John Pilger: Iraq's Epic Suffering Is Made Invisible

[Karmadillo]

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger2.html

For the past few weeks, I have been watching videotapes of the attack on Iraq, most of them not shown in this country. The tapes concentrate on the epic suffering of ordinary Iraqis. There are photographs, too, that were never published here. They show streets and hospitals running with blood, as American and British forces smashed their way into Iraq with weapons designed to incinerate and dismember human beings.

It is difficult viewing, but necessary if one is to understand fully the words of the Nuremberg judges in 1946 when they laid down the principles of modern international law: "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Guiding me through this visual evidence of a great crime is the diary of a young law graduate, Jo Wilding, who was in Baghdad with a group of international human rights observers. She and the others stayed with Iraqi families as the missiles, bunker busters and cluster bombs exploded around them. Where possible, they hurried to the scene of civilian casualties and followed the victims to hospitals and mortuaries, interviewing eyewitnesses and doctors. Their work received scant media coverage.

Jo has described to me, in detail, attacks on civilian targets that were - she is in no doubt - deliberate. In any case, the sheer ferocity of the assault on elusive Iraqi defenders could not fail to kill and injure large numbers of civilians. According to a recent study, up to 10,000 civilians were killed.

"One of the stunning things about the quick coalition victory," John Bolton, George Bush's under-secretary of state for international security, told me in Washington recently, "was how little damage was done to Iraqi infrastructure, and how low Iraqi casualties were."

I said, "Well, it's high if it's 10,000 civilians."

He replied, "Well, I think it's quite low if you look at the size of the military operation."

more...

[pocoloco]

1. some estimates have been as high as

between 30-40,000 but don't know how accurate that it. Aljazeera
had some horrible pics on it's website before it was shut down at the start of the war, probably still on the net somewhere but once is enough for me, not pretty!

[dudeness]

2. thank you karmadillo

john pilger ranks among the top echelon of journalists IMHO..his work in cambodia..east timor is a true mark of the man..

[dudeness]

3. kick

n/t