The World Can’t Wait – 2011-03-21 16:04:09
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/home-mainmenu-289/7007-send-a-message-to-the-people-of-the-world-on-march-19-the-anniversary-of-shock-and-awe-on-iraq
WE CANNOT BE SILENT as remote-controlled drones bomb civilians in rural Pakistan … as whole villages are obliterated by 25 tons of bombs dropped in Afghanistan … as permanent bases are established in Iraq, already ravaged and torn apart by years of war and a corrupt and brutal regime set up by the US … as torture at Guantanamo and Bagram prisons continue in our name.
What is life like in Iraq after eight years of US occupation?
Iraqi and Johns Hopkins’ physicians count more than one million Iraqis killed. According to the Veterans Administration, more than 50,000 veterans of these wars have killed themselves. 4.5 million Iraqis were displaced. 50,000 US troops remain, re-named “advise and assist troops.†But they are still killing and dying in Iraq, and the American media has left.
The Iraqi government routinely tortures prisoners with the full complicity of US forces. Journalists are detained and beaten, and women now have fewer rights than under Saddam Hussein, as Human Rights Watch detailed in a report just released.
Almost 10 years after George Bush began the so-called “global war on terror,†the US is still bombing, killing thousands of civilians in Afghanistan in the past year. Most are women and children. In May 2009, in an incident recently revealed via WikiLeaks, American bombs created “an inferno of screaming, mangled and bloody people†in Bala Baluk, Afghanistan, killing at least 89 civilians. This story, among many, was covered up and kept from people here, but will never be forgotten by those victimized by this horror.
The wars rage on with Barack Obama as commander, and frame the ethical and political backdrop against which national and international events take place. Guantanamo remains open as a threat to people around the world, including journalists with WikiLeaks who have been targeted by the US for exposing details about the horrors of the ongoing occupations.
Obama’s military is increasing conventional bombings and drone strikes against Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghans are caught between the corrupt Karzai regime backed by the US and local warlords, and the Taliban.
People standing up in determined, prolonged protest and fearlessly telling the truth is the only way to stop these wars. Join in bringing this message to many more people living in the US
Find out more about what is really being done in our names at worldcantwait.org.
Signs in Wisconsin, where crowds are protesting for workers’ rights and public sector programs, say: “Egypt, We Watched You, Now Watch Us!â€
To all of humanity, we say: “US wars and occupations are not in our name! Stop These Wars Now!â€
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Nationwide Actions for March 19
National Protest in Washington, DC:
Saturday March 19th: 12 noon at the White House. Contact dcevents@worldcantwait.net or call 866-973-4463 for more information.
Veterans-led Protest to Stop These Wars
Join these efforts leading up to March 19th and reach out!
San Francisco: Collateral Murder Street Showings ALL WEEK long. Find out more and join in.
Washington, DC: the We Are Not Your Soldiers tour brings anti-war veterans and activists into high schools, spreading the reality of these wars and much-needed resistance among youth. Find out more and join in.
Protest at the White House: No Other Way Out
We will not stop the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we will not end this slaughter of innocents, unless we are willing to rise up as have state workers in Wisconsin and citizens on the streets of Arab capitals.
Stand In Protest With The People of Iraq
Emma Kaplan: The Egyptian people lived under thirty years of degradation, torture, fear and oppression. This uprising proves that even if something has been going on for a long period of time, this does not make it any less horrible, nor less possible, for people to rise up. In other words, governments can change overnight and people can refuse to accept that which was once acceptable.
San Francisco
Saturday March 19th: 12 noon at Union Plaza (7th and Market). Contact sf@worldcantwait.org or call 415-864-5153 for more information.
Los Angeles
Saturday March 19th: Rally and march will gather at 12 noon at Hollywood and Vine. Contact la@worldcantwait.net for more information.
Chicago
Saturday March 19th: Rally and march at 12 noon at Michigan and Congress. Contact chicago@worldcantwait.net or call 773-614-1819 for more information.
Add an event in your area if you can’t find a local protest near you. More protest events posted here.
March 20
War Criminals Watch
Left Forum in NYC March 20
From the Bush Regime’s “War on Terror” to “Obama’s Contingency Operation” – Why We Resist with:
Mathis Chiroux – Army veteran, Iraq war resister
Pardiss Kebriaei – Center for Constitutional Rights
Eric Stoner – Journalist, Adjunct Professor at St. Peter’s College, War Resisters League, just returned from Afghanistan
What We Learned From WikiLeaks Revelations with:
Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait
Kevin Gosztola – OpEDNews.com, The Nation
Danny Schechter – Founder of MediaChannel, Founder and Exec. VP of Globalvision, Inc.
Quantico, VA –
Support Accused Whistleblower Bradley Manning
Sunday March 20: Rally at 2pm (in Triangle, VA at intersection of Main Street and Route 1), then march to the gates of Quantico Marine Base, where Bradley is imprisoned. Buy a bus ticket from DC to Quantico for the day online. Invite your friends via Facebook. More info.
Update on Bradley Manning from bradleymanning.org
Apparently reacting to enormous backlash from supporters and criticism in the media, PayPal has reinstated the account of Courage to Resist, an organization which has partnered with the Bradley Manning Support Network to raise funds for the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning.
The change in account status came only hours after the nonprofit organization published a press release drawing attention to the matter.
Recent Developments
Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on US Senators
Michael Hastings
The US Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
Spanish Judges Rule Case on US Torture Can Continue
Center for Constitutional Rights
This is a monumental decision that will enable a Spanish judge to continue a case on the “authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill treatment†by US officials at Guantanamo. Geoffrey Miller, the former commanding officer at Guantánamo, has already been implicated, and the case will surely move up the chain of command.
Spanish Court Gives Go-Ahead for Guantánamo Torture Investigation to Continue
Andy Worthington
On Friday, the Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) gave hope to those seeking to hold accountable the Bush administration officials and lawyers who authorized torture by agreeing to continue investigating allegations made by a Moroccan-born Spanish resident, Lahcen Ikassrien, that he was tortured at Guantánamo, where he was held from 2002 to 2005.
African Commission Asked to Take Case Challenging CIA Rendition Program
Washington Post
A case filed before an African judicial body could open a new front in efforts by human rights groups to hold the CIA and its partners accountable for what they allege was the torture of innocent victims in secret “black site” prisons around the world.
The Case Mounts Against the CIA’s Raymond Davis
Dave Lindorff
Pakistani and Indian newspapers are reporting that Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor in jail in Lahore facing murder charges for the execution-slayings of two young men believed to by Pakistani intelligence operatives, was actually involved in organizing terrorist activities in Pakistan.
Call for Involvement, Support and Action
World Can’t Wait needs folks like you, who are fans of our work, to sustain this movement on a monthly basis. If you appreciate the work of Director Debra Sweet, our 4 websites including worldcantwait.org, the materials we provide free of cost, the ability to call the office and speak to a volunteer, & our national e-newsletter that provides you with exposure and resources on a weekly basis; become a sustainer.
All of this, along with the speaking tours, forums, conference calls, webcasts, and protests we organize are funded solely through donations.
Because you know the difference this work makes, we are asking you to sustain World Can’t Wait. What can you give to spread this message?
Updated Iraq Survey Affirms Earlier Mortality Estimates (October 11, 2006)
Johns Hopkins/Bloomberg School of Public Health
(October 11, 2006) — As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes — violent and non-violent — are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion.
The estimates were derived from a nationwide household survey of 1,849 households throughout Iraq conducted between May and July 2006. The results are consistent with the findings of an October 2004 study of Iraq mortality conducted by the Hopkins researchers.
Also, the findings closely reflect the increased mortality trends reported by other organizations that utilized passive methods of counting mortality, such as counting bodies in morgues or deaths reported by the news media. The study is published in the October 14, 2006, edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, The Lancet.
“As we found with our previous survey, the majority of deaths in Iraq are due to violence — although we also saw a small increase in deaths from non-violent causes, such as heart disease, cancer and chronic illness. Gunshots were the primary cause of violent deaths.
To put these numbers in context, deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003,†said Gilbert Burnham, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and co-director of the Bloomberg School’s Center for Refugee and Disaster Response.
“Our total estimate is much higher than other mortality estimates because we used a population-based, active method for collecting mortality information rather than passive methods that depend on counting bodies or tabulated media reports of violent deaths. Though the numbers differ, the trend in increasing numbers of deaths closely follows that measured by the US Defense Department and the Iraq Body Count group.â€
Key points of the study include:
• Estimated 654,965 additional deaths in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006
• Majority of the additional deaths (91.8 percent) caused by violence
• Males aged 15-44 years accounted for 59 percent of post-invasion violent deaths
• About half of the households surveyed were uncertain who was responsible for the death of a household member
• The proportion of deaths attributed to coalition forces diminished in 2006 to 26 percent. Between March 2003 and July 2006, households attributed 31 percent of deaths to the coalition
• Mortality data from the 2006 study reaffirms 2004 estimates by Hopkins researchers and mirrors upward trends measured by other organizations
• Researchers recommend establishment of an international body to calculate mortality and monitor health of people living in all regions affected by conflict
The mortality survey used well-established and scientifically proven methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations. These same survey methods were used to measure mortality during conflicts in the Congo, Kosovo, Sudan and other regions. For the Iraq study, data were collected from 47 randomly selected clusters of 40 households each. At each household selected, trained Iraqi surveyors collected data on the number of births and deaths that occurred in the household between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2006.
To be considered a household member, the deceased had to have lived in the home at least three months prior to death. When interviewers asked to see a death certificate at households reporting a death, it was presented in 92 percent of instances. The survey recorded 1,474 births and 629 deaths among 12,801 people surveyed. The data were then applied to the 26.1 million Iraqis living in the survey area.
While the survey collected information on the manner of death, the study did not examine the circumstances of the death, such as whether the deceased was actively involved in armed combat, terrorism, criminal activity or caught in the middle of the conflict. The study outlines other limitations of the survey method, including the hazards of collecting data during a conflict.
The results from the new study closely match the finding of the group’s October 2004 mortality survey. The earlier study, also published in The Lancet, estimated over 100,000 additional deaths from all causes had occurred in Iraq from March 2003 to August 2004. When data from the new study were examined, it estimated 112,000 deaths for the same time period of the 2004 study.
The new survey also found that the number of deaths attributed to coalition forces had declined in 2006, though overall households attributed 31 percent of deaths to the coalition. Responsibility could not be attributed in 45 percent of the violent deaths.
According to the researchers, the overall rate of mortality in Iraq since March 2003 is 13.3 deaths per 1,000 persons per year compared to 5.5 deaths per 1,000 persons per year prior to March 2003. This amounts to about 2.5 percent of Iraqi’s population having died as a consequence of the war.
To put the 654,000 deaths in context with other conflicts, the authors note that during the Vietnam War an estimated 3 million civilians died overall; the Congo conflict was responsible for 3.8 million deaths; and recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur over the past 31 months.
“Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey†was written by Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy and Les Roberts.
Funding for the study was provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Johns Hopkins Center for Refugee and Disaster Response.
Public Affairs media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Tim Parsons or Kenna Lowe at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu.
