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Monday, January 5, 2004

Number Of Lives Saved By Being In Iraq!

NoBody Count
By UML Guy
January 02, 2004 (08:30 PM)
Announcing... The Blog o'RAM NoBody Count!

I was curious just how many people Saddam and his buddies had killed during their 25 year reign. After a lot of digging, I found State Department reports that showed the following:

From IRAQ: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - Leaders as Executioners

2040 deaths

Executed opponents and suspected potential rivals, including scores of high-level government officials and thousands of political prisoners.
1070000 deaths

The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead.
1000 deaths

Ordered the invasion and destruction of Kuwait in 1990-91 with 1,000 Kuwaitis killed.
60000 deaths

Directed the 1991 bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi'a insurgencies in northern and southern Iraq with at least 30,000 to 60,000 killed.
7000 deaths

Periodically ordered during 1988-99 mass prison executions of several thousand inmates ("prison cleansing").
20000 deaths

Known as Saddam's "Shi'a thug", he violently suppressed the 1991 Shi'a uprisings after the Gulf War with tens of thousands killed.
From Saddam's Brutality Against the Iraqi People

100000 deaths

The campaign resulted in the death of at least 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, according to Human Rights Watch reports.
2000 deaths

During the 1991 Iraqi repression of the post-Gulf war Kurdish insurrection, thousands of Iraqi Kurds died, 500,000 became refugees along northern Iraq's "no-fly zone" bordering Turkey, and 1.2 to 1.4 million other refugees fled to Iran.
For good measure, I checked for data on refugees as well:

From War Crimes


900000 refugees

The Iraqi government's campaign of forced deportations of Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern Iraq has created approximately 900,000 internally displaced citizens throughout the country.
From Saddam's Brutality Against the Iraqi People

1900000 refugees

During the 1991 Iraqi repression of the post-Gulf war Kurdish insurrection, thousands of Iraqi Kurds died, 500,000 became refugees along northern Iraq's "no-fly zone" bordering Turkey, and 1.2 to 1.4 million other refugees fled to Iran.
From Destroying the Marshes

240000 refugees

By 1993 the marshes sheltered 200,000 to 250,000 inhabitants — more than half Marsh Arabs; the rest various internally displaced persons and oppositionists. Today, nearly all are displaced — less than 10,000 Marsh Arabs still survive the regime's systematic destruction, bulldozing, and artillery bombardments, while thousands were secretly executed by Iraqi forces, including women and children.
From Invading Kuwait

1500000 refugees

It is estimated that 1.5 million people were displaced abroad by Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, while the remaining 750,000 endured brutalities, oppression, torture, and more than 1,000 were killed.
So a reasonable read of these numbers shows that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was responsible for the deaths of 1.26 million Iraqis and other Arabs, and for the creation of 4.54 million refugees. That is what we're stopping in Iraq.

Next, the mathematician in me said, "Those numbers are too big to grasp. Let's break them down to something I can comprehend." Finally, I decided to turn them into daily averages. The result: 138 Iraqis and other Arabs killed per day, and 497 refugees created. That is what we're stopping in Iraq.

And that, finally, led me to this calculation: on average, how many Iraqi and Arab lives have we saved so far? With an average of 138 lives saved per day since March 20, 2003, the answer today is 39744. I call this The NoBody Count, for two reasons:

1. Thanks to our brave troops, there are no new bodies in The Mass Graves.

2. If you listen to the partisan hacks, these lives saved don't count. They're NoBodies.

But you know, I'll bet they think they're not NoBodies. Their families don't think they're NoBodies. So let's keep counting those NoBodies. They're important.




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