Vicious circles

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1958/1/

Vicious circles
Written by Paul J. Balles
Wednesday, 11 July 2007



Coalition forces in Iraq kill 100 "insurgents." Families, friends and acquaintances of the 100 dead insurgents become 200 new insurgents, fighting to avenge the first insurgents' deaths.

More troops join the occupation in "surges" needed to deal with the rebellion. More rebels get killed "out of necessity" to protect the occupation. That produces even more new insurgents.

The leaders of the coalition forces are either too idiotic to recognise that they are responsible for the increasing insurgency or they know it well and have a pathological desire to murder.

Juan Cole, the most visible American Middle East scholar, summarised it in a particularly vivid comment: "The US misadventure in Iraq is responsible (in a little over three years) for setting off the killing of twice as many civilians as Saddam managed to polish off in 25 years."

David Brown, writing for the Washington Post said: "A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred."

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