Iraq: The Hidden Horror

650,000 Iraqis dead – now that's 'liberation'!

by Justin Raimondo

"That Bush has the gall to challenge anyone's credibility is a testament to his complete cluelessness. Here, after all, is a president who went to war under false pretenses, and now demands that we "stay the course" right over a cliff. Let him look at his own methodology, which involves reading – or, at least, skimming – a presidential daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." and then going blithely on his merry way, oblivious to all dangers but a nonexistent one in Iraq.

Are we to be spared nothing?

When Truman dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was no national outcry: rather, there was a celebration of unassailable American power. Likewise, the bombing of Dresden caused nary a ripple of protest. A long string of American-sponsored and -countenanced atrocities, ranging from the torture methods employed by the shah of Iran's U.S.-trained SAVAK to the "free-fire zones" of Vietnam, to the terror manual written by the CIA for the Nicaraguan contras during the 1980s, and on and on – none of this bothered much of anyone, either in Washington or in the country at large. We withdrew from Vietnam not because we were repulsed by our murderous tactics, and those of our Vietnamese sock-puppets, but because we were beaten militarily by a ragtag bunch of insurgents.

The U.S. military has steadfastly refused to maintain Iraqi body counts: for obvious reasons, they'd rather we didn't know how many Iraqi souls have been permanently "liberated" from their bodies. More importantly, they'd rather the Iraqis didn't know.

The study has proved controversial, and anyone can summon their favorite experts to either support or debunk it. Yet one has to say that, even if the figure of 650,000 is off by half, the vastness of U.S. war crimes in Iraq is quite a shocker. No wonder the Americans are denying it: they can't stand the sight of their own ruthlessness. And the hypocrisy! Here, after all, is a nation that was supposed to be "liberated" – and, instead, it has been turned into a slaughterhouse. Whatever the numbers, that is the cruel reality.

The hidden horror is so much worse than we imagine, yet the invisibility of evil isn't at all unusual when it comes to the modern world. The sheer scale of the crimes committed by the Nazis, the Soviets, the Khmer Rouge, and all the other mad tyrannies of the 20th century didn't come to light until well after their demise. One wonders if it will take the fall of the American Empire to uncover the full extent of Washington's war crimes."