Does the Iraqi Resistance Target Civilians?

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Monday April 18, 2005 12:11

by Yoshie

While it is clear that the US and coalition forces have been killing more civilians than combatants and that more civilians have been killed by the US and coalition forces than by guerrillas, questions stilll remain.

First of all, do Iraqi guerrillas themselves in fact attack more civilians than combatants, as the corporate media regularly suggests?

To justify its continuing occupation of Iraq, Washington has endeavored to portray itself as the selfless protector of the Iraqi people who are menaced by ruthless terrorists. The corporate media has obliged Washington, by creating an impression that most guerrilla attacks target Iraqi civilians and that most Iraqi civilian casualties are caused by guerrillas, not by US and other coalition troops and Iraqi soldiers and policemen trained by them. A good example of the corporate media's portrayal of the casualties of the Iraq War is Adriana Lins de Albuquerque and Alicia Cheng's op-chart "14 Days in Iraq" that was run in the New York Times.

Lins de Albuquerque's introduction to the chart asserts: "In the first two weeks of January, at least 202 people died as a result of the insurgency in Iraq. The killings have been indiscriminate." As Dave Lindorff notes, however, the chart conceals more than it reveals, as it admittedly "does not include Iraqi civilians accidentally killed by coalition forces," and the US and coalition troops have been killing civilians at "a rate both higher than the rate they are being killed by insurgents and higher than the rate that the U.S. forces have been killing insurgents."

Indeed, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Health's statistics, "operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis -- most of them civilians -- as attacks by insurgents." A Lancet study published last November confirms the ministry's findings: "Violent deaths were widespread . . . and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children."6 That is not surprising, given the sheer quantity of firepower at the US military's disposal, which even the most sophisticated guerrilla force cannot match.

While it is clear that the US and coalition forces have been killing more civilians than combatants and that more civilians have been killed by the US and coalition forces than by guerrillas, questions stilll remain.

First of all, do Iraqi guerrillas themselves in fact attack more civilians than combatants, as the corporate media regularly suggests?

FULL TEXT (with charts and endnotes):
http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/04/casualties-of-colonial-wars-kenya-and.html

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Does the Iraqi Resistance Target Civilians?