It is sad that a significant number of Iraqi civilians have been killed by US forces during the war on and occupation of Iraq. But doesn’t this number, after all, pale in comparison to the number of innocent Iraqis killed by the ousted tyrant Saddam Hussein in mass graves and prisons?

Commenting on the possibility of the death of Iraqi civilians as a result of the then impending war on Iraq, on March 5, former CENTCOM Commander Army General Tommy Franks said, “While we can reduce the variables, we also recognize that a very ruthless regime that sits in Baghdad will make his own decisions about where to position the lives of his own people.”

The question is: does the fact that Saddam wiped out (and if he had still been in power, he would have probably continued to wipe out) thousands of Iraqis justify thousands more killed by US forces? Is it acceptable to kill a few thousand civilians to prevent the death of thousands more at the hands of Saddam?

Last week in the Iraqi town of Samarra, US forces claimed they killed 54 Iraqis in pursuit of anti-occupation/resistance fighters – or “terrorists,” as US officials and mainstream media label them. These “terrorists,” it is argued, hinder the reconstruction of Iraq, whereas the US is sincere in its efforts, efforts exerted for the sake of Iraqis and a free Iraq. “The lives and freedom of the Iraqi people matter little to Saddam Hussein, but they matter greatly to us,” Bush once said.

But how can the US assert it has genuine concerns for Iraq, its reconstruction and its people, while US troops continue to kill Iraqi citizens? The Associated Press (AP) news agency reported that “many residents said the Americans opened fire at random when they came under attack, and targeted civilian installations.” News reports and interviews with Samarra’s residents suggest that the victims of the US operation there were mostly civilians, not guerillas.

In the context of its “war on terror,” the US went to war in Iraq. Two years earlier, a war was waged in Afghanistan. US forces are still present in both countries, purportedly to ensure that terrorism is eradicated.

A few days ago, nine children were “mistakenly” killed in Afghanistan when a US plane blasted them to death as they were playing with a ball. The US was in fact targeting a former Taliban chief; i.e. the warplane was targeting a suspected “terrorist” when it killed children “by accident.” And the US officially “apologized” for the tragedy, didn’t it? Today, however, the US military said its forces in Afghanistan killed six more children during a raid on suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Is it acceptable to sacrifice thousands of innocent lives in Afghanistan and Iraq for a great and noble cause – cracking down on terrorists and eradicating terrorism? If this is the logic behind the US’s wars, isn’t this also the same logic behind “terrorist” attacks? The terrorists’ goal is not killing civilians per se; they argue that they sacrifice lives in order to achieve ends that they consider to be noble. For them, the ends justify the means. Similarly, US officials argue that they have a righteous mission to accomplish in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is why they are forced to accept the loss of some civilian lives in their quest of their goals. In that sense, what is the difference between terrorists and US forces?

The graves of the Afghan children killed in a US blast on December 7

On March 26, US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks was asked for a body count regarding a specific battle in Iraq. He answered, “As a matter of practice, we just aren’t going to announce numbers of casualties.” On a similar occasion, General Tommy Franks stated, “We don’t do body counts.” Does that mean that we may never know the number of Iraqis killed during the war and occupation, since the US forces in Iraq “don’t do body counts” of Iraqis – though, according to a Human Rights Watch report, US Coalition authorities “keep meticulous records of soldiers killed in duty, providing daily accounts to the press?”

London-based Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, issued a report that concluded that between 21,000 and 55,000 people have died as a result of the US-led invasion of Iraq and in its aftermath. In the absence of official body counts, “the final toll will probably never be known,” the report concluded.

Moreover, The Guardian reported (October 29) that, according to a study produced by the Project on Defence Alternatives, a research institute from Cambridge, Massachussets, from 3,200 to 4,200 Iraqi civlians “died in the first days of America’s invasion and ocucpation of Iraq,” which defies “the reasoning that precision-guided weapons spare civilian lives,” The Guardian said. In fact, US and British spokespersons formally acknowledged coalition forces’ use of cluster bombs, napalm and depleted uranium – inherently indiscriminate weapons – in Iraq.

In addition, Iraq Body Count, an independent website that keeps a record of media-reported Iraqi civilian deaths caused directly by coalition forces, states that a minimum of 7935 Iraqi civilians have been killed as of December 10, 2003. Furthermore, an investigation carried out by the Associated Press (AP) news agency revealed that at least 3240 Iraqi civilians were killed in the period between March 20 and April 20, 2003.

As for Afghanistan, the number of Afghan civilians killed in US bombings has far surpassed the death toll of the September 11 attacks. “In July last year, American forces killed at least 48 civilians when a stray bomb hit a civilian area in the southern province of Uruzgan,” BBC News reported (December 7, 2003).

Regardless, it must be made clear that the killing of Afghan and Iraqi civlians in anti-occuation/resistance operations is not, at any rate, acceptabe.

In any case, Iraq and Afghanistan are supposed to have been “liberated.” The US waged war on those two countries and is now occupying them to bring them “democracy” and “freedom.” Iraqis and Afghans are now theoretically “free.” But one last question remains to be asked: is the right to freedom more basic than the right to life?

Sara Khorshid is staff writer for IslamOnline. She holds a BA in Political Science from Cairo University. You can reach her at sarakhorshid@islam-online.net.

The articles posted on this page reflect solely the opinions of the authors. Views Archive Advanced Search Views & Analyses