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100,000
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 100,0002004-10-29 23:59
4 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

AP, ABC News:
A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months since the U.S.-led invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war. ...

Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study is being published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal.

The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and airstrikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote in the British-based journal.

"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children"

What was the point of that war, again?


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4 comments

30 Oct 2004 @ 07:29 by shawa : The answer...
...lies in your next entry. :-)  

31 Oct 2004 @ 12:30 by taranga @217.158.116.97 : What was the point of that war, again?
I think the suggestion that it was to obtain control of actual oil is a smoke screen.

A more believable dimension to the neo-cons middle eastern policy is the absolute neccessity of maintaining the dollar as the world 'oil currency'.

At the moment everyone who wants any oil has to first purchase dollars, thus the US fiscal imbalance can be maintained by printing more paper.

The threat of an economic metldown for US/british/western capitalism that would make 1929 look like a picnic; for if other oil producers followed Sadam's lead [in 2000, and he gained 16%] and started trading oil for euros, as OPEC discussed in 2002, the US defecit would be unsustainable. Iraq was more of a warning across the bows of any others thinking of leaving the oil dollar club.

It is also worth noting that most of the 'axis of evil' countries have already swapped most of their foriegn currency reserves into euros!

Google 'oil dollar euro iraq war' for more detailed references, including a much ignored article in the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1270414,00.html  

31 Oct 2004 @ 15:19 by EdKnight @151.198.169.46 : Malaysia
I recall reading the same thing.With Malaysia pondering turning toward the euro for trading oil,could they be next?  

2 Nov 2004 @ 18:35 by ov : petroeuro
Yup, you got that right Taranga, about the switch to the Euro rather than the dollar for oil payments by Sadam in June 2000 being the urgent priority for invasion rather than maintaining the containment. {link:www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1270414,00.html|Guardian article} states it nicely. I have a bit more information on my {link:newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v335/|Vancouver OverView blog} in an article on "Oil and US Imperialism."

Another article "Pillaging Baghdad", is based on a review of {link:www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html|Naomi Klein's "Baghdad Year Zero"} and explains a lot of the politics on why the violence has escalated following the six month period following the end of the invasion. The allies are trying to delay the elections until the country is locked into 40 year contracts with foreign investors, which is the reason that the original plan of a democratic election was substituted with a plan for a US assigned interim government. The shock and awe didn't end with the end of the invasion, it carried over right into and throughout the occupation. Carpet bagging at it's very worst.  

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