The Human Costs

 by Michael Otterman

In Seida Zeinab, a hardscrabble Damascus suburb that hosts hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, a man approached me with a photograph.

“My son,” he said, pinching a tattered blue wallet conatining a small, frayed headshot of a small boy no more than three-years-old. “He was kidnapped,” he added, hands shaking. “Can you help me?”

I often think about this Iraqi man. His son disappeared in the darkest days of the post US-invasion chaos, and the man left Iraq soon after. What has become of them? Were they ever reuintied? His is son alive?

Any honest accounting of the post-9/11 era must consider the human costs of US aggression in Iraq. The 2003 invasion—concieved by Bush Administration officials hours after the attacks on September 11 and a centerpiece of the so-called “Freedom Agenda”—wrought incalcuable suffering to a society already hollowed out by a decade of brutal US-led sanctions and the ravages of the first Gulf War.

Millions of Iraqis are now dead and displaced. Entire religious groups face extinction. Thousands of priceless artifacts from Baghdad Museum remain lost. State institutions remain in disarray, political factions split along sectarian divides. Sociocide, the destruction of an entire way of life, is the only apt term to describe this level of decimation.

And for what?

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” said Alan Greenspan, long-time head of the US Federal Reserve, succintly summing up the true motives behind the invasion.

Yet in the lead-up and initial aftermath of the war, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other top officials made at least 935 demonstrably false statements on 532 separate occasions about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The fact that 69% of Americans falsely believed that Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks—even six months after the invasion took place—shows the power of misinformation to build a consusus for illegal wars of aggression.

Al Qaeda did not operate in Iraq prior to 2003—but they do now. “We have men who have divorced themselves from life and love death more than you love life, and killing is one of their wishes,” said a spokesman for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia following a day of spectacular carnage in August 2011 that left 89 people dead across the country. So far, more than 2000 civilians have been killed in 2011 in a country, which at time of writing, still hosts roughly 46,000 US troops and 64,000 private contractors—an occupation that has cost at least $869 billion and 4474 soldiers’ lives thusfar.

American mainstream media attention of Iraq has dropped to less than 1% of the daily news, yet for Iraqis like the ones I met in Syria, the ravages of the US-led invasion are an ever-present reality.

What did I tell the man who asked me to find his son?

As a journalist visiting Syria to research the plight of Iraqi refugees, no, I said, I couldn’t help him directly. But I did pledge to share his story—and that of the destruction of Iraq following 9/11—with the rest of the world.

“Silenced Voices of War” – Sydney Writers Festival, Sydney

Sunday, 22 May 2011

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM

What are the human costs in the global “war on terror”? Mike Otterman, ‘Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage’ and ‘American Torture’, and Antony Loewenstein, ‘My Israel Question’ and ‘The Blogging Revolution’, both work to bring to light the forgotten stories of occupation, dispossession and torture. They discuss the ongoing human tragedies in the Middle East and beyond. What is the media not telling us about Iraq, Egypt, Iran or Palestine and why aren’t we listening to indigenous voices from the region? How can social media allow us to hone in, and amplify, these hidden voices?

Richard Hil and Michael Otterman’s “Erasing Iraq” – Fairfield High School, Sydney

Monday, 23 May, 2011

Private event for students and parents, featuring a discussion about Erasing Iraq, plus workshops on the writing process.

“What the **ck is Going On?” – Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney

Wednesday, 25 May, 20116PM – 8PM

Are we in an era of war without end? How can we get out of it?

The body of Osama bin Laden lies at the bottom of the sea. Bombers fly over Libya, whiletroops fire on demonstrators in Yemen and Bahrain, and Israel tries to starve the newly united Palestinians into submission. War intensifies in Afghanistan as Iran looms large in neo-conservative cross-hairs and Iraq smoulders from the sociocide committed by the US, Australiaand allies. But a new peace movement is emerging…

Speakers:

• Michael Otterman, author, American Torture and Erasing Iraq: the Human Costs of Carnage;

• Antony Loewenstein, author, My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution;

• Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Director,Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney

Admission by Gold Coin Donation to finance public advocacy by Australia’s only Peace Centre. Old Geology Lecture Theatre, University of Sydney. More information: arts.cpacs@sydney.edu.au 9351 7686

“Hidden Voices of War” – Free University of Bellingen

Thursday, 26 May, 2011

6:30PM – 9PM

Why do we hear so little from the victims of our wars? Writers Michael Otterman and Antony Loewenstein explore the realities of conflict in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and the broader Middle East. What do the Arab revolutions say about the future of the region? What impact will the killing of Osama bin Laden have on the so-­called war on terror? How do we hear the hidden voices, and amplify them?

RSVP by May 22 – jojones1960@hotmail.com

I can’t recommend highly enough a new book called “Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage,” by Michael Otterman and Richard Hill with Paul Wilson, with a foreword by Dahr Jamail. This comprehensive survey of the damage puts the past eight years into the context of other aggressive acts of imperialism and finds Operation Iraqi Liberation (to stick to its original name) a stand-out, in large part because of the Bush-Cheney regime’s attempt to create a neocon corporate economy from scratch in Baghdad, a project that required erasing everything that had been there before. The book’s greatest contribution lies in humanizing the suffering and providing us with the viewpoints — a wide spectrum of viewpoints — of Iraqis, including Iraqi refugees living outside Iraq, the vast majority of whom have not yet returned and many of whom have decided they never will. These are people, 100% of whom — judging by a 2007 UNHCR survey of 754 Iraqis in Syria — had experienced bombings, shootings, interrogations, harassment by militias, and/or torture.

The authors of “Erasing Iraq” interviewed Iraqis as far afield as Sweden and Australia: “Every Iraqi we spoke with reported similar events: houses bombed, possessions lost, children kidnapped, lives destroyed. ‘Americans — when they hear one shot — even if it’s like 10 kilometers away — they’ll just open fire on everything,’ said Laith as he lit a cigarette with the small red heating coils warming his cramped two-room house in East Amman, Jordan.” [...]

“Erasing Iraq” quotes Iraqi bloggers and interviewed Iraqis, giving personalities to people who have indeed been effectively erased. How many Americans even know that millions of Iraqis have had to flee the hell of their “liberation”? The U.S. media has self-censored almost all reporting on Iraqi suffering that has not been censored by the military, and polls of Americans have found approval for such censorship. Americans, along with Donald Rumsfeld, want to not know, and to not know what they do not know.

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Update:

Swanson’s review of Erasing Iraq was referenced days later in the Lanka Gazette.

Iraq isn’t in the news much now – we’ve been there, done that. And though it’s generally agreed that the invasion was a grievous mistake, there isn’t much interest in the extent of the damage. By 2009-10, according to Michael Otterman, Richard Hil and Paul Wilson’s Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage, over a million Iraqi citizens had been killed, over three million injured, over a million women widowed and five million children orphaned. The destruction of the country’s civil society, its economy and cultural heritage has been incalculable, though it’s been estimated that rebuilding its infrastructure alone could run into the trillions of dollars. Compulsory reading of Erasing Iraq, a thorough investigation of all aspects of its suffering, published by Pluto Press with the help of Australia’s Plumbing Trades Employee Union, just might give governments and their media claqueurs pause before we bloody our hands again. But that’s the optimist in me speaking – Wikileaks has already exposed the military’s doubts about winning the war in Afghanistan. Not to mention the “collateral damage” from our efforts in that country too.

ELEANOR HALL: This case of course sets no legal precedent in the United States or indeed in Australia but do you think it could have an influence on cases being brought in the US?

MICHAEL OTTERMAN: Well it’s possible, actually as I speak right now in New York there’s a jury deliberating on the fate of one former Guantanamo detainee. You know, the jury no doubt might hear about this recent decision and that may indeed sway them.

So it could have real impacts, you know, in things that are happening right now involving former Guantanamo detainees and it may also I think impact the case of Mamdouh Habib.

ELEANOR HALL: Well he’s in fact suing the Australian Government on the exact same grounds as the British Guantanamo detainees, so what influence do you think the British settlement could have on his case?

MICHAEL OTTERMAN: Well I mean Habib, just as the UK former detainees – they don’t have specific evidence of say of a UK officer torturing but they’re suing on collusion. The documents have already proven that, what’s already been released, that the Australian Government was very much so aware where Habib was.

ELEANOR HALL: Of course the UK Government made the point that it would have difficulty arguing its case because of the security and secrecy issues that would arise from it trying to mount a defence.

MICHAEL OTTERMAN: That’s true, I mean when you do sue intelligence officials, there are very strict secrecy precautions and people have to testify behind walls and there’s elaborate things. That’s not to say they don’t work though and governments, certainly in the US, hide behind these secrecy laws.

And so, while there are, you know, real concerns, you know, you don’t want to give away agents you know secret agents’ names but I think there’s a real abuse of this excuse.

ELEANOR HALL: Well the UK justice secretary said there was a danger that the public’s confidence in the Government’s adherence to human rights was being eroded. Does this settlement restore it?

MICHAEL OTTERMAN: Well it’s kind of a mixed bag. These former Guantanamo inmates who have suffered – there’s no doubt in my mind that these individuals were tortured – so it is good to hear that they will be compensated in some way.

But it’s also a win for the governments because it keeps these torture papers under wraps.

The panel was slightly unfocused until the late arrival of a fellow panelist, a young American journalist [Ioannis Gatsiounis] whom I had not previously met. The panel was galvanized when he told the audience that “the Muslim world needs to accept responsibility for 9/11.”

Mike, who was seated next to me, tensed and leaned back in his chair in the manner of a patient who sees the dentist’s drill approaching. An older woman in the front row lifted her umbrella in front of her like a Kendo warrior, ready to strike. Rabih answered gently, reminding his co-panelist that there is no such thing as “the Muslim world,” that it is not a monolithic entity, just as the Christian world is not monolithic, and that there are many Americas as well . . .

But our fellow panelist suggested that “the Muslim world” was not doing enough to project a positive image of itself, that it was suffering from a “crisis of extremism.” This led to a discussion of the controversial mosque at ground zero. Of all the issues facing the U.S., this manufactured issue depresses me the most, because it’s such a distraction from the real, serious issues facing America and the world. Mike mentioned that the mosque at ground zero was an issue manufactured by Fox news, that it had not been an issue until Fox made it one. I mentioned that the site was on the Sacred site of the Burlington Coat Factory. Rabih mentioned that it was near the Hallowed Ground of a strip club. Our friend said that while he was ultimately in favor of the mosque being built, he understood why it was distasteful and not simply a response motivated by fear and misunderstanding.

In order to speak, we needed to press a button on our microphones, and only three could be on at once. Mike reached for the button several times in response to the sweeping generalizations and condemnations by our fellow panelist, but Rabih gently placed his hand on Mike’s and gave him a “take a deep breath” look. Later, Mike, who lives in Manhattan, told me that the closer a person is to ground zero, the more likely he is to support the mosque. The people of lower Manhattan largely support it as do others in the city, but the further west you travel, the more you run into opposition to the “victory mosque.” This seems to me emblematic of most of human nature. The less you know of what you speak, the less familiar you are with another people or religion, the more likely you are to speak with certainty about it. The old saw goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.” Perhaps. But proximity leads to understanding.

A YouTube video referencing the heated exchange is here.

(C) Vazquez