Multiple Methods, One Murder

Multiple Methods, One Murder

Evan Al-Darraji

 August 26, 2011

                  

                Since the dawn of humanity approximately 5000 years ago, Iraqis have been the object of death’s harvest, be it through wars, revolutions, or genocides, among other methods of termination that have been committed against us as I laid out succinctly in my previous article, “Iraq: Carnivores and Vampires Nation!”

Sometimes the reaper was one of us, and at other times a hateful aggressor or someone coveting our land. All the same, the death toll that the soul reapers have recorded has soared horrifically in recent years, that is, since the fall of the previous regime in 2003 and the American-Safavi invasion headed by our subservient agent-leaders who employed an array of methods and tactics to terminate us and break our unity. They started with blunt war and heavy munitions such as missiles, bombs, and explosives most of which violated the treaties and protocols on the prohibition of the use of biological and chemical weapons whose impact continues on the soil, air, and water, and consequently destroys organic matter including humans and result in illnesses, deformities, and death. Such elements include white phosphorus, napalm, and depleted uranium which were used by the U.S. Army and its allies in the war against Iraq with the excuse of toppling the regime. They denied having used these elements despite tests and traces that prove it, in addition to the confessions of their allies. Added to this list are the mass murders and individual assassinations, booby traps, and armed attacks by terrorists and organized militia that fill the country, in support of this faction or that.

Today, one of the civilian humanitarian organizations, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), presented a report it prepared: U.S. Army Base Transforms the Town of Hawijah (30 miles south of Kirkuk) into a Crisis Zone: Hundreds of Paralyzed Children and Teenagers with Cancer

Through a critical survey, the report established that “in a town of 109,000 people there is a generation of children who are suffering from Poliomyelitis paralysis and cases of brain damage or atrophy. 412 of these children and teenagers are registered patients in the health clinic, whereas the actual numbers exceed 600 cases of child disability. Cancer is also spreading like an epidemic among all age groups but especially among teenagers, who await their death as the Iraqi and U.S. governments make no efforts to provide treatment or medication. The U.S. government is responsible for the radiation and the unleashing of their arsenal to practice with live ammunition and explosives in a field that was merely one and a half kilometers away from a residential neighborhood and with no wall or a fence to prevent civilians, children, and shepherds from entering.” (1)

Today we place in your hands this report based on the surveys that the organization conducted on August 13-16, 20ll.  It includes the ages of the afflicted persons, whose ages range from infants to 19 years old. They are suffering from a variety of tumors and deformities that threaten their lives without finding adequate treatment or healthcare. They mostly come from poor and needy families who can barely find enough to eat! Hundreds of thousands are suffering. Hundreds of thousands are facing the threat of this awful death as if there was a genocidal conspiracy against these innocent people.

The strange thing is that the U.S. continues to claim that its war on Iraq was ‘clean’!! Can you call a brutal war that has caused murder, destruction, and displacement ‘clean’?  They deny it, despite all the evidence against them, a fact that only reveals their lies and violations of international treaties and protocols such as the Geneva Protocol of 1925 that prohibits the use of bacteriological methods of warfare, in addition to asphyxiating and poisonous gases, among other weapons.  It was signed by twenty-nine countries, yet the United States was conspicuously opposed to it. Moreover, in December 1966, the United Nations General Assembly issued a resolution that dictated the need to adhere strictly to the aforementioned protocol. During the 1960s, Britain made the effort to disarm its biological weapons and received broad support for these efforts, especially from the Soviet Union. Likewise, in 1969 former President of the United States Richard Nixon announced the country’s disapproval of the use of biological weapons, and ordered the destruction of the country’s reserves.

The UN General Assembly also referred to its resolution number 2662 (25^th session) that was made on December 7^th, 1970, to take the necessary steps to remove the weapons of mass destruction such as those that use chemical and bacteriological (biological) factors from the military munitions of all countries.

What is the meaning of these treaties and resolutions? Are they mere clichés and embellishments to be added to their ‘human rights’ counterparts that are being violated in Iraq in every way? Who is responsible for demanding our most basic rights and for holding accountable those who violate it? Where is the government, and what position does it assume in defending the lives, health, and future of the citizens of Iraq in the face of multiple levels of humanitarian crises?

Whom do we hold accountable? To whom do we raise our grievances?

Translated from Arabic ( تعددت الاساليب والقتيل واحد) (by Yasmeen Hanoosh (many thanks to her)

The full report (OWFI Report: Hawijah in Crisis and the Legacy of US Bases)

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