Sanitizing the 21st Century’s Worst War Crime

[Judi Lynn]

Sanitizing the 21st Century’s Worst War Crime
September 16, 2016
by Rev. William Alberts

Recently my wife, Eva and I were watching Jeopardy’s Teachers Tournament – the quiz show our evening ritual. This special competition was held in Washington’s DAR Constitution Hall – the atmosphere patriotically flavored by a wall-sized painting of the American flag wrapping around the stage. One of the Jeopardy categories was about “feelings.” As I recall, and am paraphrasing here, the statement to be answered was: “The two conflicting feelings that describe the beginning of the Iraq war.” The answer: “What are ‘shock and awe’?” Jason Sterlacci, a 6th grade English teacher from Union, New Jersey, gave the correct response, and went on to win the one hundred thousand dollar grand prize. An award-winning, 26 million viewers’ trivia quiz game, in its 32nd season, that reduced to trivia the worst war crime of the 21st Century.

What barbarism! Sanitizing American criminality by turning the horrific “shock and awe” brutalizing of the Iraqi people into an intellectual game show question. This normalization of horrible warmongering accomplished in a hallowed, star-spangled hall, before an enthusiastic, clapping audience.

“What are ‘shock and awe’? ” Those are the feelings the Iraqi people experienced when then President George W. Bush gave the order for 21,000-pound “mother of all bombs” and hundreds of cruise missiles to reign down on Baghdad and other cities. A Pentagon official, with knowledge of the first strike plan was quoted as saying, “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad. . . . The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before.” The pre-emptive battle plan was to launch “airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam’s soldiers unable or unwilling to fight.” (“Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage,” By Sue Chan, CBS News, Jan. 24, 2003)

“What are ‘shock and awe’?” Ask the families and friends of the estimated one million Iraqi civilians killed in a war that UN Secretary General Kobe Annan said was “illegal.” Ask over one million widows in Iraq what “shock and awe” means to them. Ask some of the five million orphaned Iraqi children. Ask any of the over four million dislocated Iraqi people, fleeing for their lives when the bombs fell because “there was not a safe place in Baghdad.” Their plight made worse by the American aggression triggering severe sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni citizens. Who, as reported, had lived in relative peace in Iraq, where, under Saddam Hussein, women enjoyed equal rights, and the country’s education system flourished until the US-controlled UN economic sanctions had their deteriorating effect. (See “Was life for Iraqi Women Better Under Saddam?,” By Rania Khalek, muftah.org, March 19, 2913)

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/16/sanitizing-the-21st-centurys-worst-war-crime/

[Danmel]

1. I saw a shock and awe kids t shirt at Kohl's in 2003

I was livid. It looked like a video game. I called Kohl's corporate HQ and registered my outrage. Especially for young boys, making war, real war, with death and agony and mutilation and civilian casualties a joke t shirt is reprehensible.
To their credit, they were apparently unaware and when I went back later that day, they had been removed. I hope that was nationwide.
I dread what may lie in the future for our world if Trump prevails.

[Nitram]

2. I'm not sure using the Bush administration description of their attack on Iraq as a Jeopardy

question is "sanitizing" the event. If anything, it keeps the memory of the horror of the event alive. I'm sure the phrase holds entirely different connotations for liberals than for conservatives.

[Igel]

3. "1 million killed" is the statement of somebody who never actually considered the Lancet article.

It wasn't one million killed. That's how people who heard somebody mention a US story about how the facts were reported in the British press by reporters who saw notes taken at a press conference given by the authors to hype their findings presented it.

Obviously experts on the matter.

It was one million (plus or minus a rather considerable margin of error) missing population, based upon the projected birth rates and infant mortality rates. This assumed that the sanctions would have been lifted and Iraqi stats were accurate--if not, then the margin of error would have to be adjusted to take possibly flawed assumptions into account. It also assumes that the methodology didn't need adjusted--it works in fairly mixed, atomistic communities in the West, so why wouldn't it work in clan- and tribe-based social networks elsewhere? (Well, there's a question.)

Some were killed by the US. Many were killed by insurgents. Many died due to disease. Some couldn't be located and were presumed dead. But a large number were those never conceived because, well, who conceives when the husband's off fighting or when they'd bear a child in a war zone in times of economic hardship.

Now, one can argue over whether a fetus constitutes a human being worthy of being counted in the census.

But few anti-abortion folk would go so far as to count as censusable human beings those children who were never actually conceived.

[kristopher]

7. Your explanation is bunk.

There was no "...missing population, based upon the projected birth rates and infant mortality rates" element to the study. The effort certainly represents the best estimate of casualties we are likely to ever have.

Methods
Participants and procedures
To measure mortality we did a national cross-sectional cohort study of deaths from January, 2002, through July, 2006. Household information was gathered about deaths that occurred between January 1, 2002, and the invasion of March 18, 2003, in all households and these data were compared with deaths that occurred from the time of the invasion through to the date of survey. A sample size of 12000 was calculated to be adequate to identify a doubling of an estimated pre-invasion crude mortality rate of 5·0 per 1000 people per year with 95% confidence and a power of 80%, and was chosen to balance the need for robust data with the level of risk acceptable to field teams. Sampling followed the same approach used in 2004,8 except that selection of survey sites was by random numbers applied to streets or blocks rather than with global positioning units (GPS), since surveyors felt that being seen with a GPS unit could put their lives at risk. The use of GPS units might be seen as targeting an area for air strikes, or that the unit was in reality a remote detonation control. By confining the survey to a cluster of houses close to one another it was felt the benign purpose of the survey would spread quickly by word of mouth among households, thus lessening risk to interviewers.

As a first stage of sampling, 50 clusters were selected systematically by Governorate with a population proportional to size approach, on the basis of the 2004 UNDP/Iraqi Ministry of Planning population estimates (table 1). At the second stage of sampling, the Governorate’s constituent administrative units were listed by population or estimated population, and location(s) were selected randomly proportionate to population size. The third stage consisted of random selection of a main street within the administrative unit from a list of all main streets. A residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street. On the residential street, houses were numbered and a start household was randomly selected. From this start household, the team proceeded to the adjacent residence until 40 households were surveyed. For this study, a household was defined as a unit that ate together, and had a separate entrance from the street or a separate apartment entrance.

The two survey teams each consisted of two female and two male interviewers, with the field manager (RL) serving as supervisor. All were medical doctors with previous survey and community medicine experience and were fluent in English and Arabic. A 2-day training session was held. Decisions on sampling sites were made by the field manager. The interview team were given the responsibility and authority to change to an alternate location if they perceived the level of insecurity or risk to be unacceptable. In every cluster, the numbers of households where no-one was at home or where participation was refused were recorded. In every cluster, queries were made about any household that had been present during the survey period that had ceased to exist because all members had died or left. Empty houses or those that refused to participate were passed over until 40 households had been interviewed in all locations.

The survey purpose was explained to the head of household or spouse, and oral consent was obtained. Participants were assured that no unique identifiers would be gathered. No incentives were provided. The survey listed current household members by sex, and asked who had lived in this household on January 1, 2002. The interviewers then asked about births, deaths, and in-migration and out-migration, and confirmed that the reported inflow and exit of residents explained the differences in composition between the start and end of the recall period. Separation of combatant from non-combatant deaths during interviews was not attempted, since such information would probably be concealed by household informants, and to ask about this could put interviewers at risk. Deaths were recorded only if the decedent had lived in the household continuously for 3 months before the event. Additional probing was done to establish the cause and circumstances of deaths to the extent feasible, taking into account family sensitivities. At the conclusion of household interviews where deaths were reported, surveyors requested to see a copy of any death certificate and its presence was recorded. Where differences between the household account and the cause mentioned on the certificate existed, further discussions were sometimes needed to establish the primary cause of death.

The study received ethical approval from the Committee on Human Research of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA, and the School of Medicine, Al Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq.

Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey
Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, Les Roberts
www.thelancet.com PublishedonlineOctober11,2006 DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69491-9

[raccoon]

4. I don't like Jeopardy anyway. Ever notice how often their questions are about brand names or

corporations?

[niyad]

5. one of the things I have noticed is how often there are three male constestants. I have

never seen a panel of three female contestants. just wondering how many of each there have been, and how many times there have been two men and one woman, vs how many times there have been two women and one man.

[Blue_Tires]

6. I'd argue the worst war crime is Assad using chemical weapons on his own people

but that's just me...