PRLog (Press Release) –
A PUBLIC CALL FOR WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATION - AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS, PARLIAMENT, AND U.S. CONGRESS
In light of the John Hopkins report claiming over 650,000 Iraqi civilian casualties from the last two U.S. invasions and current occupation, and President Bush's dismissal of same as "not credible"", we publicly call upon the United Nations, Parliament, and U.S. Congress to assign a bi-partisan team of House and Senate investigators as well as the United Nations and Parliament, to launch a war crimes commissions to ascertain the truth. Even the 30,000 Iraqi casualties that Mr. Bush admits is unacceptable. This number is more than ten times the number of civilians killed on 9/11! The volunteer staff of Veteran Organ Donors International has reviewed credible information from both the Red Crescent and Arab League that indicate at least 8,000 Iraqi children were killed and another 13,000 maimed for life. Further, because of extensive use of radioactive depleted uranium ordinance by the U.S. military, the leukemia rate in Iraqi children has almost doubled over the last ten years. In our opinion, this is criminal, especially when the U.S. military spends billions of dollars on "smart bombs" and "GPS guided missiles" and "laser technology" all of which we are told provide for surgical precision strikes. We were further told by eye witnesses that civilianIraqi mothers and wives of "suspected insurgents" were kidnapped in early-morning raids by U.S. forces and then held as hostage until their sonsor husbands surrendered themselves. Thousands of innocent Iraqi families are being terrorized and traumatized for life. If this is not an issue to be addressed by the United Nations, Parliament, and U.S. Congress then what is? The huge discrepancy between the civilian fatality figures cited by President Bush and the Hopkins! Report is too large to ignore especially after one spendsonly ten minutes at the well-documented web site www.IraqBodyCount.net. As with the case of those invisible "Weapons of Mass Destruction"
we sincerely believe Mr. Bush is misleading us once again. Considering that the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein is alleged to have killed approximately 100,000 civilians over his 27 year reign, and American troops have killed more than triple this number of Iraqi civilians in the last ten years alone (with billions of our tax money no less) it would seem nothing less than fair and just to prosecute those responsible for all the civilian deaths with the same zeal and vigor of the Saddam Hussein trials. With all these civilian deaths, it is not difficult to understand the growing "insurgency: which may just be ordinary family members seeking revenge for the death of their children or parents against the foreign invaders that killed them. If the roles were reversed, we are confident American citizens would respond in much the same way and be called "patriots" for their efforts to repel the occupation forces by any means necessary. In retrospect, it is far more than peculiar that we know exactly how many U.S. and British soldiers have been killed but cannot provide an Iraqi casualty count with the same accuracy. Congress must ascertain exactly why our forces in the Gulf received direct orders NOT to conduct body counts. This deliberate omission itself is highly suspect and needs to be fully explored and explained by independent parties outside the U.S. government. It appears to us that in the eyes of the Bush administration, the value of an Iraqi civilian life is greatly discounted ($1,500 per body is the going compensation rate for wrongful death paid by the U.S. government to Iraqi families of the deceased) and insignificant compared to that of a fallen soldier. On the contrary, we remind everyone that soldiers are paid to put themselves into harm's way and know the risks and consequences of their actions. Civilians, especially children are totally innocent with no interest nor political agendas in the conflict. We recall the wisdom of Pope John Paul II when he said "The greatest sin is ofren indifference". Anyone who kills children or unarmed civilians, under any premise or pretense are in our opinion, war criminals and must be sought out and prosecuted without delay. Selective justice cannot remain the status quo in America nor Iraq or we are all just living a great big lie that we call a "democracy", but in reality has become a manipulative oligarchy that conveniently conceals the truth from "we the people" whenever political positions are endangered. It was Adolf Hitler himself who suggested, "an ignorant populace is far easier to influence and
control". SUBMITTED BY: Bruce A. Gorcyca, Chairman
