U.S.-U.K. GENOCIDE AGAINST IRAQ 1990-2012
KILLED 3.3 MILLION, INCLUDING 750,000 CHILDREN
By Sherwood Ross
Approximately
3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children, were “exterminated” by
economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted
by the U.S. and Great Britain between 1990 and 2012, an eminent
international legal authority says.
The
slaughter fits the classic definition of Genocide Convention Article II
of, “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of
life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part,” says Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the
University of Illinois, Champaign, and who in 1991 filed a class-action
complaint with the UN against President George H.W.
Bush.
The
U.S. and U.K. “obstinately insisted” that their sanctions remain in
place until after the “illegal” Gulf War II aggression perpetrated
by President George W. Bush and UK’s Tony Blair in March, 2003, “not
with a view to easing the over decade-long suffering of the Iraqi people
and children” but “to better facilitate the U.S./U.K. unsupervised
looting and plundering of the Iraqi economy and
oil fields in violation of the international laws of war as well as to
the grave detriment of the Iraqi people,” Boyle said.
In
an address last Nov. 22 to The International Conference on War-affected
Children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Boyle tallied the death
toll on Iraq by U.S.-U.K. actions as follows:
# The slaughter of 200,000 Iraqis by President Bush in his illegal 1991 Gulf War I.
#
The deaths of 1.4 million Iraqis as a result of the illegal 2003 war of
aggression ordered by President Bush Jr. and Prime Minister
Blair.
# The deaths of 1.7 million Iraqis “as a direct result” of the genocidal sanctions.
Boyle’s
class-action complaint demanded an end to all economic sanctions
against Iraq; criminal proceedings for genocide against President
George H.W. Bush; monetary compensation to the children of Iraq and
their families for deaths, physical and mental injury; and for shipping
massive humanitarian relief supplies to that country.
The
“grossly hypocritical” UN refused to terminate the sanctions, Boyle
pointed out, even though its own Food and Agricultural Organization’s
Report estimated that by 1995 the sanctions had killed 560,000 Iraqi
children during the previous five years.
Boyle
noted that then U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was
interviewed on CBS-TV on May 12, 1996, in response to a question
by Leslie Stahl if the price of half a million dead children was worth
it, and replied, “we (the U.S. government) think the price is worth it.”
Albright’s
shocking response provides “proof positive of the genocidal intent by
the U.S. government against Iraq” under the Genocide
Convention, Boyle said, adding that the government of Iraq today could
still bring legal action against the U.S. and the U.K. in the
International Court of Justice. He said the U.S.-U.K. genocide also
violated the municipal legal systems of all civilized nations
in the world; the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the
Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocol 1 of 1977.
Boyle, who was stirred to take action
pro bono by Mothers in Iraq after the economic sanctions had been
imposed upon them by the Security Council in August, 1990, in response
to pressure from the Bush Senior Administration. He is the author of
numerous books on international affairs, including
“Destroying World Order” (Clarity Press.) #
(Sherwood Ross is a columnist, broadcast commentator and public relations consultant “for good causes.” He formerly reported for major dailies and wire services and is the author of “Gruening of Alaska”(Best). Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com )
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