Psyche, Science, and Society

Baiting and killing, one Iraqi at a time

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that American snipers are using weapons to bait Iraqis. They spread various weapons parts around and then killed anyone curious enough about the stuff to pick it up:

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.

“Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,” Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. “Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.”

In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military’s Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the “drop items” to be used “to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight.”

In relatively polite terms, the Post raises the issue of whether this is a reasonable way to identify and kill “insurgents”:

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined “quite meticulously” because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.

“In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back,” Fidell said.

Juan Cole at his Informed Comment blog is not quite as polite. He asks: “Is Weapons Baiting a War Crime?”After all, in a devastated Iraq, selling scrap metal is common one way to obtain a little cash, putting all Iraqis at risk.

It turns out, however, that Iraqis are not being bated and killed only with weapons parts. Steven Shalom sends a June 16, 2007 Oregonian article that contains this account by a deserter:

His recruiter told him a tour in Iraq would give him the opportunity to build schools and support war-weary Iraqis, so against the advice of his parents, he signed up.

But once in Iraq, he was assigned to a “small kill” team that set traps for insurgents. They’d place a fake camera on a pole with a sign labeling it as U.S. property, giving the team the right to shoot anyone who messed with it. Burmeister, who provided perimeter security for the team, said he could never get over his distaste for the tactic.

No wonder information on the bait-and-kill operations is classified. After all, war crimes are usually hidden and denied. The US denied that it used white phosphorous to burn the flesh off Iraqis in Fallujah until the lie became impossible to maintain. Will the media and/or Congress follow up this new evidence of war crimes by US occupation forces? Don’t hold your breath.

Add comment September 26th, 2007

Amnesty to release film of US torture techniques simulated by an actor

An article I missed in the September 10 Independent reports on an Amnesty International film — Waiting For The Guards — to be released next month in which a dancer illustrates the positions American captives have been forced to adopt as “stress positions”:

Amnesty film shows agony of US detention techniques
By Terri Judd

Forced on to the balls of his feet, bent double with his hands handcuffed behind his back, the near-naked man shook violently. From beneath the hood, muted moans were audible. It seemed obscene to stare at this apparently frail, vulnerable man, caught in a stress position reminiscent of the images of Iraqi prisoners being interrogated by US soldiers at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. Yet this was not torture. It was art.

In an attempt to draw attention to human rights abuses, Amnesty International has filmed a dancer in the positions captives have been forced to adopt by US troops. The resulting film makes shocking viewing. During a break in filming, Jiva Parthipan, a Sri Lankan performance artist, appeared relieved as he rubbed his limbs, which were aching after just a couple of minutes in a position that suspects in President George Bush’s “war on terror” are expected to endure for hours.

The star of the Amnesty International film, which is being released online next month to highlight the agony of such interrogation techniques, said he found the experience painful, both physically and psychologically. In secret jails across the world, Amnesty insists, captives in the fight against terrorism are expected to maintain these poses. They are not considered torture, simply “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Alfred McCoy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argued recently that the photographs from Abu Ghraib reflected standard CIA torture techniques of ” stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sexual humiliation”.

In August, President Bush issued an order decreeing that Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention – which prohibits the humiliating or degrading treatment of prisoners of war – should apply to the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme. But Amnesty believes the order does not go far enough in specifying what constitutes degrading treatment.

It is calling for an end to all secret detentions, as well as for detainees to be given access to lawyers, medical care and monitors. It wants all allegations of enforced disappearance, torture and ill treatment levelled at the CIA to be investigated independently.

Amnesty’s film, entitled Waiting For The Guards, forms the backbone of a new campaign the charity hopes will draw attention to such interrogation techniques. The film, by Marc Hawker and Ishbel Whitaker, does not attempt to document the mental torture of being kept in a secret location with no contact with the outside world, simply the physical agony of such allegedly innocuous methods. The crew expected it to be an arduous task but were shocked and disturbed by how quickly Parthipan found it impossible to endure the stress position.

“He is somebody who is physically fit but suffered excruciating pain. It was shocking how real and visceral the process was,” said Hawker, adding: “He was surprised himself just how quickly the position took over. He was in a lot of pain and felt a lot of emotion.

“He was in a safe environment but we said that, if you were just off a jet, did not know where you were or what your future held, how psychologically tortuous it would be.”

Richard Lowdon, the actor who plays the interrogator, added: “It was quite unpleasant watching Jiva. There was something unbearable about it. It is degrading to the person who is doing it, as well as to the person to whom it is done. It is very dehumanising.”

Amnesty hopes its campaign will prompt people to object to such practices. It recently named 38 men and a woman it claims were whisked away on secret CIA “rendition” flights and disappeared into prisons worldwide. The charity has spoken to former detainees, such as the British al-Qa’ida suspect Moazzam Begg, who was held in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“The suggestion is that they suffer a bit of discomfort, when in fact they endure quite severe pain,” said Sara MacNeice, Amnesty’s campaigns co-ordinator. “We are sending the message that this is ill treatment, but we should be calling it by its rightful name.”

[h/t to LeftLink]

Add comment September 26th, 2007

Mary Pipher & APA’s Rhea Farberman talk about psychologists and torture on CBC

Psychologist Mary Pipher was on the Canadian CBC yesterday, followed by the APA Communications Director Rhea Farberman giving the usual APA spin afterwards, distorting every issue. The CBC interviewer confronts her pretty hard about the “wiggle room” in the APA’s new resolution involving the phrases “significant harm” and “long-lasting harm.” In general, Farberman is confronted pretty hard, but does respond fairly well. Evidently Farberman is replacing Stephen Behnke as APA’s public spokesperson on the interrogations issue.

Pipher and Farberman are followed by a brief excerpt from a prior interview with Alfred McCoy.

Listen here.

[h/t Jack's Daily Hotchpotch.]

Add comment September 26th, 2007

Mike Wessells: Help the APA to act in an ethical, responsible manner

Mike Wessells, one of the three non-military affiliated members of the American Psychological Association’s PENS [Presidential Ethics and National Security] task force, has written a letter to APA President Sharon Brehm outlining his concerns about APA policy on participation of psychologists in national security interrogation. He raises concerns regarding the AP’s countenancing psychologists participating in activities that are in violation of international human rights standards. He also expresses concern about the pattern of dishonest communication from APA officials on these issues:

September 25, 2007

Dr. Sharon Brehm

President

American Psychological Association

Dear Dr. Brehm,

I am writing to you out of strong concern regarding the ethics of psychologists’ involvement in coercive interrogations. Events during and following the 2007 APA Annual Convention have created significant ethical questions regarding both the substance of APA’s position and the process through which APA leaders debate these complex issues.

Substantively, the main problem is that the 2007 Resolution by APA Council makes it ethical practice for psychologists to violate international human rights standards. In particular, the resolution allows psychologists to practice and support interrogations in sites that operate outside the protections offered by the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights instruments such as the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). The illegal, indefinite detention of people at these sites itself constitutes a violation of international law and human rights standards, and psychologists’ presence at these sites only legitimates these human rights violations. No profession should put itself above international human rights standards as the APA has done in this matter. In fact, international human rights standards ought to be the foundation of any professional Code of Ethics. By allowing psychologists to practice in ways that flaunt international human rights standards, APA has committed itself to an unethical course of action.

The process of the communications following the APA Convention is also cause for significant concern. The recently released statement of the APA Communications Office on APA’s position on torture presents a view that falls short of accepted standards of full, accurate disclosure. In particular, the statement conveniently fails to mention the aforementioned point that illegal, indefinite detention itself violates the CAT and that psychologists who practice at sites operating outside international human rights protections thereby enable a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. A more balanced, honest statement would outline the important steps that the APA has taken on these issues and also point out the ongoing debates within the Association and the issues that warrant further analysis. Stronger concern arises out of the statement made by former APA President Gerald Koocher in which he attempted to use in public sensitive, psychological disinformation (most of it was false) to discredit the statements and activities of a former PENS Task Force member who criticized the PENS process. Such misuse of sensitive, personal information by an APA leader is ethically questionable, diverts attention from the wider issues that warrant much discussion, and could have a chilling effect on the open discussion and debate that are badly needed on these complex issues.

I urge you to exercise leadership in helping the APA to act in an ethical, responsible manner in addressing these issues of substance and process. Your leadership is needed to bring the APA in line with international human rights standards and to enable the processes of accurate disclosure, dialogue and mutual learning that will promote ethical action within the APA.

Sincerely,

Michael Wessells, PhD

Columbia University

1 comment September 26th, 2007

Freud and Society: Who’s Your Daddy?

English professor Mark Edmundson had a recent op-ed in the New York Times that contained an interesting discussion of the social meaning of Freud’s work and of psychoanalytic therapy. He vioews psychoanalysis as an attempt to remove our tendency toward authority worship:

Who’s Your Daddy?

by Mark Edmundson

SIGMUND Freud died 68 years ago today, and it remains uncertain whether he is what W. H. Auden called him, “a whole climate of opinion / Under whom we conduct our differing lives,” or whether he is completely passé. It’s still not clear whether Freud was the genius of the 20th century, a comprehensive absurdity or something in between.

Our confusion about Freud is something he predicted — and also provoked — particularly in his later work, now largely unread, which is preoccupied with the question of authority. It sheds light on our confused attitudes toward Freud, who always strove for cultural authority. But more important, books like “Totem and Taboo” and “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” illuminate our collective difficulties with power and particularly with the two scourges of today’s world, fundamentalist religion and tyrannical politics.

Probably the best way to understand Freud’s take on authority is to consider the mode of therapy that he settled on midway through his career. We might call it “transference therapy.” Over time, Freud came to see that his patients were transferring feelings and hopes from other phases of their lives onto him.

Frequently they sought from him what they’d sought from their parents when they were children. They wanted perfect love, and even more fervently, it seems, they wanted perfect truth. They became obsessed with Freud as what Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalytic theorist, liked to call “the subject who is supposed to know.” Patients saw Freud as an all-knowing figure who had the wisdom to solve all their problems and make them genuinely happy and whole.

Freud’s objective as a therapist was to help his patients dismantle their idealized image of him. He taught them to see how the love they demanded from him was love that they had once demanded (and of course never received) from fathers and mothers and other figures of authority. Over time, the patients might come to view the doctor — Freud — as another suffering, striving mortal, not unlike themselves.

The man sitting at the foot of the couch had to be revealed as neither a Merlin nor a Gandalf, but as a rather short, bespectacled fellow who smoked too many cigars and had a deep fondness for his dog Jo-Fi, the chow who sat beside him while he worked and to whom he occasionally addressed stray remarks. Once the patient could do that much, he was in a better position to treat other important figures in his life realistically. He’d be less prone to assault them with demands, to ask them for everything.

One of Freud’s key beliefs was that there is no sharp division between the psychologically healthy and the unwell. His patients longed for authoritative fathers — and so did Freud. In the early phase of his career, he embraced a sequence of mentors (among them Jean Charcot, the French neurologist; Wilhelm Fliess, a German doctor; and Josef Breuer, an Austrian doctor) who had nothing like his mental powers, but whom he vastly esteemed nonetheless. Freud said we all seek such figures, in both political and personal life.

In “Group Psychology,” Freud wrote about the qualities that a leader-figure, in his most extreme guise, possesses. “His intellectual acts,” said Freud, “were strong and independent even in isolation and his will needed no reinforcement from others.”

He also “loved no one but himself, or other people only insofar as they served his needs.” The leader’s confidence is absolute, for he possesses what everyone most wants, truth. His allure is as powerful as it is pernicious.

Well, you might say, it takes one to know one. Freud himself was drawn to authority. He liked to lord it over his disciples; he liked to make pronouncements; he liked — as schoolchildren say at recess — to act big. When Freud presented himself to the public, he almost never forgot the lessons that he had learned about authority in his consulting room and through his studies of the church, the army and tribal societies. “The autocratic pose” clung to him, said Auden.

Freud still manifests himself to us as a grand patriarch. Collectively we have thought about him as the father, as the one who is supposed to know. We have hoped he’d confer the truth — make us whole and happy. Of course, he cannot. But he has been different from all the other aspiring masters in that he has taught nothing so insistently as the need to dissolve our illusions about masters, and to be responsive to more moderate, subtle and humane sources of authority.

Such a figure — authoritarian and anti-authoritarian at the same time — cannot help but be confusing. But once we understand our confusion, Freud can also be quite illuminating. Among other things, his ideas about authority help us understand (and in some measure sympathize with) the hunger for absolute leaders and absolute truth that probably besets us all, but that has overwhelmed many of our fellow humans who find themselves living under tyrannical governments and fundamentalist faiths.

But the best of Freud will not be available to us until we can work through the transference he provoked. We need to see him as a great patriarch, yes, but as one who struggled for nothing so much as for the abolition of patriarchy.

Mark Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, is the author, most recently, of “The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days.”

1 comment September 24th, 2007

The Generals’ revolt

The San Diego Union-Tribune has a very interesting article on the Generals who have rebelled against the continuing disaster in Iraq:

Generals opposing Iraq war break with military tradition
By Mark Sauer

The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq.

What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation’s history.

In op-ed pieces, interviews and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. generals have broken ranks with the culture of salute and keep it in the family. Instead, they are criticizing the commander in chief and other top civilian leaders who led the nation into what the generals believe is a misbegotten and tragic war.

The active-duty generals followed procedure, sending reports up the chain of command. The retired generals beseeched old friends in powerful positions to use their influence to bring about a change.

When their warnings were ignored, some came to believe it was their patriotic duty to speak out, even if it meant terminating their careers.

It was a decision none of the men approached cavalierly. Most were political conservatives who had voted for George W. Bush and initially favored his appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

But they felt betrayed by Bush and his advisers.

“The ethos is: Give your advice to those in a position to make changes, not the media,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. “But this administration is immune to good advice.”

Eaton has two sons serving in Afghanistan and Iraq; his father, an Air Force pilot, was shot down and killed over Laos in 1969. He said his frustration began festering in 2003, when he was assigned to build the Iraqi army from scratch. His internal requests for more equipment and properly trained instructors went unheeded, he said.

While on active duty, Eaton did not criticize his civilian bosses – almost to a man, the generals agree active-duty officers have no business doing that. But he was candid in media interviews. Building an Iraqi army, he warned, would take years, and the effort might never succeed.

In 2004, he was replaced by Gen. David Petraeus – now the military commander in Iraq – and reassigned stateside. Sensing his once-promising Army career had foundered, Eaton retired Jan. 1, 2006.

Two months later, on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion, Eaton criticized the administration in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

“I didn’t think my op-ed would be a big deal,” he said. “It certainly turned out to be otherwise.”

Eaton said he wrote the piece because he believed that three pillars of our democratic system had failed:

The Bush administration ignored alarms raised by him and other commanders on the ground; the Republican-controlled Congress had failed to exercise oversight; and the media had abdicated its watchdog role.

“As we look back, it appears that without realizing it, we were reacting to a constitutional crisis,” Eaton said in a recent interview.

Some of Eaton’s colleagues, both active and retired, endorsed his decision to speak out. Others thought he had stepped out of bounds. He became persona non grata with ethics instructors at the U.S. Military Academy, his alma mater.

Eaton said he has no regrets.

Maj. Gen. John Batiste, former commander of the First Infantry Division in Iraq, chronicled his painful journey from stalwart soldier to outspoken critic in a post on the political Web site Think Progress this month.

Once heralded by many military observers as headed for appointment to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Batiste began his journey of introspection after he retired with two stars in 2005.

The self-described arch-conservative and lifelong Republican made the “gut-wrenching” decision to end his 31-year military career in order to “speak out on behalf of soldiers and their families.”

“I had a moral obligation and a duty to do so,” Batiste wrote. “I have been speaking out for the past 17 months and there is no turning back.”

Code of silence

It is rare in U.S. history for even retired generals to step outside the chain of command and criticize the nation’s civilian leaders.

That was true even at the time of the unpopular Vietnam War.

Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, said several generals who served in Vietnam now regret they didn’t go public when it might have done the nation some good.

“That has encouraged generals today to voice their unhappiness,” Bacevich said.

The once-sacred line between private and public opinion began to blur during the 1991 Gulf War, Bacevich said, when retired generals appeared for the first time as TV network analysts.

“But that war was brief, it seemed to go very well and the generals’ comments were almost uniformly positive,” he said. “This war is very long, it has not gone well and that’s a main reason we’re hearing the voices we’re hearing.”

For retired Brig. Gen. John Johns, the decision to finally stand up against the administration was a deeply personal one.

“My wife lost her first husband in Vietnam,” said Johns, who taught leadership and ethics at West Point.

“To learn later that President Lyndon Johnson and (then-Secretary of Defense) Robert McNamara knew as early as 1965 that we could not win there, that hurts her deeply to this day.”

Six months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Johns, who retired in 1978, agonized over whether to go public with a paper calling the impending war “one of the great blunders of history.”

He sent it to retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and to Pete McCloskey, the moderate-Republican former congressman from California who had opposed the Vietnam War.

“At that time, they did not want to go public,” Johns said.

Zinni has since become one of the most war’s most vociferous critics, and McClosky now calls for bringing the troops home.

“And I was not convinced that the invasion would not be stopped internally,” Johns said. “Zinni was close to (then-Secretary of State) Colin Powell; I believed sane heads would prevail.”

But Powell’s notoriously inaccurate speech to the United Nations in February 2003 “sealed the deal,” Johns said, and he knew the war was unstoppable. “I was very disappointed he did that. Powell was used.”

Many sleepless nights, long talks with his wife and solitary walks followed, said the veteran combat officer.

But Johns didn’t reach his tipping point until 2005, when a longtime friend, retired Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, invited him to discuss the war at tiny Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia.

“Four out of five of us retired military panelists there said it was a moral duty for us to speak out in a democracy against policies which you think are unwise,” Johns said. “The time was right.”

The lifelong Republican-leaning conservative joined a pair of liberal organizations opposed to the war and supported the Democrats’ call to get the United States out of Iraq.

“I appreciate those who hold to the old school of not speaking out,” said Johns, 79. “I hope they will appreciate my deeply held feelings that led to my decision to do so.”

Reaction mixed

One of those who falls into that old-school camp is Navy Vice Adm. David Richardson.

A one-time adviser to Pentagon chiefs, Richardson, who retired in 1972, said that while retired generals are “entirely within their rights under the First Amendment,” he was quite surprised to see so many speaking out against the Iraq war.

“They may sound off as they please, but I don’t approve of that,” said Richardson, 93, who served in World War II, Korea, and commanded an aircraft-carrier task force during the Vietnam War. He now lives in North Park and remains active in military circles.

“When we are at war, voices that may give aid and comfort to the enemy can cost American blood,” Richardson said. “I would not want what I said to in any way affect our troops’ morale and effectiveness.”

Gard, who retired from the military in 1981, displayed a stoicism typical of old soldiers when asked about his decision to publicly criticize the conduct of an ongoing war.

“I did some serious soul-searching,” Gard said simply.

A West Point graduate with a doctorate in politics and government from Harvard, Gard saw combat in Korea and Vietnam.

Gard’s introspection ultimately led him to conclude that patriotism means more than following orders and keeping complaints inside the military.

“When you feel the country – to its extreme detriment – is going in the wrong direction, and that your views might have some impact, you have a duty to speak out,” he said.

It may not have been that way during the Vietnam era, Gard added. “But times have changed.”

Add comment September 24th, 2007

Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey endorses CIA torture

Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey endorses CIA torture, aka “enhanced interrogations” according to Newsweeks’ Michael Isikoff:

“[I]n a series of private meetings arranged by chief of staff Josh Bolten prior to the nomination, Mukasey, 66, reassured top hard-liners, such as Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo and former A.G. Edwin Meese. According to three sources, who asked not to be named discussing the private meetings, Mukasey said that he saw “significant problems” with shutting down Guantánamo Bay and that he understood the need for the CIA to use some “enhanced” interrogation techniques against Qaeda suspects.”

Yet Democrats are expected to swiftly confirm him. Perhaps support for Bush’s torture regime is a criterion for Democrats to confirm a nominee. After all, they helped confirm Alberto Gonzales despite knowing full well his record in support of torture.

UPDATE:

The New York Times describes Mukasey’s cavalier approach to reports of US citizen detainee beatings and other civil liberties:

It was Oct. 2, 2001, and the prisoner, Osama Awadallah, then a college student in San Diego with no criminal record, was one of dozens of Arab men detained around the country in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks as potential witnesses in the terrorism investigation.

Before the hearing, Mr. Awadallah told his lawyer that he had been beaten in the federal detention center in Manhattan, producing bruises that were hidden beneath his orange prison jumpsuit. But when his lawyer told this to Judge Mukasey, the judge seemed little concerned.

“As far as the claim that he was beaten, I will tell you that he looks fine to me,” said Judge Mukasey….

Even though Mr. Awadallah was not charged at the time with any crime and had friends and family in San Diego who would vouch that he had no terrorist ties, Judge Mukasey ordered that he be held indefinitely, a ruling he made in the cases of several other so-called material witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigations. A prison medical examination later identified the bruises across his body.

Sounds like just the type of guy we want as Attorney General. Now I’m certain the Democrats will rapidly confirm him.

Add comment September 23rd, 2007

Attack on publisher of book critical of Zionism

Joel Kovel is a former psychoanalyst, known among progressive psychoanalysts as the author of the classic White Racism: A Psychohistory, among other works. He’s written a new book, apparently critical of Israel and Zionism: Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine.

The book has aroused a fierce reaction from the pro-Israel lobby, according to an article from its publisher, Pluto Press:

Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby

By ROGER van ZWANENBERG

About three weeks ago Pluto books and the University of Michigan Press - our US distributor - came under attack by Stand With Us (a Zionist lobby group) who were objecting to the publication of Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel which resulted in the book being withdrawn in the US. The vitriolic attack questioned the University’s relationship with Pluto generally and denigrated Overcoming Zionism.

Since then the Executive Board of the University has considered the matter and issued a public statement. Joel’s book has now been reinstated but they plan to review the ongoing relationship between Pluto and UMP in October.

Pluto Press’s importance & presence in the US is under threat.

Joel is setting up a network to rally support for Pluto as we are determined to defend ourselves. We hope you will help and support our efforts in the US by writing to Joel and Kathy who are co-ordinating the campaign jskovel@gmail.com and Ellajaja@aol.com.

If you have your own networks, please first go through Joel and Kathy, as they are co-ordinating the campaign

In the meantime we intend to get the UK media to take notice of these events.

Warmly

Roger

Roger van Zwanenberg (Dr)
Chair & Commissioning Editor www.plutobooks.com
Pluto Press
345 Archway Road
London N6 5AA
Tel 020 8374 2192 ( Direct line)
0044 20 8374 2192 from Outside UK
Company No 4770976

Now I haven’t read Kovel’s book, and have no idea if I will or what I will think of it if I do. But I do know that this type of attempted censorship poses an extreme threat to democratic discussion on a topic of vital importance to everyone. We should all stand up to these bullies.

2 comments September 23rd, 2007

Interview with ORB researcher on Iraq mortality poll

NPR interviews Johnny Heald of the British ORB polling company on their recent survey estimating 1.2 million Iraqi deaths.  Listen here.

1 comment September 23rd, 2007

Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts: Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option

Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts have written a, so far unpublished, op-ed on the multitudinous casualties from the Iraq war:

Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option

Not wanting to think about civilian deaths in Iraq has become almost universal. The average American believed approximately 9,900 Iraqis had died as a result of the war according to a February 2007 AP poll. Unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that things in Iraq may be one-hundred times worse than Americans realize.

News report tallies suggest some 75,000 Iraqis have died since the US-led invasion. A study of 13 war affected countries presented at a recent Harvard conference found over 80% of violent deaths in conflicts go unreported by the press and governments. City officials in the Iraqi city of Najaf were recently quoted on Middle East Online stating that 40,000 unidentified bodies have been buried in that city since the start of the conflict. When speaking to the Rotarians in a speech covered on C-SPAN on September 5th, H.E. Samir Sumaida’ie, the Iraqi Ambassador to the US , stated that there were 500,000 new widows in Iraq . The Baker-Hamilton Commission similarly found that the Pentagon under-counted violent incidents by a factor of 10. Finally, a week ago the respected British polling firm ORB released the results of a poll estimating that 22% of households had lost a member to violence during the occupation of Iraq, equating to 1.2 million deaths. This finding roughly verifies a less precisely worded BBC poll last February that reported 17% of Iraqis had a household member who was a victim of violence.

There are now two polls and three scientific surveys all suggesting the official figures and media-based estimates in Iraq have missed 70-95% of all deaths. The evidence suggests that the extent of under-reporting by the media is only increasing with time.

Being forthright about the human cost of the war, perhaps over a million deaths to date, is in our long-term interests. How can military and civilian leadership comment intelligently about security trends in Iraq, or if any security policies are working, if they are not detecting most of the 5000+ violent deaths that occur per week? Can American plans for the future of Iraq be respected within Iraq if they do not openly address the toll that they imply? Avoiding the issue of Iraqi deaths will likely come back to haunt us as young people in the Middle East grow up with ingrained hostility toward America.

In the Zimmerman Telegram, Barbara Tuchman describes the resentment in Japan over the 1913 California Alien Land Law designed to prevent Japanese immigrants from buying land. This resentment almost enabled Germany to persuade Japan to attack the US during WWI and probably helped set the stage for it happening a quarter century later. We cannot yet tell what consequences will arise from our invasion of Iraq . Ignoring the consequences of our actions, or striking a tone of belligerence rather than contrition, will not build long-term relationships we need in the Middle East . Established methods for estimating deaths exist, even in times of war. Discussion of trends and policy effects based on meaningful and validated measures such as median income and death rates would make our leaders more accountable and leave us better informed. Deliberately ignoring the numbers of dead Iraqis is not an option worthy of the United States , or in our enlightened self-interest.

Gilbert Burnham

Les Roberts

Gilbert Burnham is a MD and Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Les Roberts is an Associate Professor at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

Add comment September 23rd, 2007