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Have not heard a peep, so perhaps Helen Fein did not pass on my resupply to Garfield and the
listserv for the Int. Assoc. of Genocide Scholars as she promised (at least I thought she did).
Hence I'm sending this to CASI for the comments of the fine folks on that listserv.
I should mention that this quarrel began with my resignation from the Int. Assoc. of
Genocide Scholars ("IAGS is lie in which I can no longer participate"). IAGS can't seem to
recognize that the "thining out of the Native American" constituted nothing less than genocide and
the IAGS fact published in its newsletter a rather incredible article (without anyfootnotes, if
memory serves) blaming all the horrors of suffering in Iraq on one guy, S.H. -- the U.S. got off
as innocent as the given snow --- sanctions and all. Finally the IAGS claims to be working to
prevent genocides and other large scale slaughters but in point of fact, like the National Holocaus
Museum, it can see to work up any indignation real about large scale slaughers, even
blatent ones like East Timor when they are committed by the U.S. or its allies and subcontractors.
This to me was the last straw, since with Iraqi infants slaughtered by the decision to put
maximum priority on looting oil compared with the modest, though real, but far lower priority on
providing adequate safe water and treatment even to infants most vulnerable to waterborne disease.
As you can see I'm continuing me experiment in taking a direct approach rather than the soft
polite whispered critique -- hell the kids are dying and we've had little success in saving them. I
believe trying other, through nonviolent, approaches is warrented.
" Tom Nagy, Ph.D." wrote:
> Dear Good People (I trust that Helen will honor what I take to be her commitment to forward this
>email to her list),
>
> Here is my immediate response to Richard Garfield. Perhaps it is not 100% right; I do not
>claim infallibility, but it represents my best estimate of the situation based on such evidence as
>the US/UK occupiers have allowed to be collected and published and my brief research in Baghdad in
>October 2002 in which I attempted to collect data for a unit weight estimation scheme to
> forecast
> the number of fatalities if the U.S. reinvaded. I also went, as did a number of old pacifists, to
>interpose themselves at Article 54 sites, indispensable for the survival of civilians and as such
>never, under any circumstances permitted to be attacked or rendered useless. [Protocol Additional
>One, Article 54, the Geneva Convention.]
>
> As genocide scholars, how can we support the alerts and warnings of the National Holocaust
>Museum while ignoring, and by our silence denying the crimes our government continues to commit
>in our names against even the infants of Iraq? These infants fall under the special protected
>category in international law to which the U.S. is subject. Surely killing even more of
> "their infants" does not safeguard our infants or those of our allies, but rather puts at great
>risk all infants. How dare we NOT err on the side of caution, particularly in light of the
>history of the U.S., which was founded on genocide, which tragically the IAGS refuses to
>recognize. I don't believe the word "Iraq" appears in a single title in the current IAGS
>conference. I
> thought such self censorship existed only in frank dictatorships. I was plainly wrong.
>
> Sadly Richard is catching up with the NYT -- no verifiable sources, just data pulled from the
>ether or else he's too modest to tell us the precise source of his data though he alludes to WHO.
>
> If you dare to see for yourself the the epidemiological surveillance data which the US/UK
>occupying power has permitted the World Health Organization and UNICEF to gather, go to
>
> http://www.who.int/disasters/country.cfm?countryID=28&doctypeID=5
>
> which provides this information. In addition there are scores of statement from WHO, UNICEF and
>NGO's of the caliber of Oxfam, and Care, Inc. of the dire conditions in Iraq. Conditions, Dr.
>Richard should not be surprised to learn were exacerbated by the massive invasion and its
>inevitable aftermath, given the priority of the US/UK: save the oil for looting and don't worry
> excessively about anything else except possibly force protection of the US/UK militaries.
>
> Let me try to understand Richard's reasoning. First, the US/UK overruns Iraq after doing
>their best to demolish what had been a good water treatment system and a good medical delivery
>system first with bombing (See Rizer in the USAF Journal "Air and Space Power Chronicles,
>Contributors Corner, May 2001 in which he uses the estimates of 100,000 dead civilians and a
> doubling of infant mortality rate arising from the US destruction of the electrical supply which
>produced the inevitable epidemic of waterborne diseases.
>
> Tragically, as tragically as Richard's and Helen's and the IAGS's silence on U.S. war
>crimes, Rizer concludes the bombing was ethical, legal and in conformity with AF doctrine. The
>last is true -- see "Strategic Attack" 2-1.2, 1998. Both are available from military sites on the
>internet. Read, weep and take any nonviolent action which will end this abomination.
>
> Next using the most comprehensive sanctions in history from 1990 to 2003 under the fig leaf
>of the UN, the US/UK 2003 and using such devises as prohibiting cash payments in Iraq except in
>the 3 favored Northern governates groomed to attack the Baghdad regime prevented the rebuilding of
>either the health system or the water treatment system. See my work at
> home.gwu.edu/~nagy which I tested at two session of the DOD's JSCOPE, at the Karolinska Institute
>and at the IAGS in MN.
> There was considerable support and no refutation beyond Helen's clippings from the New York Time
>and a Dr. at the Karolinska who said I should be more detached. He found himself alone in his
>criticism after I asked if Dr. John Snow was wrong to emotionally rip the handle off the Broad
>Street Pump thereby ending the cholera epidemic in London in the 1850s.
>
> Next Richard faults UNICEF for having to estimate disease incidence. This is pathetic. It
>reminds me of Richard berating the Iraqi women at an EPIC session for:
>
> 1) not breast feeding -- leaving aside the dire nutritional status of even pregnant women arising
>from the grossly inadequate food basket provided by Oil for Food -- artfully and lethally
>negotiated by the US. To appreciate the horror of the imposed decline in nutritional status, see
>the decades of nutritional surveys in Iraq by Dr. Peter Pellett as published by the Food
> and Agricultural Agency of the UN.
>
> 2) not pairing successful moms with moms whose children were dying. Not a bad idea, except in
>such extreme situations of long duration. I asked Dr. Garfield from the floor and in private,
>if he would have suggested this scheme at Nazi death camps as well as about items 1 and 3, but he
>declined to respond.
>
> 3) for building a sophisticated health system when Iraq had control of its oil revenue, rather
>than building a primary prevention oriented public health system. Great idea, but what country on
>earth has ever done this when it came into possession of wealth?
>
> Dr. Garfield is an intelligent person who did some pioneering work on the effects of sanctions.
>His conversion to the U.S. government line is tragic, because the U.S. government line is
>manifestly wrong and by killing continuing to kill Iraqi children by placing such a low priority
>on providing safe water (relative to looting the oil) the US/UK endangers all infants including
> their own and those of their allies. When the IAGS reverses direction and dares attack policies
>of the U.S. government which assure a huge increase in dead or permanently damaged infants, it
>will redeem itself and the U.S., possible. It will certainly cause me to rejoin.
>
> best and Om mani padme hum,
> tom
>
> p.s. In view of the magnitude of the stakes involved and the prior publication of a totally
>unsourced claim that the entire fault of the huge toll of death and disease was, miabilae dictu,
>the sole fault of S.H., I ask that this reply and Richard's original piece which provoked it be
>published in the newsletter of the IAGS. I trust that Richard will stand by his claims and
> not object to their publication.
>
> pps It boggles the mind to think that any epidemiologist could suggest that large scale invasion
>of any country, even one whose resources were not in extremis after more than decade of sanctions
>and, inter alia, bombing would not suffer horrific increase in physical and psychological
>mortality and morbidity. May God forgive us all.
>
> tom
>
>
>
> garfier27@juno.com wrote:
>
> > Tom asks for solid evidence to refute his claim of genocide, not a NY Times article.
> >
> > Yet he invents evidence to make the claim.
> >
> > Re his statement that cholera is epidemic, see the actual WHO data,as of 2 days ago:
> >
> > Cholera Cases and Deaths Reported, C/S. 1998 - 2002
> > Year Cases Deaths
> > 1998 53 1
> > 1999 1985 30
> > 2000 532 4
> > 2001 560 0
> > 2002 718 0
> > 2003 84+ 0
> >
> > It shows that there is less cholera this year, due most likely to rapid agressive treatment
>treatment and case-finding.
> >
> > On the statement that there is a "250% rise in diarrhea" cases,
> >
> > the statement is from UNICEF, which is putting in its situation reports a finger-to-the-wind
>quess that there is double the number of cases. No system of case reporting exists in Iraq to find
>anything like the precision of '250%'. It is not clear at all if the rise is artifactual as data
>collection is quite limited right now and this comes simply from clinical impression.
> >
> > There is a rise in mortality among children in Iraq, from gunshot wounds and unexploded
>ordinance. There is no evidence to suggest that mortality has risen, or fallen, from water born
>diseases.
> >
> > Please share
> >
> > Richard Garfield
> >
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