"Huge cost of US-Israel State Terrorism"
by Gideon Polya
MEDIA WITH CONSCIENCE
On the Web at:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/8655/26
ANOTHER BIG LIE has been recently revealed by George Monbiot who has written an incisive analysis in the UK Guardian “Comment is Free” entitled “Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hezbullah, right? Wrong”.
According to Monbiot “The assault on Lebanon was premeditated - the soldiers' capture simply provided the excuse. It was also unnecessary … A "senior Israeli official" told the Washington Post that the raid by Hezbullah provided Israel with a "unique moment" for wiping out the organisation. The New Statesman's editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the US government knew in advance of Israel's intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government. Israel's assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse … the suggestion that Hezbullah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous.” ( see: HERE
).
This Big Lie is also revealed by the horrendous disparity of the outcomes of Israel’s War in response to “3 kidnapped Israeli soldiers”. According to a summation by the UK Independent newspaper (8 August, 2006): 29 Lebanese Army soldiers have been killed, about 1,000 Lebanese killed, 3,293 wounded; 45 per cent of casualties are children; 913,000 Lebanese have been displaced (1/3 are children ) VERSUS 94 Israelis killed and 1,867 wounded. There has been huge infrastructure damage to Lebanon: $2 billion in damage; 146 bridges and 72 roads destroyed; and release of 30,000 tons of oil from an Israeli air strike has created the Mediterranean's worst environmental catastrophe. Lebanon is being devastated by bombing and shelling (see: here ).
And all this “ostensibly” over “3 kidnapped Israeli soldiers”. The reality is a deliberate US-Israeli State Terrorist (USIST) War for US and Israeli Middle East hegemony: oil, water, and geopolitics (for the US), water sources, lebensraum, and Palestinian and Lebanese genocide (for Israel), and possible genocidal escalation to include destruction of Syria and Iran - countries presently at peace but under acute threat from America.
The scary thing about this latest US-sanctioned Israeli War is that it is deliberate and deliberately “unforgivable”, involving as it does the remorseless, cold-blooded destruction of 2 whole countries (Lebanon and Palestine). The big bonus for US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST) is hatred and continued, if demonstrably relatively ineffective, Indigenous Arab "terror" responses which are used via complicit, racist Western Media as a "justification" for continued foreign occupation of Arab lands and horrendous, genocidal USIST violence against defenseless Women and Children.
The US-backed Israelis now say that they will continue the war for another month. But what will be the human cost?
In terms of deaths of Palestinians and Lebanese (50% Children and 75% Women and Children) the present circa 1,200 deaths is just the beginning – downstream there will be a horrendous death toll due to the destruction of life-sustaining economies and civil infrastructure (water supply, sanitation, clinics, hospitals, communications, transport, roads, bridges and transport).
There will be an estimated 44,000 Lebanese plus Palestinian “annual avoidable deaths” if these countries are bombed and shelled to a "UK-US-occupied Iraq scenario", as calculated below from the latest UNICEF comparative infant mortality and population data.
Under-5 infant mortality figures are presented in updated UNICEF reports for essentially every country in the world - it is only a click away, and tells us the following: in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 122,000 in Occupied Iraq, 359,000 in Occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the occupying country Australia (noting that in 2004 the populations of these countries were 28.1 million, 28.6 million and 19.9 million, respectively). In contrast, in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 2,000 in Lebanon (population 3.5 million) and 3,000 in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (population 3.6 million). The total population of Lebanon plus the Occupied Palestinian Territory is 3.5 million + 3.6 million = 7.1 million.
It must be appreciated that “under-5 infant deaths” in Third World countries are about 90% avoidable but “avoidable under-5 infant deaths” represent only about 60% of “total avoidable mortality” (excess mortality, mortality that should not happen), which is defined as the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics. Exhaustive analysis of global avoidable mortality instructs that for Third World countries “under-5 infant mortality” is about 0.7 of the “total avoidable mortality” (see “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”, MWC News ).
If Lebanon and Palestine are bombed “back to the Stone Age” as promised by a senior Israeli government official in 2002 (for Israeli adumbration of the present atrocities ), then Lebanon and Palestine would be reduced to a “UK-US-Coalition occupied Iraq scenario” or indeed to a “UK-US-Coalition-NATO-occupied Afghanistan scenario”. 
On the basis of the 2004 figures, if Lebanon and Palestine are bombed to a "UK-US-occupied Iraq scenario" then the “annual under-5 infant deaths” will total 122,000 x 7.1/28.1 = 30,826, this corresponding to an “annual avoidable mortality” of 30,826/0.7 = 44,037 i.e. about 44,000. If Lebanon and Palestine are bombed to a "UK-US-occupied Afghanistan scenario" then the “annual under-5 infant deaths” will total 359,000 x 7.1/28.6 = 89,122 corresponding to an “annual avoidable mortality” of 89,122/0.7 = 127,318 i.e. about 127,000.
The continued civilian-targeting and infrastructure bombing by racist, war criminal US-Israeli State Terrorists (USISTs; US planes, tanks, bombs and shells and Israeli military “just obeying orders”) is set to cause horrendous “annual avoidable deaths” of over 44,000 annually. The US is still blocking World demands for a ceasefire and USIST remains resolute in preventing Peace (or even “interim Peace”) with Equality, Justice and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
The only sensible course for the Civilized World involves immediate International Boycotts and Sanctions ("free market choice" in all areas of human activity) against racist, war criminal US-Israeli State Terrorists (USISTs) and against all the countries, corporations and individuals supporting US and Israeli war crimes in the Middle East. Such Sanctions and Boycotts were ultimately successful against the similarly racist and violent Israel- and US-backed Apartheid regime in South Africa.
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Dr Gideon Polya, MWC News Chief political editor, published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality ---
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