Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi; Originally appeared at theantimedia.org
At the end of May, the Washington D.C.-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) released a study concluding that the death toll from the American-led “War on Terror” could be as high as two million just since the years following the 9/11 attacks.
The study, entitled “Body Count,” is 97 pages long and involved tallying up the total number of civilian casualties from U.S.-led adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media has paid close to zero attention to this report despite the high-profile nature of the group that produced it (they shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
The study found that in many instances, previous estimates had “grossly” underestimated the body count. According to the researchers:
“The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated by the media and major NGOs. And this is only a conservative estimate.”
The report also found previous estimates had whitewashed the culpability and responsibility of those who had done the killing. In regards to the Iraq War, PSR found that despite “all the inaccuracies…the answers still allowed for the conclusion that approximately one third of all victims of violence had been directly killed by the occupation forces.” [emphasis added]
The U.S. and its allies (particularly the United Kingdom) also bear the ultimate blame for civilian deaths, specifically, following the 2003 invasion. It was their presence that unleashed the chaos to begin with, as noted by independent journalist Ben Swann:
“Before the 2003 U.S. invasion, do you know how many suicide attacks there were in Iraq? None. In the country’s history there had never been one. But since the 2003 invasion, there have been 1,892.”
The PSR study also found some momentous flaws with a number of other death toll studies. For example, a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine ignored the areas of Iraq that were subject to the heaviest violence, including Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq.
Overall, the PSR speculated that the most accurate number for the death toll in Iraq since 2003 is about one million. Together with a conservative Afghanistan death toll of 220,000 and a Pakistani death toll of 80,000, the PSR found that the number of deaths from the “War on Terror” was at least 1.3 million. However, PSR concluded that the real figure could easily be “in excess of two million.”
Nafeez Ahmed, a journalist who was axed from the Guardian for exposing Israel’s motives for bombing the Gaza strip in 2014, has compiled a death toll of his own, noting that the war in Iraq did not begin in 2003.
“The war on Iraq did not begin in 2003, but in 1991 with the first Gulf War, which was followed by the UN sanctions regime.” Ahmed writes.
Noting that the U.N. has found these draconian sanctions were responsible for the deaths of approximately 1.7 million civilians (between 500,000 and 600,000 of whom were children), Ahmed found that from 1990 to the present day, the U.S. has realistically killed close to three million Iraqi civilians.
All in all, Ahmed finds that the death toll from the U.S.-led “War on Terror” since 1990 is close to four million – the majority of whom would undoubtedly be Muslims given Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are majority Muslim nations.
Any criticism of Islam and its 1.6 billion adherents that ignores this devastating recent history is a dangerous and illusory waste of time.
Last year, leaked ISIS documents revealed that its members had an extremely poor understanding of Islam. This was further confirmed by Lydia Wilson of The Nation, who interviewed captured ISIS fighters herself:
“Why did he [an ISIS fighter] do all these things? Many assume that these fighters are motivated by a belief in the Islamic State, a caliphate ruled by a caliph with the traditional title Emir al-Muminiin, ‘Commander of the faithful,’ a role currently held by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; that fighters all over the world are flocking to the area for a chance to fight for this dream. But this just doesn’t hold for the prisoners we are interviewing. They are woefully ignorant about Islam and have difficulty answering questions about Sharia law, militant jihad, and the caliphate.” [emphasis added]
According to Wilson’s interviews with ISIS fighters, one main reason for their radicalization was not their religion, but George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
“‘The Americans came,’ [one fighter] said. ‘They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security. I didn’t like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didn’t have war. When you came here, the civil war started.’”
If a few ragtag Muslims committing heinous acts of terrorism on Western soil are enough to radicalize Westerners to form resistant groups, surely one can understand the sheer horror and plight of a group of people who have been killed by the millions in the past two or three decades over nothing more than a geopolitical chess game of oil, money, and natural gas.
The United States of America will be remembered in history for murderous acts that equal the worst atrocities in the violent history of man.
Total a-holes comes into my mind.
I object to the last sentence of the article, that the 4 million dead is “nothing more than a chess game about oil”. Can we please stop repeating this oil mantra thing to explain what has happened?
I notice some people also make comments about pipelines and other reasons, but, that is not the reason for the Israel-Saudi-(and Neocon) alliance, or why we are over there. It is all about the “Shia crescent” that has resulted from the Iraq war. the Saudi’s are not happy about that recent development. And, to understand this, you have to examine what happened in 2002, during the buildup to that Iraq war. You have to go back 15 years to understand what is happening today.
There was a deal made in 2002 between Israel (and their Neocon supporters in the US) and Saudi Arabia, in order to get the Saudis to join the Iraq war coalition. The deal was to do regime change in Iran and Syria after Saddam was removed in Iraq. That is what the Saudis demanded in exchange for the Iraq war to proceed.
Israel and their Neocon corner, must now complete their part of the bargain. The Saudis may be threatening to expose the whole thing if they don’t.
That is why we got the Iraq war. ……. But there is more to it !
Here is probably what happened in 2002 in a deal worked out by Dick Cheney: The Iraq war, and removal of Saddam, would have been impossible unless the Saudis agreed to it in advance. Therefore, in 2002 Saudi Arabia (Prince Bandar) was shown a list of seven countries where the neocons (Zionists) wanted to do regime change. This is the same list that General Wesley Clark later spoke about seeing. See the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE
The Saudis agreed that, in exchange for the high probability that, after the war, Iraq would be taken over by the Shiites, there would be regime change in both Iran and Syria to compensate the Saudi’s.
There was also probably a side agreement made by Dick Cheney in 2002 with the neocons, that President Bush, in exchange for the Iraq war, would be guaranteed re-election in 2004, by receiving favorable media treatment through neocon (Zionist) controlled media, such as the New York Times and Washington Post.
It all has to do with a 1998 Zionist document entitled The Project For A New American Century written by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. Seventeen of the signers of that document later got jobs in the Bush Administration. Also keep in mind that 90% of the signers were Jewish Zionists. The whole purpose of the document was to make the Middle East safe for Israel, so that Israel could keep the land they stole and dictate the settlement terms with Palestinians.
That is where we are at today folks !
The neocons must absolutely complete their part of a grand bargain made back in 2002 with Saudi Arabia. That is why they will not give up on their quest for regime change in Syria, or in the alternative, the partition of Syria. They absolutely have to do this first in order to isolate Iran, and then do regime change in Iran, as promised to the Saudi’s.
If they can’t complete their grand bargain, the Israeli / Saudi alliance will fall apart. Israel will appear powerless, at a time when they are dependent upon the perception that they control Washington. The Saudis may also be threatening to expose the entire deal unless the promises made to them are carried out.
I must agree I think your comment is excellent; BUT and a big BUT; but whilst yes, the Shi’ite crescent is a big one, the war over water is the most important, but never discussd.
Take your pick – https://www.google.co.uk/#q=the+water+wars+in+the+me&spf=1499191679352
Excellent rant, RamboDave (and I mean that in a sincere way). I agree with most of what you wrote, but now I’ll call you out on not going far enough. Just like pipelines are not the whole story, PNAC, neocons and Israel are not the whole story either. Pipelines are a paragraph, and neocons/Israel may be a chapter, but that’s not the whole book.
The ‘book’ is psychopaths and their sick desire to control and exploit everyone else. They want to cement their position at the privileged 1% that everyone else serves. To say Israel (Likudniks) or neocons are the only ones with that ambition or that it’s limited to the Middle East is to ignore the real enemy and instead, mistakenly identify a people, nation, religion or flag as the enemy. This is exactly what they want to happen. ANYTHING as long as all of humanity does not point their fingers at the psychopaths themselves and string them up on lamp posts.
The most potent tool in the psychopath’s arsenal today isn’t war or tyranny – it’s democracy – specifically their bastardized form of usurped democracy that allows them near total control over a people or nation under the guise of ‘fairness’. I know this because the U.S. today is such a usurped, corrupted democracy – ‘voting’ and ‘the law’ are both useless for fixing it, but loudly proclaimed as the ‘tools of democracy’ that the people can/must use to fix it. This is a lie sold by psychopathic con men to ignorant ‘little people’ to hide the fact they are being controlled.
Why would a psychopath ever waste their time on a tyrannical dictatorship today to control people? That’s a lot of work and people are always trying to kill you. No, the easiest and self-sustaining ‘ism’ today by far is democracy. Easy to corrupt and the little people still think they have some control, yet the state (and psychopaths) really control everything. Why do you think the U.S. always wants to replace enemy regimes with ‘Western Democracy’?
So while I agree about your thoughts on medium-term motivations for a regional conflict, I encourage you not to lose sight of the real enemy. Nations don’t last forever, but psychopaths will always be here. Attacking the flags they hide behind is pointless. Lobaczewski recognized psychopathy as a social and political disease – it’ needs to be treated as such and contained. You don’t get rid of cholera by killing every human infected with it – you contain it and prevent it from spreading.
Somebody has flagged my comment above, or their is some other malfunction on Disqus.
Can you Post it again? If somebody with lets say Higher Power gets the message deleted you just have to post it again.
It is because your post is so long (flagged as possible spam by the system). Your post is still readable, some break down their posts into more than one in order to prevent this.
Split your comment in two or three and post it again. I think SF could do this too.
They’re called gatekeepers and there are many of them: on the right and on the left. I applaud you reminding people not to fall for this Zionist gatekeeping.
I am sick of the oil argument too. The price of oil has steadily risen since the first Gulf war. Iraq and Libya wanted to sell their oil at good prices to the US. If the US hadn’t invaded, it would be getting oil very cheaply from these countries. Most of the oil-producing ME nations want to sell their oil at reasonable prices to the USA.
The sanctions hurt both ways. The US economy is being affected by it. It can’t export to USSR, Iran, Venezuela and so on. These countries have a lot of oil money. The US ordinary workers are suffering as a result of this – fewer jobs. So this was not done for cheap oil, or even to help the oil companies.
“‘The Americans came,’ [one fighter] said. ‘They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security. I didn’t like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didn’t have war. When you came here, the civil war started.’”
But they were not starving before the U.S. 1991 Gulf war on Iraq and the sanctions. Iraq’s biggest childhood health problem before then was obesity. Iraq was well-off before 1991 and it was under Saddam. Saddam was not the cause of Iraqi people starving – it was U.S. actions against Iraq since 1991.
Absolutely right, Absolutely.
Headline: “…Those Killed by US-Led ‘War on Terror’ 10x Higher Than Reported by the Media…”
US-Led ‘War on Terror’ should be changed to “Israeli controlled US led “Terror Axis”
Assad and Russians killed 600.000 civilians. non-combatant nor politically motivated folks. Half of these were Pro-Assad civilians and regular syrians.
But they got still massacred and the Assad airstrikes and RUAF have no addresse whatsoever.
Porky you always talk nonsense , that fact these are deaths attributed to the actions by US and the coalition is disturbing . Their wanting to do regime change is what they call their righteous good deed is total BS and the truth, it’s just a mass murderers excuse to commit carnage and mayhem . The US has a lot of explaining why it wanted so much regime change was it because it felt like it , very pathetic excuse in my book . Proves they are run by the lunatic asylum for the criminally insane .
And it is Israel that is the driver of all regime change in ME. US has no real interest in the area other than controlling some nations (for Israel). Once we realise that US is just an Israeli stooge we get a clear vision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saQJ8z4714w
Mountains, you are an idiot of Class A.