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[moonraven]

Published on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
A Man-Made Tsunami
Why are There No Fundraisers for the Iraqi Dead?

by Terry Jones

I am bewildered by the world reaction to the tsunami tragedy. Why are newspapers, television and politicians making such a fuss? Why has the British public forked out more than �100m to help the survivors, and why is Tony Blair now promising "hundreds of millions of pounds"? Why has Australia pledged �435m and Germany �360m? And why has Mr Bush pledged �187m?

Of course it's wonderful to see the human race rallying to the aid of disaster victims, but it's the inconsistency that has me foxed. Nobody is making this sort of fuss about all the people killed in Iraq, and yet it's a human catastrophe of comparable dimensions.

According to the only scientific estimate attempted, Iraqi deaths since the war began number more than 100,000. The tsunami death toll is in the region of 150,000. Yet in the case of Iraq, the media seems reluctant to impress on the public the scale of the carnage.

I haven't seen many TV reporters standing in the ruins of Falluja, breathlessly describing how, in 30 years of reporting, they've never seen a human tragedy on this scale. The Pope hasn't appealed for everyone to remember the Iraqi dead in their prayers, and MTV hasn't gone silent in their memory.

Nor are Blair and Bush falling over each other to show they recognize the scale of the disaster in Iraq. On the contrary, they have been doing their best to conceal the numbers killed.

When the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated the figure of 100,000 killed in Iraq and published their findings in one of the world's leading scientific journals, the Lancet, Downing Street questioned their methodology, saying "the researchers used an extrapolation technique, which they considered inappropriate, rather than a detailed body count". Of course "a detailed body count" is the one thing the US military will not allow anyone to do.

What is so odd is the way in which so much of the media has fallen into line, downplaying the only authoritative estimate of casualties in Iraq with the same unanimity with which they have impressed upon us the death toll of the tsunami.

One of the authors of the forenamed report, Dr Gilbert Burnham, said: "Our data have been back and forth between many reviewers at the Lancet and here in the school, so we have the scientific strength to say what we have said with great certainty."

So, are deaths caused by bombs and gunfire less worthy of our pity than deaths caused by a giant wave? Or are Iraqi lives less worth counting than Indonesian, Thai, Indian and Swedish?

Why aren't our TV companies and newspapers running fundraisers to help Iraqis whose lives have been wrecked by the invasion? Why aren't they screaming with outrage at the man-made tsunami that we have created in the Middle East? It truly is baffling.

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. His book Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror is published this month by the Nation www.terry-jones.net

� 2005 Guardian Unlimited

[ls650]

Perhaps because one actually has a chance of defeating nature, as opposed to battling the Forces of Darkness.

[moonraven]

Actually, I think the aspiration of defeating Nature is what got us into this mess.

[Nauczyciel]

Seriously - this is because people in Iraq have been dying for almost two years know, one after another. The tsunami killed tens of thousands in one day.

The number is comparable, that's true. But however cynical it might sound, the public got used to all those daily death toll reports from Iraq quite a long time ago. It's no longer shocking, it's just daily bread.

Terry Jones is right. But I'm afraid his voice won't be heard.

[moonraven]

Maybe since he has the book coming out, it WILL be heard.

[once again]

It may also be that there were so many nationalities killed that each country had at least some part of it effected. I guess there are not so many Iraquis living in the UK or the US as there are Indians, Sri Lankans etc..and not so many people who have headed off to Iraq for two weeks in the sun..whereas Thailand and the Maldives have many visitors.

[ls650]

Good point. Most westerners could not have cared less about Iraq before the war, but many have visited Thailand as tourists or at least know of other westerners who have.

[stillnosheep]

...the saints are coming through...
it's all over now baby blue.

(abu ghraib).

[homersimpson]

One is a war and the other is a natural disaster. Dense.

[mesmerod]

people tend to react differently towards a singular event vs. a continuous activity.

[Truman]

There has been a shortage of sympathy for the people of Iraq. Their suffering has been unimaginable.

On the other hand, the current conditions in Iraq should be measured, NOT against a utopian ideal, but against the conditions under the pre-war sanctions.
"A survey by UNICEF and the Iraqi government in 1997 suggested that 31 per cent - equivalent to 960,000 children - were suffering from either mild, moderate or acute chronic malnutrition, up from 18 per cent in the already worsening situation of 1991. Eleven per cent - around 340,000 children - had acute malnutrition, up from 3 per cent; and 26 per cent were underweight, against 9 per cent in 1991.

Some aid agencies estimate that up to 5,000 children per month died as the direct result of UN sanctions against Iraq.

The UN created the sanctions. There was a shortage of sympathy then. The lack of sympathy now is unfortunate, but not surprising.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/un/icrcreport98.htm

[ChinaMovieMagic]

Article began:

[john henry]

Try as I might, I can't understand what CMM is saying more than half the time. Too bad, cuz there might be something there.

[moonraven]

Try a little harder.

[john henry]

You are such an angry, mean spirited person.

Seriously, what is this supposed to mean:

But civilization will survive (in a higher Dimension),
with this century's culture-preserving equivalents of:
* the Arabs
* the Irish
* Oby Wan Kenobe and the Jedi Knights

?