New Quaker Notebook

The Iraq Index

.... The total number of Iraqis who have been killed will never be known. Recently the Pentagon reported that nearly 26,000 Iraqis had been "killed or wounded from insurgent attacks" from the beginning of 2004 to September 2005. But when you add the estimated number of Iraqis killed by American forces, the figure could be more than 100,000, according to a controversial 2004 study published in The Lancet, a respected British medical journal. Another source, iraqbodycount.org, estimates that by late November, Iraqi deaths totaled between 27,115 and 30,559.

The war has already cost the United States an estimated $251 billion. Each day an estimated $195 million is being spent—money that could provide twelve meals to every starving child in the world, according to Senator Ted Kennedy's office. In addition, one day of Iraq War expenses could cover what the College Board estimates to be the full cost of a public higher education for some 17,000 American students.

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Wither the truth. In February 1996, for the monthly magazine BookScapes, I reviewed Lynne Cheney's book Telling the Truth: Why our culture and our country have stopped making sense—and what we can do about it. Her book is about the aftermath of postmodernism in the US and its impact on the humanities in our society. It was a positive review. I liked the book, and admired her stand and the energy with which she defended her position against the relativism of postmodern thought.

I wish I'd known then what I know now, because her place today as a Bushevik partisan in the present White House administration has given me a gnawing nostalgia for a woman who a decade ago expressed both an authenticity and an honesty which today hover like gaseous apparitions over the unfolding consequences of her husband's regime. What she wrote in her 1995 book haunts me. She said:

"As I look back over this book, I am struck by the high level of arrogance that often exists among those who maintain that there is no truth except the one they would have us believe. They redefine our words and our lives for us, and expect us to go along. They rewrite the past and are shocked when we object. And this arrogance is often combined with an amazing lack of thought of the consequences of what they are preaching. It does not require great insight, for example, to see a connection between the idea that one's truth is defined by one's group and the resegregation and racial hostility that have become all too common in our society. Nor should we overlook the moral consequences of insisting that reality is nothing more than what we create. If history is only an invention, then we never have to account for what we have done. We never have to admit to event he most grievous error; we can simply revise it out of existence." [pp 203-204]

Why is this woman, a staunch defender of truth, not getting all up in her husband's business over the ongoing massacre in Iraq? Why is she standing by as war crimes are committed in the name of the United States? Why are so many Americans standing arm-in-arm with her?

This past week coughed up several public displays of truth in the process of putrefication. Most recently there is Condoleezza Rice threatening to name names if the Europeans don't stop complaining about US human rights abuses, torture, and the secret CIA prisons where these abominable deeds are taking place. Reuters report that she's going to visit Europe this week with "a new concept" for these concerns. Instead of promising to clean up America's act, or even admitting that this government is a regime that tortures its detainees, despite the emergence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, she "will remind allies they themselves have been cooperating in US operations and tell them instead to do more to win over their publics as a way of deflecting criticism directed at the United States, diplomats and US officials said."¹ In other words, the Europeans themselves have been complicit in these war crimes, as "these intelligence operations took place with the full knowledge of relevant European government or intelligence officials."² Europe therefore needs to follow the Busheviks in rewriting the history of what is taking place, and of course through a fresh PR campaign. Let's hear it for White House spokesman Scott McClellan! The US does not violate human rights! We are a model for the rest of the world!

"When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America, and we show that by holding people accountable when they break the law or violate human rights," he said. "We show that by supporting the advance of freedom and democracy and supporting those in countries that are having their human rights denied or violated, like North Korea."³

There was also the embarrassing report this week that the US military paid Iraqi newspapers "to carry positive news about US efforts in Iraq."⁴ And let's not forget the President's new plan for victory in Iraq—by changing the semantic rules.⁵ I love how Arianna Huffington put it:

So "insurgents" are out and "rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists" are in. Here's how the president broke down the new lexicon:

Rejectionists are "ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs" who "reject an Iraq in which they're no longer the dominant group." According to Bush, rejectionists make up "by far the largest" portion of "the enemy."

Saddamists are former Saddam loyalists who "still harbor dreams of returning to power." This group is "smaller" than the rejectionists "but more determined." (Is it just me, or does "Saddamist" sound an awful lot like "Sodomite"? Hey, might as well shore up your evangelical base while charting your new victory vocabulary, right? Bush really brought this connection home when he referred to the "hard-core Saddamists ... trying to foment anti-democratic sentiment amongst the larger Sunni community". While buggering each other and pushing for gay marriage, no doubt).

And the terrorists? Well, they're the ones who "share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September 11" ... the ones "responsible for most of the suicide bombings and the beheadings and the other atrocities we've seen on our television." While calling them "the smallest" of the enemy groups, they are still clearly Bush's favorite: he mentioned "terrorists" 42 times in his speech, compared to the five times he mentioned the "rejectionists" and the four times he brought up the "Saddamists."⁶

Every American will be guilty of war crimes if we allow this to continue, and it will not help to hide the truth beneath a tarpaulin of lies, by letting the truth be defined by one's group or letting them simply revise it out of existence.

1. "Rice to warn Europe to back off over detainees," Reuters, December 2, 2005.
2. "Rice to Go on Offense Over Secret Prisons," Washington Post, December 3, 2005. The stories about the CIA's "extraordinary renditions" keep coming. The American Civil Liberties Union is in the process of suing the CIA in the case of a man abducted and flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan to be interrogated there as a terrorism suspect. See Reuters, December 3, 2005. And then the Germans plan to take up this issue with Dr Rice when she shows up in Europe this week. The German weekly Der Spiegel is reporting that the "German government has a list of at least 437 flights suspected of being operated by the CIA in German airspace." See Der Spiegel, December 4, 2005. See also BBC News, December 3, 2005.
3. Washington Post, December 3, 2005.
4. "Military Says It Paid Iraq Papers for News," Washington Post, December 3, 2005. This included paying third-party, private-sector firms, such as the Lincoln Group, to do the writing and news placement. I believe we call this propaganda: the term "infomercial" seems inappropriate in this context. See GovExec.com for more information about the Lincoln Group's role in this.
5. "Bush outlines Iraq 'victory plan'," BBC News, November 30, 2005.
6. "Bush's New Plan for Victory: Stop Saying 'Insurgents'," Huffington Post, November 30, 2005.