasers or anti-West or 
anti-American or left wing, but simply because they remain utterly 
unconvinced by the arguments put forward for war.

With British and US credibility in tatters, no one in the Muslim 
world now believes that this is really all about "making the world a 
safer place", about al-Qa'ida and the War on Terror, about Saddam and 
his weapons of mass destruction, about the imminent threat to the 
"civilised world", or the violation of UN resolutions; far less about 
the emancipation of the Iraqi people. Instead, many are asking the 
question: Which country is really in need of regime change and, in 
the words of the great statesman Nelson Mandela, is "the greatest 
threat to world peace"?