Global Avoidable Mortality

Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950 (2008 lecture)

2008-08-13T04:33:00.000-07:00

BODY COUNT. Global avoidable mortality since 1950 (2008 lecture)– Dr Gideon Polya

This is a detailed set of notes for a July 2008 lecture in Melbourne on the book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” by Gideon Polya (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007). For further details of the book see:

http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .

i. Definition. For a country in a given period, excess death (avoidable death, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that should not have happened) is the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics.

ii. Methodology. UN Population Division provides detailed demographic data for essentially every country in the world since 1950 – population, death rate, birth rate, population breakdown, under-5 infant mortality rate.

(a) Using this data, for each country in pentades (5 year periods) from 1950-2005 and then sum for these countries, regions and the World for this period one can calculate Total Deaths (Mortality, MORT), Under-5 infant deaths (Infant Mortality, IM) and Avoidable deaths (Excess Mortality, EM) (see (ix), Tables 1 and 2).

(b) While calculation of Mortality and Infant Mortality is straightforward arithmetic, estimation of Excess Deaths (Actual Deaths minus Expected Deaths for a decently-run society with the same demographics) involves a complicated estimation of the baseline of Expected Deaths.

(c ) Under-5 Infant deaths are about 0.7 of Excess Deaths for impoverished Third World countries – this allowing ready rough estimation of Excess Deaths for such countries by laypersons from UNICEF and UN Population Division data for infant mortality (see: “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).

iii. Comparisons. In order to compare Mortality, Infant Mortality and Excess Mortality in the period 1950-2005 it is necessary to normalize the data by dividing by the populations involved. There are various ways in which this can be done – in Table 1 I have used 1950-2005 Mortality/2005 population = “MORT/POP (%); 1950-2005 Excess Mortality/2005 Population = EM/POP (%); and 1950-2005 Infant Mortality/ 2005 Population = IM/POP (%).

(a) 1950-2005 Mortality/2005 population = MORT/POP (%) is roughly the same for all regions (range 31-55%; World average 42%). We all have to die.

(b) 1950-2005 Excess Mortality/2005 Population = EM/POP (%) increases from 2.7% (Overseas Europe = North America, Australasia and Israel) to 43.2% (Non-Arab Africa); Europe average 5.0%, Non-Europe average 23.3%, World average 20.2%.

(c) Notable country data: Netherlands 0%, Australia 2.9%, East Timor 81.0%, Sierra Leone 85.2% i.e. at an East Timorese wedding in 2005 with 100 guests 81 could be allotted the burden and trauma of 1 avoidable 1950-2005 avoidable death - relate this to YOUR family, to any recent wedding YOU have attended.

(d) 1950-2005 Infant Mortality/ 2005 Population = IM/POP (%) increases from 1.5% (Overseas Europe) to 27.3% (Non-Arab Africa); Europe average 2.2%, non—Europe average 15.9%, World average 13.6%; the independently estimated infant mortality data closely reflect the excess mortality data.

(e) The 1950-2005 excess mortality [and independently estimated 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality data in square brackets] totals are 1,303 million [878 million] (the World); 1,248 million [853 million] (the non-European World]; 55 million [25 million] (the European World); and 0.6 BILLION [0.4 BILLION] (the Muslim World) – a Third World Holocaust and a Muslim Holocaust 100 times greater than the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) or the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengali Holocaust, the man-made 1943-1945 Bengal Famine in which the British deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death in Bengal and the adjoining provinces of Assam, Orissa and Bihar (see the January 2008 BBC broadcast involving me, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ).

(f) These estimates are resolutely ignored by Mainstream media, politicians and academia in a continuing process of holocaust ignoring i.e. functional holocaust denial.

iv. Occupation and mass avoidable mortality. Humans have evolved altruism towards the young in family groups (as cogently discussed in “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins) but that altruism falls off as you move to humans further away from family and tribe. Indeed our chimpanzee cousins perpetrate horrific attacks on fellow chimpanzees violating their tribal territory. As the data below indicates, Foreign Occupation is a major contributor to avoidable mortality – foreign rulers do not have the same intrinsic regard for their conquered subjects as indigenous rulers.

The horrific consequences of the pre-Invasion Sanctions on Iraqi infant mortality are revealed by UN Population Division data for Iraq and its impoverished but mostly un-occupied and peaceful neighbour Syria (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ ). Back in about 1950 the "under-5 infant deaths per 1,000 births" in newly-independent, post-European colonialism Iraq and Syria was a catastrophic 200; by 1990 (with both countries under Ba'athist dictatorships) it had dramatically fallen to about 50 and 44, respectively; after the US-UK-Israeli bombing and Sanctions began in 1990, this rate doubled rapidly in Iraq but kept declining in peaceful and only partially Israeli-occupied Syria; NOW it is 105 for "US-liberated", oil-rich Occupied Iraq and 18 for impoverished, resource-poor, Ba'athist dictatorship Syria.

The summary data provided below is of post-1950 excess mortality/ 2005 population (both in millions, m) and expressed as a percentage (%); this ratio is given for each major Occupier, for each country occupied and as a total for all the countries subject to a particular Occupier post-1945. The asterisk (*) below indicates a major occupation by more than one country in the post-WW2 era (thus I have listed only the UK and the US as major occupiers of Afghanistan, Iraq and Korea, leaving aside the many other minor participants in these conflicts).

Australia [0.587m/20.092m = 2.9%] - Papua New Guinea [2.091m/5.959m = 35.1%], Solomon Islands* [0.050m/0.504m = 9.9%], total = 2.141m/6.463m = 33.1%

Belgium [0.749m/10.359m = 7.2%] - Burundi [4.097m/7.319m = 56.0%], Congo (Zaire) [26.677m/56.079m = 47.6%], Rwanda [5.190m/8.607m = 60.3%], total = 35.964m/72.005m = 49.9%

Ethiopia* [36.133m/74.189m = 48.7%] - (Eritrea* [1.757m/4.456m = 39.4%], total = 1.757m/4.456m = 39.4%

France [3.275m/60.711m = 5.4%] - Algeria [7.167m/32.877m =21.8%], Benin [3.267m/7.103m = 46.0%], Burkina Faso [6.810m/13.798m = 49.4%], Cambodia* [5.852m/14.825m = 39.5%], Cameroon* [6.669m/16.564m = 40.3%], Central African Republic [2.274m/3.962m =57.4%], Chad [5.085m/9.117m = 55.8%], Comoros [0.204m/0.812m =25.1%], Congo (Brazzaville) [1.085m/3.921m = 27.7%], Côte d’Ivoire [6.953m/17.165m = 40.5%], Djibouti [0.265m/0.721m = 36.8%], Egypt* [19.818m/74.878m = 26.5%], French Guiana [0.010m/0.187m = 5.3%], French Polynesia [0.018m/0.252m = 7.1%], Gabon [0.504m/1.375m = 36.7%], Guadeloupe [0.025m/0.446m = 5.6%], Guinea [5.185m/8.788m = 59.0%], Haiti* [4.089m/8.549m = 47.9%], Laos* [2.653m/5.918m = 44.8%], Madagascar [7.098m/18.409m = 38.6%], Mali [6.808m/13.829m = 49.2%], Martinique [0.022m/0.397m = 5.5%], Mauritania [1.294m/3.069m = 42.2%], Mauritius [0.064m/1.244m = 5.18], Morocco* [8.202m/31.564m = 26.0%], New Caledonia [0.017m/0.237m = 7.2%], Niger [6.558m/12.873m = 50.9%], Réunion [0.047m/0.777m = 6.0%], Senegal [4.457m/9.393m = 47.5%], Syria* [2.198m/18.650m = 11.8%], Togo [1.950m/5.129m = 38.0%], Tunisia [1.582m/10.042m =15.8%], Vanuatu* [0.037m/0.222m = 16.7%], Vietnam* [24.015m/83.585m = 28.7%], total = 142.291m/430.678m = 33.0%

Indonesia [71.521m/225.313 = 31.7%] - Timor Leste* [0.694m/0.857m = 81.0%] - total = 0.694m/0.857m = 81.0%

Iraq* [5.283m/26.555m = 19.9%] - Kuwait* [0.089m/2.671m = 3.3%], total = 0.089m/2.671m = 3.3%

Israel [0.095m/6.685m =1.4%] - Egypt* [19.818m/74.878m = 26.5%], Jordan* [0.630m/5.750m = 11.0%], Lebanon [0.535m/3.761m = 14.2%], Occupied Palestinian Territories* [0.677m/3.815m = 17.7%], Syria* [2.198m/18.650m = 11.8%], total = 23.858m/106.854 = 22.3%

Netherlands [0.0m/16.300m = 0%] - Indonesia [71.521m/225.313m = 31.7%], Netherlands Antilles [0.009m/0.224m = 3.9%], Suriname [0.039m/0.442m = 8.8%], total = 71.569m/225.979 = 31.7%

New Zealand [0.143m/3.932m = 3.6%] - Samoa [0.039m/0.182m = 21.4%], total = 0.039m/0.182m = 21.4%

Pakistan* [49.700m/161.151m = 30.8%] - Bangladesh*[51.196m/152.593m = 33.6%], total = 51.196m/152.593m = 33.6%

Portugal [0.429m/10.080m = 4.3%] - Angola [9.207m/14.533m = 63.4%], Cape Verde [0.099m/0.482m = 20.5%], Guinea-Bissau [0.945m/1.584m = 59.7%], Macao [0.036m/0.472m = 7.6%], Mozambique [12.462m/19.495m = 63.9%], São Tome and Príncipe [0.039m/0.169m = 23.1%], Timor Leste*[0.694m/0.857m = 81.0%], total = 23.482m/37.592 = 62.5%

Russia [11.897m/141.553m = 8.4%] - Afghanistan [16.609m/25.971m = 64.0%], Armenia [0.091m/3.043m = 3.0%], Azerbaijan [0.428m/8.527m = 5.0%], Belarus [0.375m/9.809m = 3.8%], Bulgaria [0.769m/7.763m = 9.9%], Czech Republic [1.087m/10.216m = 10.6%], Estonia [0.166m/1.294m = 12.8%], Georgia [0.281m/5.026m = 5.6%], Hungary [1.363m/9.784m = 13.9%], Kazakhstan [0.983m/15.364m = 6.4%], Kyrgyzstan [1.041m/5.278m = 19.7%], Latvia [0.288m/2.265m = 12.7%], Lithuania [0.143m/3.401m = 4.2%], Moldova [0.254m/4.259m = 6.0%], Mongolia [0.640m/2.667m = 24.0%], Poland [0.677m/38.516m = 1.8%], Romania [1.133m/22.228m = 5.1%], Slovakia [0.130m/5.411m = 2.4%], Tajikistan [0.924m/6.356m = 14.5%], Turkmenistan [0.817m/5.015m = 16.3%], Ukraine [5.279m/47.782m = 11.0%], Uzbekistan [3.585m/26.868m = 13.3%], total = 37.063m/266.843m = 13.9%

South Africa [13.534m/45.323m = 29.9%] - Namibia [0.672m/2.032m = 33.1%], total =

0.672m/2.032m = 33.1%

Spain [1.049m/41.184m = 2.5%] - Equatorial Guinea [0.305m/0.521m = 58.5%], Morocco* [8.202m/31.564m = 26.0%], Western Sahara [0.063m/0.324m = 19.4%], total = 8.570m/32.409m = 26.4%

Turkey [10.488m/73.302m = 14.3%] – Cyprus [0.054m/0.813m = 6.6%], total = 0.054m/0.813m = 6.6%

UK [4.411m/59.598m = 7.4%] - Afghanistan* [16.609m/25.971m = 64.0%], Bahamas [0.007m/0.321m = 2.3%], Bahrain [0.054m/0.754m = 7.2%], Bangladesh* [51.196m/152.593m = 33.6%], Barbados [0.015m/0.272m = 5.5%], Belize [0.014m/0.266m = 5.3%], Bhutan [0.908m/2.392m = 38.0%], Botswana [0.443m/1.801m = 24.6%], Brunei [0.020m/0.374m = 5.3%], Cameroon* [6.669m/16.564m = 40.3%], Cyprus [0.054m/0.813m = 6.6%]; Egypt* [19.818m/74.878m = 26.5%], Eritrea* [1.757m/4.456m = 39.4%], Ethiopia [36.133m/74.189m = 48.7%], Fiji [0.054m/0.854m = 6.3%], Gambia [0.606m/1.499m = 47.6%], Ghana [6.089m/21.833m = 27.9%], Greece* [0.027m/10.978m = 0.2%], Grenada* [0.018m/0.121m = 14.9%], Guyana [0.086m/0.768m = 11.2%], Hong Kong [0.125m/7.182m = 1.7%], India [351.900m/1096.917m = 32.1%], Iraq* [5.283m/26.555m = 19.9%], Israel [0.095m/6.685 = 1.4%], Jamaica [0.245m/2.701m =9.1%], Jordan* [0.630m/5.750m = 11.0%], Kenya [10.015m/32.849m = 30.5%], Korea* [7.958m/71.058m = 11.2%], Kuwait* [0.089m/2.671m = 3.3%], Lesotho [0.951m/1.797m =52.9%], Libya [0.785m/5.768m =13.6%], Malawi [6.976m/12.572m = 55.5%], Malaysia [2.344m/25.325m = 9.3%], Maldives [0.015m/0.338m = 4.4%], Malta [0.019m/0.397m = 4.8%], Myanmar [20.174m/50.696 = 39.8%], Nepal [10.650m/26.289m = 40.5%], Nigeria [49.737m/130.236m =38.2%], Occupied Palestinian Territories [0.677m/3.815m = 17.7%], Oman [0.359m/3.020m =11.9%], Pakistan [49.700m/161.151m = 30.8%], Qatar [0.029m/0.628m = 4.6%], Saint Lucia [0.012m/0.152m = 7.9%], Saint Vincent & Grenadines [0.018m/0.121m =14.9%], Sierra Leone [4.548m/5.340m = 85.2%], Singapore [0.113m/4.372m = 2.6%], Solomon Islands* [0.050m/0.504m = 48.5%], Somalia* [5.568m/10.742m =51.8%], Sri Lanka [0.951m/19.366m = 4.9%], Sudan [13.471m/35.040m = 38.4%], Swaziland [0.471m/1.087m = 43.3%], Tanzania [14.682m/38.365m =38.3%], Tonga [0.020m/0.106m = 18.9%], Trinidad & Tobago [0.052m/1.311m = 4.0%], Uganda [11.121m/27.623m = 40.3%], United Arab Emirates [0.087m/3.106m =2.8%], Vanuatu [0.037m/0.222m = 16.7%], Yemen [6.798m/21.480m = 31.6%], Zambia [5.463m/11.043m = 49.5%], Zimbabwe [4.653m/12.963m =35.9%], total = 727.448m/2247.711m = 32.4%

US [8.455m/300.038m = 2.8%] - Afghanistan* [16.609m/25.971m = 64.0%], Cambodia* [5.852m/14.825m = 39.5%], Dominican Republic [0.806m/8.998m = 9.0%], Federated States of Micronesia [0.016m/0.111m = 14.4%], Greece* [0.027m/10.978m = 0.2%], Grenada* [0.018m/0.121m = 14.9%], Guam [0.005m/0.168m = 3.0%], Haiti* [4.089m/8.549m = 47.9%], Iraq* [5.283m/26.555m = 19.9%], Korea* [7.958m/71.058m = 11.2%], Laos* [2.653m/5.918m = 44.8%], Panama [0.172m/3.235m = 5.3%], Philippines [9.080m/82.809m = 11.0%], Puerto Rico [0.039m/3.915m = 1.0%], Somalia* [5.568m/10.742m = 51.8%], US Virgin Islands [0.003m/0.113m = 2.4%], Vietnam* [24.015m/83.585m = 28.7%], total = 82.193m/357.651m = 23.0%

This catalogue of post-1950 avoidable mortality due to violent occupation can be roughly converted to post-1950 under-5 infant mortality by multiplying by a factor of about 0.7 (the ratio of post-1950 under-5 infant mortality to post-1950 avoidable mortality for the Third World). This data can be used to provide a relative impact statement (noting, of course, that there are various ways in which this kind of assessment could be made e.g. by considering excess mortality for only the period of occupation). This data, and indeed my book “Body Count” from which it is drawn, can be used as a quantitative addendum to William Blum’s horrific description of post-war US imperialism entitled “Rogue State”.

v. Human mortality and avoidable mortality throughout history. “Body Count” is a very useful resource for students and scholars – it contains a very detailed summary of the history of every country in the world since neolithic times together with brief details of major mortality events (e.g. the death tolls from the Black Death, major wars and famines, and the European conquest of other continents. Thus the avoidable deaths associated with the British occupation of India total about 0.6 billion (1757-1831), 0.5 billion (1831-1901, the reign of Queen Victoria) and 0.4 billion (1901-1947), a total of 1.5 billion avoidable deaths due to British racism and rapacity (see” Shocking, non-reported Commonwealth Games statistics”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5668/26/ ).

vi. Australian history of genocide. When Australians think of Australia and genocide they think of the Aboriginal Genocide and the so-called “History wars” between scholars who refer to the Aboriginal Genocide and those who dismiss this. Note that genocide is defined here following Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ): “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.

1. 18th-19th century Aboriginal Genocide (the Indigenous Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after invasion in 1788).

2. Tasmanian Aboriginal Genocide (the “full-blood” Indigenous population dropped from 6,000 to zero in 1803-1776; however there are several thousand “mixed race” decendants of Tasmanian and Mainland Aborigines still living in Tasmania today).

3. British-effected Indian Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.6 BILLION, 1757-1837; 0.5 BILLION, 1837-1901 under Queen Victoria; 0.4 BILLION, 1901-1947).

4. European-effected Chinese Genocide (10-100 million deaths in the European imperialism-driven Tai Ping rebellion period; Australia was involved in suppressing the Boxer rebellion).

5. Maori Genocide (Maori population dropped from 0.1-0.2 million in 1800 to 42,000 in 1893; Australia was involved in the 19th century Maori wars).

6. African Genocide (scores of million perished over 5 centuries of European slavery and colonialism; Australians participated in the Sudan War, 1881-1898).

7. Pacific Genocide (there was a catastrophic population decline due to introduced disease and slavery; thus 40,000 Fijians died from measles out of a population of 150,000 in 1876; “blackbirding” slavery was conducted by Australians in the late 19th century).

8. Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide (1899-1902; 28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps; Australians participated in the Boer War as immortalized in the movie “Breaker Morant”).

9. Armenian Genocide (1.5 million killed; the Australian invasion of Gallipoli as part of an Anglo-French force in 1915 helped to precipitate this atrocity; indeed April 24 is Armenian Genocide Day and April 25 is the day of the Australia invasion in 1915 and also a sacred war dead remembrance day for Australians and New Zealanders – it is called Anzac Day after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) which stormed ashore on that first Anzac Day at Gallipoli in 1915).

10. Bengali Genocide (6-7 million perished in the “forgotten” man-made Bengal Famine atrocity in Bengal and adjoining provinces in British India, 1943-1945; Australians were there and indeed the Governor of Bengal in 1944 was an Australian R.G. Casey).

11. British post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to British occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 727 million; Australia has the same Head of State as the UK and continues to be a loyal military ally of the UK in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan).

12. US post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to US occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 82 million; Australia participated in all post-1950 US Asian Wars in Korea, Indo-China, Iraq and Afghanistan with Indigenous Asian excess deaths now totalling 25 million).

13. Australian Colonial Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to Australian occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era, namely Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands totalled 2.1 million).

14. 20th century Aboriginal Genocide (total excess deaths clearly of the order of 1million; 0.1 million Stolen Generations Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their Mothers in the 19th and 20th centuries; excess deaths in the 11 years of the Bush-ite Coalition Government totalled 90,000 for 1996-2007).

The following Australian genocide involvements in this catalogue of horrors are ONGOING.

15. Palestinian Genocide (post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million and 7 million refugees; with bi-partisan agreement Australia provides diplomatic, financial and haven support for Israeli state terrorism – even when directed against tens of thousands of Australian citizens as in Lebanon in mid-2006 - and up to life imprisonment for anyone giving financial support to the Hamas Party that overwhelmingly won the 2006 Occupied Palestinian elections).

16. Iraqi Genocide (4 million excess deaths 1990-2008; 2 million post-invasion excess deaths, 0.6 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths and 4.5 million refugees).

17. Afghan Genocide (3-7 million post-invasion excess deaths, 2.3 million post-invasion under-5 infant and 4 million refugees; Australia involved militarily since 2001).

18. Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 excess deaths annually; 90,000 excess deaths in the last 11 years of Bush-ite Coalition rule).

19. Biofuel Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year but this is increasingly biofuel-impacted as the legislatively-mandated US, UK and EU biofuel perversion helps force up global food prices; Australia is a major sugar cane grower and sugar exporter with 60% of sugar going to bioethanol production worldwide; Australia has biofuel-promoting legislation and is a major canola grower, this being a major source for biodiesel).

20. Climate Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year already from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; Professor James Lovelock FRS says that over 6 million will perish this century die to unaddressed climate change; on a per capita basis Australia is among the very worst greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters – in terms of 2004 figures for “fossil fuel-derived annual per capita CO₂ pollution” Australia is about 40 times worse than India and 160 times worse than Bangladesh if you include Australia’s world number 1 coal exports). Current Labor Federal Government commitment to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution by "60% by 2050" while supporting coal exports actually means increasing Australia's world-leading greenhouse-gas pollution from fossil fuel consumption and exports by more than 50% by 2050 (from linear extrapolation of US Energy Information Administration data).

Yet politically correct racist Australia steadfastly “looks the other way” and its past and present involvements in the above atrocities are overwhelmingly not reported by racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring Mainstream media NOR taught in Australia’s schools and universities. PC racist White Australia just cannot see the “Elephant in the room” – its continuing involvement in over 2 centuries of horrendous genocide.

I have done my duty as an Australian and World citizen by making a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html ).

vii. Solutions

Poor but well governed countries like Cuba (infant mortality lower than that in the US despite 30-fold lower annual per capita income) provide hope that sensibly focussed investment (e.g. funded by an “economic efficiency credits scheme” to reward high efficiency countries such as Bangladesh), good governance, high female literacy and good primary health care can deliver very low avoidable mortality and thence, paradoxically, lowered population growth.

The continuing, horrendous global avoidable mortality is fundamentally due to violence, deprivation, disease and lying. We are one species confined to one planet and we revel in the richness of nature and human cultural diversity. The peace and cooperative community we commonly experience at the level of village, town, city and nation should apply internationally throughout Spaceship Earth. Intolerance of dishonesty, bigotry and violence, respect for human rights, international law and our common environment and commitment to truth, reason and a modestly decent life for everyone will end the global avoidable mortality holocaust and ensure that it will never be repeated.

viii. Rational Risk Management (RRM)

(a) Rational Risk Management (RRM). Rational Risk Management (RRM) successively involves (a) getting accurate data, (b) scientific analysis (science involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and (c) systemic change, involving setting up systems such that when Nature or fallible humans inevitably cause a dangerous situation the system is better able to minimize risk.

(b) Spin and perverted RRM. All too prevalent “spin” and “politicized” responses in society pervert RRM by (a) lies, slies (spin-based untruths), censorship, intimidation, self-censorship, white-washing, (b) anti-science spin involving the use of selected asserted “facts” to support a partisan position, and (c) “blame and shame”, picking convenient culprits for public punishment, thereby inhibiting reportage (war being the ultimate expression of this perverted approach).

(c) Avoidable mortality. Excess death (avoidable mortality) is the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics.

(d) RRM examples. Key examples of RRM to be considered include Professor James Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model for RRM ; aviation; nuclear industry; heavy industry; defence (war-making); hospitals.

(e) Perverted RRM examples. Key examples of perverted RRM:

1. 9/11 and who did 9/11? (Bush Administration censorship, secrecy and “official story” that violates science) -> Oil War aka the anti-Arab anti-Semitic War on Terror (5-9 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories); Scholars for 9/11 Truth (see: http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/ ): “official story” inconsistent with facts that point to “explosive demolition” and hence active or passive US complicity; Al Gore: Bush Administration’s “reckless disregard for the safety of the American people”; former president of Italy Francesco Cossiga: US CIA and Israeli Mossad did 9/11 to promote US hegemony and Zionist interests and Western intelligence agencies know it (see “Were US & Israel behind the 9/11?”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ ) .

2. Iraq War and the Iraqi Genocide (Bush lies; no Iraqi involvement in 9/11; 953 pre-invasion lies) -> post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 1.5-2 million; under-5 infant deaths 0.6 million; refugees 4.5 million.

3. Afghan War and the Afghan Genocide (Bush lies; no Afghans involved in 9/11; even Bush “official version” has 15 Saudis, 2 UAE, 1 Egyptian & 1 Lebanese) -> post-invasion excess deaths 3-7 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million; refugees 4 million.

4. Muslim-origin non-state terrorism (7,000 Western civilians murdered in 40 years, including Israelis and 9/11 victims – but see point #1; US supported Latin American terrorists, Al Qaeda, Taliban) -> US, UK, French, and Israeli state terrorism (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries partially occupied by US post-1945 total 82 million, 727 million for UK, 142 million for France, 24 million for Israel); Indigenous Asian excess deaths in Zionist-promoted US Alliance War on Terror total 5-9 million.

5. Occupation and Palestinian Genocide (huge propaganda supporting invasion, occupation, dispossession, mass imprisonment, ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Palestinians and race-based ethnocracy) -> post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; 2,400 avoidable infant deaths annually; 7 million refugees; 80% of Holy Land civilian homicides committed by Jewish Israelis.

6. Torture (evil and futile; advocated by “terror hysteria”, but see #1 - #5) -> widespread US Alliance use of torture; rendition; Australian complicity in US torture of Australians.

7. Smoking (risk definitely and authoritatively known for 50 years but still legal in West; banned by Taliban for Government employees in 1997) -> 5 million smoking-related deaths annually world-wide, about 19,000 deaths annually in Australia (population 21 million), 0.3 million annually (the US).

8. Alcohol (aetiology and risks known for centuries; banned in many Muslim countries) -> about 2 million deaths annually, worldwide.

9. Cars, trucks (horrendous “true cost” ignored in public transport and free public transport arguments dominated by oil and motor lobbies) -> annual deaths: ca 0.4 million globally; 30,000 US, 2,000 Australia.

10. Custodial punishment (“blame and shame” culture of vengeance versus punishment, protection of society and rehabilitation) -> genetic and violent nurture predisposition ignored – should people be punished or rehabilitated for genetic or nurture defects?

11. Indigenous health and welfare (attitudes ranging from “blame and shame” to “politically correct” but slow amelioration) -> horrendous 9,000 avoidable Indigenous deaths annually; 90,000 under 11 years of Coalition Government; “annual death rate” 2.2% (Indigenous Australians), 2.4% (Indigenous Australians in NT) versus 0.07% (Singapore under-5 year old infants), 0.1% (White Australian infants), 0.4% (what it should be for Indigenous Australians), 0.7% (for White Australians, world’s best), 2.5% (sheep), 2.7% (Occupied Iraqi infants), 6.2% (Occupied Afghan infants), 10% (Australian POWs of the Japanese), 17% ( Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, 1941-1945).

12. Illicit drugs (“blame and shame” punitive arguments ignore tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug-related deaths of about 5 million, 2 million and 0.2 million annually) -> 0.2 million drug-related deaths annually, half due to opiates; 7 years x 0.1 million deaths/year = 0.7 million post-2001 opiate drugs deaths, about 90% (0.6 million) due to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007; post-invasion opiate drug deaths 3,000 UK, 3,000 Canada, 1,500 Australia, 50,000 US.

13. Avoidable American under-5 infant deaths (richest country on Earth ignores its relatively high infant death rate) -> 20,000 annually, 160,000 under Bush administration; calculation: “annual under-5 infant death rate” 0.07% Singapore, 0.17% Cuba and US, US avoidable deathrate 0.1%, 20 million under-5 year old Americans gives 20,000 avoidable infant deaths annually.

14. US Gun deaths (Supreme Court ruled for the first time in June 2008 that the 2nd Amendment explicitly protects Americans' right to own guns for self-defense) -> about 30,000 US gun deaths annually; 8 x 30,000 = 240,000 US Gun-related deaths under the pro-Gun Bush Administration.

15. Global avoidable mortality (term ignored by Mainstream media) -> 16 million avoidable deaths annually; 9.5 million avoidable under-5 infant deaths; “Body Count” summary: due to violence, deprivation, disease and LYING.

16. Avoidable hospital deaths (improving situation but reportage and proper RRM still complicated by “fears of punishment or litigation) -> Australia about 20,000 annual avoidable hospital deaths due to “adverse events”; vertical versus horizontal hierarchy; Swiss Cheese model of systems to minimize harm when inevitably people make mistakes; reportage vital; honesty vital; blame and shame generally counterproductive except in extraordinary situations of demonstrably dangerous incompetence.

17. Approximate Australian annual avoidable deaths (data do surface but are not part of a major public debate) -> about 20,000 from smoking; 20,000 from diet; 20,000 from hospital mistakes; 5,000 from toxic pollutants from coal-based electricity generation; 2,000 from cars; 300 from opiates mainly due to Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite protection of the Afghan opium industry.

18. Global warming (the BIG ONE in a mounting Climate emergency; NASA’s Dr Hansen demands “negative CO₂ emissions” to return atmospheric CO₂ from dangerous 390 ppm to safe level of no more than 350 ppm; but vested interests still ensure no action and propagation of Mainstream climate scepticism) -> mounting problem for “home alone” elderly e.g. 15,000 people died in the 2003 French heat wave, elderly switch off heat stress warning too early; according to UK Chief Scientist Professor John Beddington FRS “billions” are at risk from US, EU and UK legislative mandating of food diversion for biofuel; over 6 billion may perish this century according to Professor James Lovelock FRS).

19. Nuclear threats (25,000 nuclear weapons; threat to 6.6 billion humans from blast, radiation and nuclear winter; ignored, especially after the end of the Cold War) -> Australia intimately involved as a diplomatic and/or military ally of major nuclear powers, namely UK, US, France and Israel; Australia is a major uranium exporter, is intimately linked to US nuclear terrorism (Pine Gap, naval accommodation, military links) and exports uranium oxide to China..

20. Poverty threats (the 16 million avoidable deaths annually due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease are ignored) -> Australian culpability (e.g. in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories) is ignored nationally except for concerns about refugees from climate change exacerbation of the problem.

21. Fossil fuel-based electricity deaths (Australia’s world leading per capita contribution to global warming and actual or potential avoidable death is ignored as are related domestic deaths due to fossil fuel use) -> toxic pollutants are produced from fossil fuel-based electricity generation, notably carbon monoxide, particulates, sulphur dioxide, heavy metals (notably mercury, Hg), and volatile organics. Pollution from coal plants producing 27 TWh/year (20% of supply) kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12 million). Estimated “a nnual coal-based electricity deaths” [“total annual fossil fuel-based electricity deaths”] are 170,000 [283,000] (the World), 11,000 [13,000] (India), 47,000 [47,500] (China), 49,000 [72,000] (the US), 3,400 [6,900] (the UK), 4,900 [5,400] (Australia) and 2,700 [3,800](Canada) as compared to 110 [360] (heavily renewable-based New Zealand). There is a much greater life-time and old-age impact on older people (see: http://climatefactsheets.blogspot.com/2008/06/global-warming-dangers-solutions-for.html ).

ix. Table 1 Post-1950 global excess mortality and under-5 infant mortality

REGION	EM (m)	IM (m)	IM/EM (%)	POP (m)	MORT (m)	MORT/ POP (%)	EM/ POP (%)	EM/ MORT (%)	IM/ POP (%)	IM/ MORT (%)
Overseas Europe	9.750	5.344	55	366.747	131.795	36	2.7	7.4	1.5	4.1
Western Europe	19.680	6.857	35	394.384	205.574	52	5.0	9.6	1.7	3.3
Eastern Europe	25.578	12.781	51	338.752	178.344	53	7.6	14.3	3.8	7.2
Latin America & Caribbean	50.579	52.232	103	540.034	165.220	31	9.4	30.6	9.7	31.6
East Asia	168.585	165.795	98	1544.460	579.519	38	10.9	29.1	10.7	28.6
Central Asia, Iran & Turkey	49.147	40.459	82	237.356	88.216	37	20.7	55.7	17.0	45.9
Arab North Africa & Middle East	70.516	47.174	67	305.985	107.101	35	23.0	65.8	15.4	44.0
South East Asia	140.222	71.492	51	558.155	224.318	40	25.1	62.5	12.8	31.9
Pacific	2.347	1.114	47	8.595	3.503	41	27.3	67.0	13.0	31.8
South Asia	465.320	284.797	61	1459.046	669.115	46	31.9	69.5	19.5	42.6
Non-Arab Africa	300.834	189.834	63	696.515	382.116	55	43.2	78.7	27.3	49.7
EUROPE	55.008	24.982	46	1099.883	515.713	47	5.0	10.7	2.2	4.8
NON-EUROPE	1247.550	852.897	68	5350.146	2219.108	41	23.3	56.2	15.9	38.4
TOTAL	1302.558	877.879	67	6450.029	2734.821	42	20.2	47.6	13.6	32.1

Table 2 Global mortality, excess mortality and under-5 infant mortality (2003)

REGION	2003 MORT (m)	2003 EM (m)	2003 <5im (m)	2003 Pop (m)	2003 MORT/ Pop (%)	2003 EM/ Pop (% )	2003 <5im/> (%)	2003 <5ipop (m)	2003 <5ipop/ Pop (%)	2003 <5im/> (%)
Overseas Europe	2.9086	0	0.0390	357.713	0.81	0	0.011	24.3370	6.8	0.16
Western Europe	3.9593	0.1782	0.0239	392.442	1.01	0.05	0.006	20.812	5.3	0.12
Eastern Europe	4.4622	1.0717	0.0571	342.510	1.30	0.31	0.017	16.438	4.8	0.38
Latin America & Caribbean	3.4166	0.1759	0.3720	535.281	0.63	0.03	0.069	56.483	10.6	0.66
East Asia	10.8653	0.1231	0.7707	1528.963	0.71	0.01	0.050	102.642	6.7	0.75
Central Asia, Iran & Turkey	1.7464	0.5904	0.5033	228.919	0.76	0.26	0.220	24.766	10.8	2.03
Arab North Africa & Middle East	1.9046	0.7393	0.4990	289.956	0.67	0.25	0.172	37.379	12.9	1.33
South East Asia	3.8645	1.4158	0.5659	539.255	0.72	0.26	0.105	54.634	10.1	1.04
Pacific	0.0667	0.0320	0.0180	8.184	0.82	0.39	0.220	1.135	13.9	1.59
South Asia	12.0343	5.3275	3.2570	1400.532	0.86	0.38	0.233	163.949	11.7	1.99
Non-Arab Africa	11.5099	6.3866	4.4590	659.995	1.74	0.97	0.676	114.385	17.3	3.90
EUROPE	11.3301	1.2499	0.1200	1092.665	1.04	0.11	0.011	61.587	5.6	0.19
NON-EUROPE	45.4083	14.7906	10.4449	5191.085	0.87	0.28	0.201	555.373	10.7	1.88
TOTAL	56.2044	16.0405	10.5649	6283.750	0.89	0.26	0.168	616.960	9.8	1.71

Biofuel famine, biofuel genocide, meat & global food price crisis

2008-05-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

Biofuel famine, biofuel genocide, meat & global food price crisis

Key quotes:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (April 2008) : [biofuels] "posed a real moral problem… there are people who are going to starve to death." [US, UK, and EU have legislatively mandated food to biofuel conversion while 3.8 billion are malnourished].

UN special rapporteur for the right to food, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland (April 2008): "Producing biofuels is a crime against humanity."

World meat consumption increased from 47 million tons/2.5 billion people = 47.8 billion kg/2.5 billion people = 19.1 kg/person (1950) to 240 million tons/6.3 billion people = 243.8 billion kg/6.3 billion people = 38.7 kg/person (2002).

2002 world meat production (million tons, x by 1.016 -> million tonnes): Aquaculture (38, 9.0%), Poultry (72, 17.0%), Eggs (58, 13.7%), Pork (94, 22.2%), Mutton (12, 2.8%), Oceanic fish catch (91, 21.5%), Beef (58, 13.7%), Total (423, 100%) [China #1 - 2/3 of world herbivorous fish aquaculture in 2000].

Conversion efficiency (kg grain to produce 1 kg gain in live weight): herbivorous farmed fish (e.g. carp, tilapia, catfish; less than 2), chicken (2), pork (4), and beef (7). In 2003, 37 percent of the world grain harvest, or nearly 700 million tons, used to produce animal protein.

Meat eating is an indulgence in a starving world threatened by a worsening Climate Emergency – livestock production involves huge and inefficient diversion of grain foods; beef alone contributes 16% of annual methane production; livestock in general contribute 37% of human-induced methane (see: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane ); FAO estimated that livestock contributes about 18% of annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas production [including related deforestation, transport, fertilizer etc etc components] (see “Shun meat says UN climate chief Dr Pachauri”, BBC, 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7600005.stm ) .

World milk production 626 million tons = 636 million tonnes (2005) (NB cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats; Milk from Friesian-Holstein cattle typically contains 87.5 per cent water and 12.5 per cent total solids. The ranges in composition of milk solids are: fat, 3.2 to 4.6 per cent; protein, 2.8 to 3.5 per cent; lactose, 4.2 to 4.8 per cent and minerals 0.6 to 0.8 per cent [India #1 - 78 million tonnes or ca 13% in 1999-2000].

WW2 British India grain: 60 million tons/400 million people/year = 61 million tonnes/400 million people/year = 0.152 tonnes /person/year = 416 g /person/day; “annual death rate” 3.5% in 1947 (0.85% in 2003); “annual excess death rate” 3.1% in 1947 (0.35% in 2008).

2008 World: 2,000 million tons/ 6,600 million people/year 2,032 million tonnes/ 6,600 million people/year = 0.308 tonnes/person/year = 844g /person/day; 2003 “annual death rate” about 0.89%; “annual excess death rate” 0.26% = 16 million excess deaths pa, 9.5 billion under-5 year old infants = 44,000 excess deaths per day, 26,000 excess infant deaths daily; 57% of world = 3.8 billion malnourished; “annual excess death rate” 0.97% (non-Arab Africa), 1.8% (Indigenous Australians); "annual death rate" 2.5% (Australian sheep), 2.7% (Occupied Iraqi infants), 6.7% (Occupied Afghanistan infants), 10.2% Australian POWs of Japanese in WW2.

Rice (1 cup = 185 g = 685 Calories; 2 cups = 370 g = 1,370 Calories): about 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and 10% fat.

Average male needs 1,800 Calories per day; average female needs 1,300 Calories per day (1 Calorie = 1 kcal = 4.184 kjoule = 4.184 kJ; 1 cal is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 g H₂O by 1 ⁰C).

For a very detailed, documented account of the current global food price crisis see "Biofuel Famine, biofuel genocide and the global food crisis":

http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008/04/biofuel-famine-biofuel-genocide-and.html .

SUMMARY.

The world is facing a global food price crisis that threatens billions of people in the developing world with famine. Prices for major food commodities such as wheat, rice, corn and soybean have doubled in the last year or so. The price of rice has doubled in the last 6 months. Food prices in US$ have been driven upwards through a combination of factors, notably: (1) the immoral (and net CO₂ polluting) diversion of food for biofuel (impelled by global warming considerations, peak oil, increased oil prices, economics, US, EU and UK legislation); (2) US dollar decline; (3) oil price impact on agriculture costs; (4) anthropogenic global warming (and consequent intensified droughts); (5) increased demand for food (notably meat) from the new Asian giants; (6) fear, speculation and unilateralism.

Global non-observance of basic human “entitlement” (Amartya Sen) means that millions who cannot buy food will starve to death. History ignored yields history repeated - when the price of rice doubled and then finally quadruped 6-7 million starved to death in Bengal and adjoining Indian provinces in 1943-1945 in the “forgotten” Bengali Holocaust, the man-made Bengal Famine in British-ruled India during World War 2.

The solutions in general involve rational risk management involving (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to reduce risk. The specific solutions involve: (1) cessation of the biofuel perversion (except for environmentally and morally acceptable biomass and algal systems); (2) cessation of Biosphere-threatening CO₂ pollution (indeed negative CO₂ emissions are required to reduce atmospheric CO₂ to a safe and sustainable 300-350 ppm from the present unacceptable 385 ppm); (3) respect for Humanity and “food entitlement” for all on Spaceship Earth; (4) cessation of the Third World Holocaust (16 million avoidable deaths annually) e.g. by “economic efficiency credits” (countries such as Bangladesh or peoples such as Indigenous Australians modestly rewarded for high efficiency and low impact on the Biosphere) and other measures to limit population and Biosphere impact.

Post-1967 Palestinian & Israeli deaths from occupation & violence

2006-05-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

As of late APRIL 2006, how many Israelis and Palestinians, respectively, have died from Palestinian non-state violence and Israeli state violence?

SHORT ANSWER: 1,133 Israelis and an estimated 5,144 Palestinians (including 952 children) have been killed since September 2000. From UN data, the post-1967 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories totals 300,000 and the post-1967 under-5 infant mortality 183,000 (of which 90% has been avoidable) - as compared to 2,178 post-1967 Israeli terrorism deaths (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs figures).

CAREFULLY DOCUMENTED ANALYSIS:

1. Terrorism deaths in Israel1920-1999 total 2,580 (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 2006; see: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/1/Terrorism+deaths+in+Israel+-+1920-1999.htm ).

Quote: “From 1920 through 1999, a total of 2,580 residents of Mandatory Palestine and, since 1948, the State of Israel fell victims to hostile enemy action; in most cases, terrorist attacks. The last terrorism-related death in 1999 was recorded on August 30, 1999. The first death in 2000 was recorded on September 27, 2000, with the outbreak of the current wave of Palestinian violence and terror” (“Terrorism deaths in Israel: 1920-1999”, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 2006; see: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/1/Terrorism+deaths+in+Israel+-+1920-1999.htm ).

2. Terrorism deaths in Israel 1967-1999 total 1,065 (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 2006; see: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/1/Terrorism+deaths+in+Israel+-+1920-1999.htm ).

3. Terrorism deaths in Israel since 2000 total 1,113

Quote: “ 1,113 people have been killed by Palestinian violence and terrorism since September 2000” (specifically 27 September 2000 – 17 April 2006; “Victims of Palestinian violence and terrorism since September 2000”, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 2006; see: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm ).

4. From the above information, all derived from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we can calculate that as of April 2006 there have been 4,758 terrorism deaths in Israel since 1920 and 2,178 since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (the Occupied Palestinian Territories) and the Golan Heights (Syria) in 1967.

5. Palestinians killed from September 2000-February 2005 total 4,009

Quote: “Since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising (Intifada) in September 2000, through February 2005, 4,009 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces” (“4,009 Palestinians killed and more than 44,500 wounded by Israelis from September 2000 to February 2005, PNIC [Palestinian National Information Centre] Report”, Al-Jazeerah, March 2005; see: http://www.aljazeerah.info/Human%20price%20of%20the%20occupation/human_price_of_the_israeli_occup.htm )

6. Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces from September 2000 total 5,144

From the above information, we can that estimate that, as of April 2006, a further 1,135 Palestinians have been killed and 12,594 wounded since February 2005 and that a total of 5,144 Palestinians have been killed (including an estimated 952 children) and 57,100 have been wounded since September 2000

7. Post-1967 avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories total 0.3 and 0.2 million, respectively

Avoidable mortality (technically, excess mortality) is the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ ). Post-1967 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories totals 300,000 and the post-1967 under-5 infant mortality 183,000 (of which about 90% was avoidable) (estimated from UN Population Division data; see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ ). The “annual under-5 infant mortality” (expressed as a percentage of the under-5 infant population) is 0.51% (Occupied Palestinian Territories) as compared to 0.12% (Israel) (2003 figures; see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ and the latest UNICEF reports: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ).

Professor Peter Singer, formerly at Monash University Melbourne, and now Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University in the US, has been widely acclaimed as the most influential living philosopher (see: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7318/940 ) and has generated enormous controversy over his advocacy of “active”, painless, non-voluntary euthanasia for severely disabled infants. However his comments over “passive euthanasia” are relevant to “passive genocide” by Occupiers such as the Israelis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the US-led Coalition in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan: “Doctors who deliberately leave a baby to die when they have the awareness, the ability, and the opportunity to save the baby’s life, are just as morally responsible for the death as they would be if they had brought it about by a deliberate positive action” (H. Kuhse & P. Singer, Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, pp84-85).

Professor Peter Singer has further stated the following moral generality “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented … We could consider the consequences of what we do and what we decide not to do” (P. Singer, Writings on an Ethical Life, Ecco Press, New York, 2000, ppxv-xvi; see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).

The 1949 Geneva Conventions relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm )
are explicit in demanding that the Occupier does everything “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” to preserve the health and life of its conquered subjects:

“Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate …

Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining , with the cooperation of the national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties …”

Whether a child dies violently (from bombs or bullets) or dies non-violently (from deprivation or malnourishmnet-exacerbated disease), the end result is the same and the culpability the same. The Ruler is responsible for the Ruled, the Occupier is responsible for the Occupied subjects.

Israel - a prosperous, liberal democracy with a population extremely well aware from the Jewish Holocaust of the horrendous consequences of racism and human rights abuse - has FAILED to meet its obligations under the 1949 Geneva Conventions (see: (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) and has also FAILED near-comprehensively in relation to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (see: http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf ), most notably and fundamentally with respect to Article #6: “1. States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life. 2. States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.”

This awful situation does NOT have to continue. All sensible, humane Jews and Arabs want peace. Thus IMMEDIATE implementation of an Interim Peace Plan can effect Peace with Justice NOW . Such an Interim Peace Plan for IMMEDIATE implementation could involve the following: 2 states; 1967 borders; joint provision of airport-style total security throughout the Holy Land; interim defence provision by Israel alone (Israel would probably accept nothing less); bigotry, racism and incitement made illegal; reconciliation; all human rights guaranteed for all; and secure access for ALL to ALL of the Holy Land.

18 MARCH 2006 UPDATE - Human and economic cost of the Iraq & Afghan Wars (Third Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq)

2006-03-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTED STATISTICS are presented on the THIRD ANNIVERSARY of the US-led Coalition INVASION OF IRAQ (18 March 2003).

IN SUMMARY, the post-invasion war-related avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan and globally totals 2.7 MILLION and the economic cost to the US of the Iraq War has been expertly estimated at US$1-2 TRILLION.

MARCH 2006 – the LATEST UN FIGURES (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/) indicate that the post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality, man-made mortality) is 0.5 MILLION (US-occupied Iraq) and 1.8 MILLION (US-occupied Afghanistan); the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality totals 0.4 MILLION and 1.4 MILLION, respectively.

MARCH 2006 - the LATEST UNICEF FIGURES (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html) indicate that 0.5 MILLION under-5 year old infants die in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan annually (1,300 daily and 90% avoidably) due to NON-PROVISION by the Occupying UK-US-led Coalition of the life-sustaining requisites demanded of Occupiers by the Geneva Conventions (passive genocide) (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm).

MARCH 2006 - the LATEST UN OFFICE FOR DRUGS & CRIME (UNODC) FIGURES (see: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_ex_summary.pdf) indicate that the post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths total 0.4 MILLION due to restoration by the US-led Coalition of the globally-dominant Afghan opium industry destroyed by the Taliban in 2000/2001; in the major “White”, Anglo-Celtic countries the post-2001 opiate drug deaths total about 1,200 (Scotland), 1,600 (Australia), 3,000 (Canada), 3,200 (UK) and 50,000 (US) (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya281005.htm).

MARCH 2006 - the Coalition leaders are responsible for an avoidable post-invasion death toll of at least 2.7 MILLION including a post-invasion avoidable mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (2.3 MILLION) and post-2001 global opioid drug deaths (0.4 MILLION); these estimates IGNORE the global economic impact of the war and increased oil prices on the largely Third World post-2001 global avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality that total 64 MILLION and 42 MILLION, respectively (16.0 MILLION and 10.6 MILLION annually and about 44,000 and 29,000 daily, respectively) (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/).

MARCH 2006 – the International Criminal Court (ICC) has now stopped dealing with the crimes of the late Slobodan Milosevic (complicity in 0.2 MILLION deaths) but REFUSES to deal with the war crimes of the Coalition leadership (currently totaling 2.7 MILLION avoidable deaths) (see FORMAL COMPLAINT TO ICC in MWC News: http://www.mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3087&Itemid=145).

MARCH 2006 – over 2,300 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and 17,400 wounded - and the ECONOMIC COST to the US of of the Iraq War has been estimated by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor Linda Bilmes at between US$1 TRILLION and US$2 TRILLION (see: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263428_iraq1ed.asp).

Soviet rule, Cold War, radiation & excess deaths of Hungarians, Austrians, Germans, Czechs, Bulgarians, Latvians, Estonians and Ukrainians

2006-01-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

For millions of former subjects of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the Cold War is still killing but is killing them silently - killing them softly. Because of an entrenched mainstream media culture of lying by omission, essentially nobody knows about this catastrophe - except for specialist scholars such as medical epidemiologists.

The silence is deafening. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are obliged to inform everyone about mass mortality and egregious inhumanity.

On 26 January 2006 a letter (reproduced below) was variously sent (with slight changes as appropriate) to governments and mainstream media of particular formerly Soviet-occupied Central and Eastern European countries, namely Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia and the Ukraine; the letter alerted them to huge excess mortality in their populations since the late 1960s.

IN SHORT, since the late 1960s avoidable mortality (excess mortality) has been extremely high in HUNGARY as compared to all other European countries (e.g. see: http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/58/4/290 ) and has also been abnormally high in other "front-line" Central and Eastern European countries partially or completely occupied by the Soviet Union within the period of about 1945 until about 1990, namely AUSTRIA, BULGARIA, THE CZECH REPUBLIC, ESTONIA, GERMANY, LATVIA & THE UKRAINE.

POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING CAUSES of this Central and Eastern European disaster could be speculated to be: excessive drinking, smoking, depression, social laxity, industrial pollution and un-reported radioactive contamination events e.g. HIGH LEVEL RADIOACTIVE TAGGING OF DISSIDENTS as practised by the secret police (the Stasi) in Soviet-occupied East Germany (and who knows where else – and what else - in the Soviet Empire) (e.g. see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/04/wstas04.xml).

THE LETTER IS REPRODUCED BELOW:

Dear Sir/Madam,

WHAT IS KILLING HUNGARIANS?

I am an Australian scientist and writer of Hungarian origins and am presently editing the third draft of a huge book on global avoidable mortality.

The post-1950 avoidable mortality has been abnormally high in Hungary (and in some other formerly Soviet-occupied Eastern European countries) since the 1960s.

Avoidable mortality (excess mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, well-administered country with the same demographics.

Using United Nations data, avoidable mortality (technically, excess mortality) has been calculated for every country in the world since 1950.

In order to make comparisons, it is useful to calculate the post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratio for different countries and regions of the world.

The post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratio for Hungary is 1.363 million/9.784 million = 13.9%, the highest value for any Eastern European country and the highest for any European country in the world – thus the value for this parameter is 2.7% (for Overseas Europe i.e. the US, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), 5.0% (Western Europe), 7.5 % (Eastern Europe), 9.4% (Latin America and the Caribbean), 10.9% (East Asia), 20.7% (Turkey, Iran and Central Asia), 23.0% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 25.1% (South East Asia), 27.3% (the Pacific), 31.9% (South Asia) and 43.2% (non-Arab Africa).

The serious post-1950 avoidable mortality outcome for Hungary is NOT reflected in infant mortality statistics – Hungary has one of the better infant mortality outcomes in Eastern Europe and indeed in the world.

Thus the post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population ratio is 2.9% for Hungary as compared to a value of 1.5% (Overseas Europe), 1.7% (Western Europe), 3.8 % (Eastern Europe), 9.7% (Latin America and the Caribbean), 10.7% (East Asia), 17.0% (Turkey, Iran and Central Asia), 15.4% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 12.8% (South East Asia), 13.0% (the Pacific), 19.5% (South Asia) and 27.3% (non-Arab Africa).

The dynamics of this process can be assessed by considering Hungarian avoidable mortality (in millions, m) in successive 5-year periods (pentades) since 1950: 1950-1955 (0.062m), 1955-1960 (0.010m), 1960-1965 (0.005m), 1965-1970 (0.046m), 1970-1975 (0.094m), 1975-1980 (0.149m), 1980-1985 (0.197m), 1985-1990 (0.199m), 1990-1995 (0.221m), 1995-2000 (0.207m), 2000-2005 (0.173m).

The Hungarian avoidable mortality catastrophe took off in the 1960s and has averaged about 30,000-40,000 avoidable deaths EACH year since about 1975.

This abnormally high Hungarian avoidable mortality has been picked up in other epidemiological studies (e.g. see Treurniet et al., Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, vol. 58, pp290-295, 2004:
http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/58/4/290).

Other formerly Russian-occupied countries in Eastern Europe with abnormally high post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratios include Bulgaria (9.9%), the Czech Republic (10.6%), Estonia (12.8%), Latvia (12.7%) and the Ukraine (11.0%).

Significantly, the major Continental Western European countries with the highest average post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratios are Austria (9.0%) and Germany (8.6%), countries that were subject to partial Soviet occupation.

One could speculate about excessive smoking, excessive drinking, depression, social laxity, industrial pollution and un-reported radiological contamination events as contributing factors for this Hungarian and indeed European catastrophe. The dynamics suggest that if one major cause was imposed from about 1945 onwards, then the effects took about 20 years to manifest.

An unpleasant possibility derives from revelations of Soviet-era secret police use of radioactive tagging as a means of tracking dissidents. Such dangerous radioactive tagging employed by the East German secret police (the Stasi) is discussed in Ann Funder’s book “Stasiland” (Chapter 19; Text, Melbourne, 2002).

East German scientist Dr Klaus Becker has revealed documentary evidence from Stasi files of the deliberate contamination of victims, their documents or money with dangerous amounts of the beta- and gamma-emitter scandium-46 (half-life 83.83 days) to enable the tracking of dissidents (reported in New Scientist and other mainstream media; see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/04/wstas04.xml).

Consistent with this possibility is long-term expression of cancers in irradiated people, secret police surveillance of very large numbers of Eastern Europeans and the pro-independence and “front-line” nature of all the affected countries. Was radiological contamination of dissidents more widely applied by the secret police in front-line Eastern European countries of the Soviet Empire?

Similar careful analysis of United Nations mortality data has revealed that the post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan now totals 2.1 million through non-provision of life-sustaining requisites by the US-led Coalition in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Indeed this ongoing crime is now the subject of a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya211205.htm). The continuing avoidable mortality of some 35,000 Hungarians each year demands urgent investigation and public discussion.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya

Melbourne, Australia

e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au

website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html

Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html).

Hungarian connection: Gideon Polya’s paternal lineage dates back to the early 19th century in Békésszentandrás, Hungary. His great-grandfather Jakab Pólya (née Pollak) was a lawyer-economist academician (who wrote many books and translated Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations into Hungarian), his grandfather was the surgeon Jenö Pólya (the Pólya gastrectomy) and his great-uncle was the mathematician George (György) Pólya (author of How to Solve It).

Formal ICC complaint over Coalition war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan

2006-01-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

According to the latest UNICEF report (2006), 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)(http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html).

About 1,300 under-5 year old infants will have died in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan on Christmas Day alone, 0.5 million will die in the coming year and 1.7 million have died post-invasion due to non-provision by the US-led Coalition of life-preserving requisites demanded by the Geneva Conventions (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm).

Anglo-American and Australian mainstream media will simply NOT report horrendous Coalition war crimes against helpless infants and their mothers.

A detailed, formal complaint has been sent to the International Criminal Court charging the Coalition with war crimes in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan (see Countercurrents, 21 December 2005) (http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya211205.htm). The full text is reproduced below for your convenience. PLEASE INFORM EVERYONE.

Formal complaint sent to the International Criminal Court over Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq & Afghanistan:

19 December 2005

Office of the Prosecutor,

International Criminal Court,

The Hague, The Netherlands

Dear Mr Moreno-Ocampo, Mr Brammertz and Mrs Bensouda,

On 14 October 2004 I made a formal complaint against the Australian Government and its Coalition allies over war crimes in Iraq, specifically illegal invasion and subsequent horrendous civilian mortality in contravention of international law (for details of this complaint and a prior complaint sent to the 2 dozen top law officers of Australia see: http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1019).

Since that complaint was made, it can be estimated from the latest UNICEF reports (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html) that a further 560,000 under-5 year old infants have died in US Coalition-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions for the protection of civilians in time of war (1949).

I am accordingly renewing and extending my formal complaint of egregious war crimes against the US-led Coalition leaders responsible for (1) the irresponsible and illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) deliberate conduct of military operations to minimize politically-sensitive invading military deaths at the expense of the lives of utterly innocent civilians; (3) subsequent horrendous civilian mortality in these occupied countries in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions (1949); and (4) collateral damage involving mass mortality elsewhere in the world as a consequence of Coalition actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have amplified these charges briefly below.

(1). Irresponsible and illegal invasions.

The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were manifestly irresponsible (as borne out by the immense mortality estimates given below) and illegal in lacking sanction from the United Nations. Indeed, by way of example, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Anan, has repeatedly indicated the illegality and un-wisdom of the invasion of Iraq and the late Holy Father of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, a major source of moral wisdom for humanity, also opposed the invasion of Iraq. Further, the obvious must be stated, namely that ordinary, decent people universally regard hatred, violence, war and both non-state terrorism and state terrorism as utterly abhorrent.

(2). Criminal application of high technology war yielding huge “enemy civilian death”/US military death ratios.

In World War 2 the Axis civilian deaths totalled 5.1 million as compared to Allied civilian losses in Europe and Asia totalling 54 million; US, British Empire, Axis and Soviet military losses totalled 0.29 million, 0.45 million, 5.9 million and 13.6 million, respectively. Accordingly the "enemy civilian"/"military death" "kill ratios" were 0.4 (for the Soviet forces), 9.2 (Axis), 11.3 (the British Empire) and 17.6 (the US). Implicit in the 1944 Italian Ardeatine Caves Massacre of 335 civilians ordered by Hitler in revenge for 33 German military deaths was a Nazi German attitude that regarded an "enemy civilian death"/"German soldier death" "kill ratio" (or "death ratio") of 10 as quite appropriate.

It has been possible to assess "civilian deaths" in various post-war conflicts using UN Population Division demographic data from 1950 onwards. Using this data it is possible to calculate "avoidable mortality" ("excess mortality"), which is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country in a given period and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/).

The following "enemy civilian avoidable mortality"/"US combat death" "kill ratios" (in parentheses) have been calculated for the Korean War (1950-1953) (23.8), the Indo-China War (1957-1975) (276.5), the Gulf War & Sanctions War (1990-2003) (12,259), the Afghanistan War (2001-2005) (15,716) and the Iraq War (2003-2005) (323.9). The actual calculations involving the ratios of "avoidable (excess) deaths" (for the Asian country concerned over the relevant period) to "US combat deaths" (for the relevant conflict) are reproduced below (actual mortality figures are rounded off for clarity):

0.8 million Korean excess deaths/33,651 US combat deaths = 23.8

13.1 million excess Cambodian, Laotian & Vietnamese excess deaths/47,378 US combat deaths = 276.5

1.8 million Iraqi excess deaths (1990-2003)/147 US combat deaths = 12,259

1.6 million Afghan excess deaths (2001-2005)/102 US combat deaths = 15,716

0.5 million Iraqi excess deaths (2003-2005)/1,513 US combat deaths = 323.9

The above figures show that in the post-war era the US (and its allies) have grossly violated the Geneva Conventions in these Asian wars and have done so in vast excess over the "enemy civilian"/"German soldier" "kill ratio" of 10 in the Ardeatine Caves atrocity – and most clearly in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. The reason for these horrendous US "kill ratios" is that high technology US warfare preserves politically-sensitive US military lives at the expense of enemy civilian lives through high technology killing from afar (e.g. more bombs were dropped on Laos by the US than on all of Europe in all of World War 2); “better training” of its soldiers to overcome the natural revulsion from killing; and through improved medical technology to save the lives of wounded US soldiers. Over half of the civilian victims of these conflicts have been innocent infants under the age of 5. Thus the under-5 infant mortality in these conflicts was 0.3 million (Korea, 1950-1953); 5.6 million (Indo-China, 1957-1975); 1.3 million (Iraq, 1990-2003); 1.4 million (Afghanistan, 2001-2005); and 0.3 million (Iraq, 2003-2005). US state terrorism has indeed exacted a horrendous civilian death toll in US Asian wars (for further details see Senate Inquiry submission #112: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/terrorism/index.htm).

(3). Horrendous civilian avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in contravention of the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva Conventions (1949) are quite explicit about the responsibility of the invader and occupier to do everything in their power to preserve the life of subject civilians (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ). However the annual per capita medical expenditure in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan is less than 1% of that in metropolitan USA and thus the horrendous death toll in post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan constitutes passive genocide and a war crime (see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm).

In general, whether a person dies violently (e.g. from bombs or bullets) or non-violently (e.g. from deprivation- or malnourishment-related causes) the end result is the same and the culpability the same. Further, the Ruler is responsible for the Ruled. Thus the Geneva Conventions (1949) demand that the foreign occupier of a country acts “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” to preserve the health and life of subject civilians (see Articles 55 and 56: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm):

Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of the national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties …”

The US-led Coalition governments have manifestly failed in their obligations under the Geneva Conventions. The latest UNICEF estimates of post-invasion under-5 infant deaths (12 December 2005; see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html) are quite shocking: 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). These data indicate an Iraqi post-invasion under-5 infant mortality of over 0.3 million, about 122,000 such deaths per year or 334 daily (i.e. exceeding the death toll from the horrendous and evil 9/11 atrocities every 9 days). About 90% of these infant deaths have been avoidable.

The post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now totals about 0.3, 0.5 and 1.6 million, respectively, while the corresponding post-invasion under-5 infant mortality now totals 0.2, 0.3 and 1.4 million, respectively (see Senate Inquiry submission #112: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/terrorism/index.htm). Most of these deaths were non-violent – thus Iraq Body Count (see: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/) currently estimates that 27,000-31,000 Iraqis have been killed violently post-invasion (out of an estimated total of 0.5 million post-invasion avoidable deaths). UK-US state terrorism – described by Blair and Bush supporters as “democratic imperialism” but by others as “democratic tyranny” or “democratic Nazism” - has had a horrendous human cost, with under-5 infant mortality now totalling about 0.5 million each year in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories.

(4). Collateral global mass mortality as a consequence of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations.

One major consequence of the US Coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq has been an increase in the price of oil. It has been estimated that about 55,000 people die avoidably throughout the world each day (about 36,000 being under-5 year old infants) through deprivation- and malnourishment-related causes. I have not been able to quantitatively assess the inevitably increased avoidable mortality component from increased poverty due to elevated oil prices. However global mortality due to criminal distribution, sale and consumption of opiates can be assessed from UN figures.

Since 2001 there have been about 0.4 million global drug deaths linked to US Coalition re-establishment of globally-dominant Afghan opium production (largely destroyed by the Taliban in 2000-2001 but 76% and 86% of global production in 2002 and 2004, respectively, after US Coalition invasion and conquest). About 2,000 of these 0.4 million post-2001, US Coalition-complicit, opioid-related deaths have been Australian, 3,000 Canadian, 3,200 British and 50,000 American (for detailed documentation see: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:2uNU_ysF0xQJ:www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%2520editorials/2005%2520Opinion%2520Editorials/October/26%2520o/US%2520Coalition%2520Complicity%2520in%25200.4%2520Million%2520Drug%2520Deaths%2520By%2520Gideon%2520Polya.htm+gideon+polya+al-jazeerah+%22afghan+opium%22&hl=en and also see Senate Inquiry submission #112: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/terrorism/index.htm).

Comments and conclusions

The above data clearly indicate that the members of the US-led Coalition are complicit in passive genocide, mass murder and egregious war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accordingly, the US-led Coalition leaders should be indicted before the International Criminal Court – arraigned, tried and punished. Peace is the only way but we are inescapably obliged to inform others about man-made mass mortality of fellow human beings - silence kills and silence is complicity. We cannot walk by on the other side. As Edmund Burke famously stated: “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”

The World Tribunal on Iraq, headed as spokesperson by the brilliant humanitarian writer Arundhati Roy, has charged the UK-US-led Coalition with war crimes over Iraq (see: http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=91). Indeed, as you are aware, in October 2004, after writing to the 2 dozen top Law Officers of Australia, I wrote to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requesting that the Australian Government and its Coalition allies be charged with war crimes over the illegal invasion of Iraq and the horrendous post-invasion mass mortality (see: http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1019).

More recently, the 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature, British playwright Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech entitled “Art, Truth and Politics” (delivered by videotape on 8 December 2005; see: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm) accused US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair of war crimes in Iraq. After detailing the huge human cost of decades of violent US interventions in Central and South America, Harold Pinter described the invasion of Iraq as “an act of blatant state terrorism” and called for the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court, declaring: “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.”

I have written this careful analysis with some trepidation and after considerable, wide-ranging, legal consultation because draconian new “sedition laws” recently passed in Australia could, potentially, severely punish humanitarian critics of Coalition war policies, notwithstanding “good faith commentary” exceptions. It is accordingly necessary for me to explicitly state that this has been written in the public interest and in the interests of humanity by an anti-war, humanist, senior scientist who utterly abhors bigotry, racism, lying, violence, war and terrorism.

The 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize acceptance address (8 December 2005; see http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm) movingly stated our obligation to define the truth of our world: “ I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.”

The 1957 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Albert Camus, in a 1946 essay entitled “Neither Victims nor Executioners”, clearly stated a fundamental moral imperative for decent citizens of the world: “Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honourable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.”

I have recently completed the first draft of a large book on global avoidable mortality from which some of the above data is drawn (for some other key data see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/) and I have written a large number of articles around the world on this matter (see: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html). I would be extremely happy to provide expert assistance pro bono publico to the International Criminal Court in relation to this matter.

As we approach the festivities of Christmas Day 2005, we must appreciate from the latest UNICEF data that about 2,640 infants in US Coalition-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan will die over the 2-day period of Christmas Day-Boxing Day - nearly the same number of innocent victims as died in the World Trade Centre atrocity on 9/11 – and about 0.5 million more will die in the year to come. An estimated 560,000 under-5 year old infants have died in the US-occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories in the 14 months since I made my previous complaint to the International Criminal Court.

I beg the International Criminal Court to indict the Coalition governments involved in massive war crimes in their invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In doing so the International Criminal Court will deliver justice and force an early end to the egregious Coalition passive genocide in these horrendously abused countries.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya

Melbourne, Australia

e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au

website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html

Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History

2005-07-12T05:09:00.000-07:00

JANE AUSTEN AND THE BLACK HOLE OF BRITISH HISTORY
Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability
by Gideon Maxwell Polya

CONTENTS

1. Introduction - truth, reason, science and history [ 1 ]
2. The editing of Jane Austen’s connections - the Leighs and Brydges [ 8 ]
3. The editing of the Austens and consequences of rustic amusement [ 18 ]
4. Jane Austen’s siblings and their descendants [ 27 ]
5. The editing of Jane Austen’s life [ 33 ]
6. The rare intrusion of humble social reality into Jane Austen’s novels [ 42 ]
7. The sensibility of Jane Austen’s literary contemporaries [ 56 ]
8. The judgement of Jane Austen’s peers and successors [ 66 ]
9. The East India Company, the Black Hole and the conquest of Bengal [ 75 ]
10. The Great Bengal Famine of 1769-1770 [ 88 ]
11. Warren Hastings and the conquest of India [ 99 ]
12. The impeachment of Warren Hastings and the judgement of history [ 106 ]
13. Colonial famine, genocide and ethnocide [ 114 ]
14. The Bengal Famine of 1943-1944 [ 133 ]
15. Pride and Prejudice - Churchill, Science, the Bengal Famine and the Jewish Holocaust [ 148]
16. Global warming and the unthinkable world of 2050 [ 166 ]
17. Antipodean epilogue - the moral dimension of the Lucky Country and the world [ 174 ]
Notes [ 199 ]
Bibliography [ 227 ]
Index [ 252 ]
Dr Gideon Polya was an Associate Professor in Biochemistry, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia. The author of over 100 scientific publications, Dr. Polya is presently a Melbourne-based researcher, writer and lecturer. The views expressed in the book are those of the author, Dr. G.M. Polya. This first edition of the book (ISBN 0-646-35580-5) was published in May 1998 by G.M. Polya, 29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria, 3085, Australia. It is out of print but copies are to be found in some major libraries. A second edition is envisaged.

ESSENCE OF THE BOOK:

Repetition of immense crimes against humanity such as the World War 2 Holocaust is made less likely when the responsible society acknowledges the crime, apologizes, makes amends and accepts the injunction “Never again”.
This book is concerned in part with the 2 century holocaust in British India that commenced with the Great Bengal Famine of 1769-1770 (10 million victims), concluded with the World War 2 Bengal Famine (4 million victims) and took tens of millions of lives in between.
However these events have been almost completely written out of history and removed from general perception, there has been no apology nor amends made and indeed it is generally accepted that, in the absence of effective global action, these horrors will be repeated on an unimaginably larger scale in the coming century.
This carefully documented “J’accuse” addresses what the author terms the “Austenizing” of history or the deletion of awful realities from historical writing.
While it was legitimate for Jane Austen, the artist, to render her exquisite novels free of the contemporary awfulness in which her connections participated, the Austenizing of British history is a holocaust-denying outrage that threatens humanity.

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER SYNOPSIS:

Chapter 1: History ignored yields history repeated; the victor writes history; historians like scientists must respect the basic data; the “Austenizing” of British history or the deletion of awful or embarrassing realities from British historiography (most notably the effective deletion of 2 centuries of horrendous famines in British India culminating in the “forgotten holocaust” of World War 2 Bengal); the British Anglo-Celtic Christian, Austro-Hungarian Jewish and Bihari-Bengali Hindu-Muslim antecedents of the author’s children; the post-Holocaust injunction of “Never again” applied to the “forgotten holocausts” of British India and the looming spectre of mass starvation in the coming century.

Chapter 2: The Austenizing of the maternal connections of Jane Austen; James Brydges and wealth from colonialism and imperialist wars; Indian connections and the theft charge against Jane Austen’s aunt Jane Leigh-Perrot.

Chapter 3: The Austenizing of the paternal connections of Jane Austen; the productive adultery of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of India, with Jane Austen’s aunt Philadelphia Hancock; transplanting Jane Austen country to Tasmania and consequent ecocide and genocide.

Chapter 4: The Austenizing of Jane Austen’s siblings and their descendants; recurrent consanguinity; the British imperial and Indian involvements of Jane Austen’s family.

Chapter 5: Jane Austen’s life; remarkable differential reportage of Jane Austen’s life and connections.

Chapter 6: The exclusion of any awfulness and the rare intrusion of humble social reality into Jane Austen’s novels; succinct synopses and social content analysis of Jane Austen’s major works; recurrent consanguinity; Sense and Sensibility an Indian-connected novel that barely disguises the affair of Warren Hastings with Jane Austen’s aunt in Bengal; a powerful message from Jane Austen’s exquisite writing - “No matter what our place in the world, we are all empowered by the dignified, intelligent and articulate use of words”.

Chapter 7: The sensitivity of Jane Austen’s literary contemporaries to domestic and colonial abuses of humanity; George Crabbe, Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper, Robert Burns, Samuel Johnson, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Byron and Lord Teignmouth; limited British literary responses to the invasion and oppression of India and the Great Bengal Famine of 1769-1770.

Chapter 8: Literary criticism of Jane Austen; Jane Austen and the feminist perspective; the Jane Austen industry; Jane Austen and British imperialists; Jane Austen’s artistically legitimate exclusion of awfulness from her exquisite novels has been quite illegitimately taken by 2 centuries of British historians as a paradigm for the Austenizing or comprehensive white-washing of British history.

Chapter 9: The East India Company; the Black Hole of Calcutta story as grossly exaggerated, historically dubious, Imperial mythology - a Big Lie of British History that demonized Indians and helped to justify 2 centuries of oppression and famine; Siraj-ud-daulah, Clive and the conquest of Bengal.

Chapter 10: The genesis, course and extended aftermath of the Great Bengal Famine of 1769-1770; 10 million victims; a rich country rendered desolate as observed by Jane Austen’s connections; rapacious taxation and mass human starvation; effective deletion of the Great Bengal Famine from British history.

Chapter 11: Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of India and actual father of Jane Austen’s cousin and sister-in-law Eliza De Feuillade (née Hancock); rapacious taxation of famine-devastated Bengal; the Rohilla War, the judicial murder of Nandkumar, conflict with Mysore, Hyderabad and the Marathas, the robbing of the Begums of Oudh and the devastation of Oudh by war, taxation and consequent famine; Hastings’ duel with his foe Philip Francis (that resurfaces in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility).

Chapter 12: The impeachment and trial of Warren Hastings by the British Parliament - Britain’s only equivalent of a major war crimes trial over the abuses of British imperialism; Sheridan’s great speeches; the acquittal of Hastings; the judgement of history and the Austenizing of British imperial crimes.

Chapter 13: 2 centuries of appalling, recurrent famine in British India from 1769 to 1945; comparison of recurrent famine under the British in dry Rajasthan and lush Bengal; British colonial slavery, oppression, famine, genocide and ethnocide in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Oceania, Australia and indeed in Britain and Ireland; the crimes of other imperialist powers; Charles Trevelyan and famine in Ireland and India; the genocide of the Tasmanian aborigines.

Chapter 14: The genesis, war-time context and appalling actuality of the Bengal Famine of 1943-1944; loss of rice from Burma, catastrophic war-time decrease in Indian food imports, food exports, temporary seizure of rice stocks, seizure and destruction of boats, Indian provincial food supply autonomy, no famine declaration, hoarding, British unresponsiveness, drastic cuts to Indian Ocean shipping, catastrophic rice price rises leading to mass starvation; British Military Labour Corps and civilian sexual exploitation of famine victims including children; Wavell, Mountbatten and Casey and final responses to the famine; the 1943-1946 excess mortality of about 4 million Bengalis due to famine and attendant disease; the documenting of the famine and the effective deletion of the famine from history and from general public perception.

Chapter 15: Churchill, World War 2, the Bengal Famine and the Jewish Holocaust; Churchill’s life and his hatred for Indians; Churchill and British air defence, knowledge of the indefensibility of Singapore, Japanese entry into the War and fore-knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor; Churchill, Lindeman, the importance of proper scientific advice to government, the air war in Europe, the Battle of the Atlantic, the shipping crisis and famine in India; famine as a strategic weapon to control restless subjects; Muslim containment, the Middle East, oil, the refusal to allow Jewish escape from Europe, the Jewish Holocaust and the forgotten, substantially Muslim Holocaust of Bengal; Churchill’s contribution to Muslim-Hindu antipathy as his final legacy to India; the effective deletion of the Bengal Famine from history and general public perception.

Chapter 16: Global warming and sea level, human health and tropical versus temperate agricultural productivity consequences; population growth, global agricultural sustainability and the growing discrepancy between population and food supply; the crisis in biological sustainability.

Chapter 17: Unresponsiveness of the world to the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust and to the “forgotten holocaust” of the Bengal Famine; examination of liberal, democratic, highly-educated and prosperous Australia (the Lucky Country) by way of assessment of the likelihood of timely global response to the impending environmental, population and sustainable food production crisis of the coming century; pre-invasion aboriginal Australia, invasion and genocide, racism of White Australia, the apogee of social decency in Australia and the current resurgent racism towards aboriginals and Asians; genocide, ethnocide, ecocide and terracide in Australia and unresponsiveness to the global crisis; a recent experimental test of the moral responsiveness of prosperous, liberal, democratic Australia - the war-time Bengal Famine (accounting for about 90% of World War 2 British Empire military plus civilian casualties) continues to be effectively ignored and thus removed from public perception by the ostensibly liberal political, media, academic and intellectual Establishment of Australia (and of Britain); how we can prevent the looming disaster - peri-conception, male sex selection as an example of a humane, non-invasive, pro-choice mechanism to reduce population (empirical evidence being provided by Fiji, a very tolerant and peaceful multi-racial society that developed from an initially large male over female imbalance among the Indian “indentured slaves”); further civilized contributions include the childless, culturally-absorbed Jane Austen option, tolerance of homosexuality and profound sympathy for the richness of the world as exhibited by Third World small-holder and aboriginal societies.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

The world is facing a crisis in biological sustainability due to the connected problems of excessive and increasing population, profligate use of resources and remorseless environmental degradation. Near-comprehensive holocaust denial in our culture in relation to several centuries of recurrent, horrendous famines in British India has blunted our responsiveness to such man-made catastrophes and continues to contribute to the global failure to face up to avoidable mass starvation in the coming century. The world must resolutely apply the post-Holocaust injunction of “Never again” to these past events and take incisive steps to avoid repetition in the future.

The Forgotten Holocaust - The 1943/44 Bengal Famine

2005-07-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Dr Gideon Polya

THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST - THE 1943/44 BENGAL FAMINE: impelled in part by global warming concerns, an account by Dr Gideon Polya of the man-made Bengal Famine of 1943/44 and the unresponsiveness of the world at the time to both the Bengal Famine and the Holocaust in Europe; the total or near-total ignoring in many historical texts and in global public perception of the Second World War Bengal Famine and other such horrendous events such as the Great Bengal Famine of 1769/1770, other Indian famines, the Irish famine (1845/46), genocide in Tasmania and mainland Australia in the 19th century and the genocide of the Armenians (1915); history ignored yields history repeated and global warming through greedy industrial profligacy may next century visit even worse disasters on Bengal and on other low-lying regions such as deltaic Egypt, Thailand, Louisiana and Holland. Remarkably, one of the biggest mortality events of the mid-20th century (that has been written about extensively by Amartya Sen (1998 Nobel Prize Winner for Economics) and which was the subject of the film “Distant Thunder” by world-famous Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray) remains UNKNOWN to most in the English-speaking World - due to extraordinary, continuing academic and media holocaust denial involving self-censorship, lying by omission and intrinsic, covert racism.

Précis

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of World War 2 and the world will reflect on the human cost of this conflict. In particular we will remember the enormous loss of civilian life, particularly in Poland (6 million dead), the Soviet Union (20 million dead) and China (35 million dead). The Holocaust involving the deliberate extermination of 6 million Jews and half a million Gypsies has seared the human conscience, never to be forgotten. However a major man-made tragedy of similar proportions that occurred in Bengal in World War 2 has been effectively ignored by the world from the time it occurred. The man-made famine in Bengal in 1943-1944 killed an estimated 3.5 to 5 million people [1-7].

Famine in British India

While famines had occurred in the Indian sub-continent before British occupation, in many instances the consequences of monsoonal failure and resultant drought were addressed urgently by the indigenous rulers. Thus irrigation works, public works employment and food purchase and distribution were useful responses to such impending disasters.

The British brought an unsympathetic and ruthless economic agenda to India. Economic exploitation damaged the indigenous Indian economy and resulted in a decline in the standard of living. The British disinclination to respond with urgency and vigour to food deficits resulted in a succession of about 2 dozen appalling famines during the British occupation of India.

These famines swept away tens of millions of people [1-10]. One of the worst famines was that of 1770 that killed an estimated 10 million people in Bengal (one third of the population) and which was exacerbated by the rapacity of the East India Company [1-3,10]. Bengal suffered further famines in 1783, 1866, 1873-74, 1892, 1897 and 1943-44 [1].

The extraordinary continuing aspect of this 2 century Holocaust was the exacerbation and indeed the creation of famine by the sequestration and export of food for enhanced commercial gain. Thus in severe Indian famines in the mid-19th century (by which time the British authorities were thoroughly familiar with this sort of event) export of grain was permitted on the grounds of non-intervention in trade 6. This horrendous scourge [8,9] continued into the 20th century. Thus Rajasthan suffered a succession of severe scarcities and famines from 1899-1941, a very severe famine occurring in 1939-1940 [8]. The culmination of this saga of immense human suffering was the Bengal famine of 1943-44 [1-7].

Profiteering, export, denial and death

With the entry of Japan into World War 2 and its conquest of South East Asia, including Burma, the British authorities took strategic steps that affected the availability of food in Bengal. Food was required for soldiers, workers in industrial cities such as Calcutta and for export to other parts of the Empire. The grain import requirement of nearly 2 million tons to make up for deficiencies in Indian production was progressively cut back to a disastrous degree.

Loss of rice from Burma and ineffective government controls on hoarding and profiteering led inevitably to enormous price rises. Thus it can be estimated that the price of rice in Dacca increased about 4-fold in the period from March 1943 to October 1943. Bengalis having to purchase food (e.g landless labourers) suffered immensely - thus it is estimated that about 30% of one particular labourer class died in the famine.

The effects of the famine were exacerbated by a strategic policy of "denial" of potential resources from the Japanese. This involved acquisition of surplus food stocks from parts of Bengal together with the seizure or destruction of tens of thousands of boats crucial for fishing and for food acquisition and distribution in a waterway-rich country.

A major feature of this famine was the inability of the authorities to keep rice prices down to affordable levels and hence make food available to the suffering millions. For a variety of reasons the rice market "froze" with dealers and millions of producers retaining supplies. Lack of supplies from other Indian provinces due to self-regulating food control powers given to the provinces in 1941 (enacted a week before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour) compounded the problem for Bengal. Heavy handed government intervention, a massive overall Indian food deficit, the determination of the authorities to adequately feed Calcutta and the military and the consequent fear and uncertainty of producers led to an appalling disaster for rural Bengal [1,2,5,6].

Decline of complex pre-colonial social relationships vital to disaster survival [5], overwhelming under-nourishment 6 and a greatly increased body of "landless" rural Bengalis [1,5,6,11] led to a nightmare for the 20% of rural Bengalis most vulnerable in this famine. Not surprisingly fishermen, deprived of access to fishing grounds and hence food and cash for rice, were among the worst affected [1,2,5,6].

Increasing population and lack of commensurate food production had yielded a pre-war situation in which India needed to import about 1.8 million tons of grain per year in the immediately pre-war years to make up the shortfall [1,6]. Nevertheless rice exports from India in the financial year 1942-43 were at near-record levels. A crucial factor, however, was the huge decrease in foodgrain imports to only about 20,000 tons in the financial year 1942-43 [1].

Starving people flocked into Calcutta, victims dying in a city with well-provisioned markets. The British authorities (at times forcibly) removed tens of thousands of destitute, starving people from Calcutta and other urban areas in late 1943. These people were relocated to die in the country, out of sight, out of mind [1].The reluctance of destitutes to leave derived from the inadequacy of relief gruel when it became available and the additional availability of food from rubbish and from begging householders for "rice water" from the cooking of rice.

Responses to a disaster

The British government, the Central Indian authorities headed by the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow and the Bengali provincial administration (critically interfered with by Governor Sir John Herbert) were grossly derelict in dealing with the situation and its genesis. However a new and effective Viceroy Lord Wavell took up his position in October 1943 [7], this being complemented by the arrival of a new, vigorous Governor of Bengal, the Australian R.G.Casey, in January 1944 [7,12].

Lord Wavell (unlike his predecessor) visited famine-wracked Bengal and within his first week took the key decision ensuring that Calcutta would be fed by the rest of India and not by starving rural Bengal. This energetic and concerned man pleaded continually with the British Government for requisite grain imports, demanding (unsuccessfully) 1 million tons for 1944. He was insistent about the need for additional supplies to bring down the price of rice and to prevent further disasters.

The release of thousands of boats was agreed to from April 1944 and more effective measures directed to relief, mass health intervention and to controlling food supplies and prices were also introduced. Eventually the excess mortality due to famine declined to the "normal" level of mortality associated with an impoverished, disease-ridden society living on the edge of starvation.

Interestingly famine was not actually declared by the authorities in 1943 despite the enormity of the circumstances. The famine was debated in the House of Commons, one of the key sessions being attended by less than 10% of the members. These appalling events eventually disappeared from public view, if indeed they had ever effectively appeared.

Appalling realities

Various estimates of the total number of famine deaths have been made that range up to 5 million [1-7]. A very detailed American analysis of this tragedy estimated 3.5 to 3.8 million as the excess mortality due to starvation and attendant disease in 1943-1946 [5]. The magnitude of this event and its continuing consequences can be gauged from the increase in population of West Bengal plus East Bengal (Bangladesh) of only 3 million in the period 1941 to 1951 as compared to a population growth of 11 million in the period 1931 to 1941 [6].

Repeated requests for food imports into India (Indian population 400 million; Bengal population 60 million) in 1943 and 1944 resulted in only about half a million tons of grain being imported into India in this period [1,6]. In contrast the food stocks of the U.K. (population about 50 million) rose by about 10 million tons in the latter half of 1943.

Churchill repeatedly opposed food for India and specifically intervened to block provision of 10,000 tons of grain offered by Canada6. The U.S. declined to provide food aid in deference to the British Government6. The British Government rejected Lord Wavell's request for 1 million tons of grain in 1944 and also rejected his request that the U.S. and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) be approached for assistance.

Even when Congress (after extensive lobbying) altered legislation to permit UNRRA aid for India, no plans were in place for such assistance because the British authorities had not requested it [6]. An offer of 100,000 tons of rice from the Axis collaborationist leader Subhas Chandra Bose was ignored [6,13]. Lord Wavell records in his diary R.G.Casey's intelligence relating to the Argentinian use of 2 million tons of surplus wheat in their railway system in lieu of coal (of which there was a world-wide shortage) [7]. Churchill finally requested U.S. assistance in mid-1944 in terms that he was "no longer justified in not asking for such aid" - with a resultant negative response from Roosevelt [6].

It should be appreciated that India made a major contribution to the war effort. 2,400,000 Indians served in the British forces6 and thousands of Indian, and particularly Bengali, lascars served in the Merchant Navy (the pay being £5, £15 and £22.10.0 a month for Indian, Chinese and British sailors, respectively) [7].

The Second World War involved the following British losses: 303,000 British armed forces personnel killed, 109,000 Commonwealth losses, 60,000 civilians killed in air raids and 30,000 Merchant Navy sailors killed [14]. Against this we can set the forgotten "Allied" millions of Bengalis who died agonizing deaths, the toll amounting to 50 to 100 times the civilian losses in Dresden, Hamburg, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Tokyo or in German bombing raids on Britain.

Differential victimisation - children, women and famine-enforced sexual abuse

Detailed demographic analyses of Calcutta destitutes and other famine victims reveal distressing discontinuities [1,2,5,6]. Young children were by far the most vulnerable in this famine and young adults the least so [1,2,5,6].

A nearly 2-fold difference in the percent mortality increase of males as compared to females in the age groups of 10-15 and 15-20 years has been taken as evidence of substantial young female survival through sexual submission. A similar conclusion has been drawn from the greatly decreased ratio of females to males in the 10-15 year age group among destitutes in Calcutta during this period [2,6].

The distressing testimonies of famine victims attest to the famine-enforced sexual exploitation of women [5]. There was a major military presence in Bengal and the Military Labour Corps was an avenue of survival for starving women, the price of survival being sexual submission and abuse and venereal disease [5].

Testimonies of victims and observers describe horrendous realities: dogs and vultures devouring the nearly dead, bones and bodies littering roadsides, desperate attempts to find sustenance, starvation-enforced prostitution, sale of children and even infanticide by despairing, deserted or widowed, starving mothers and tortured deaths in a lush countryside or in well-provisioned Calcutta [1,2,5,6].

Famine relief was belated and grossly insufficient [5,6]. Thus before the famine the average Bengali in 1 year consumed about 140 kg of rice (the crucial staple) and a bare-subsistence rural farming family consumed 90 kg per head each year. The famine relief diet amounted to 30 kg of grain per person per year. There were major added complications of disease, notably malaria and cholera, the shortage of medicine and the malabsorption of food [1,5,6].

Lest we forget

The Holocaust of European Jews has not been forgotten because of a numerous, world-wide diaspora of articulate and resolute survivors. Nevertheless continued postwar mass killing events in Europe, Africa, Asia and America point up the continuing incompetence of the world as a whole to deal promptly with large-scale inhumanity.

An extraordinary feature of the appalling record of British imperialism with respect to genocide and mass, world-wide killing of huge numbers of people (by war, disease and famine) is its absence from public perception. Thus, for example, inspection of a selection of British history texts reveals that mention of the appalling Irish famine of 1845-6 is confined in each case to several lines (although there is of course detailed discussion of the attendant, related political debate about the Corn Laws). It is hardly surprising that there should be no mention of famine in India or Bengal in these texts [15-18]. The famines in Bengal are absent from other texts dealing with modern British imperial history [14,19].

In my own well-stocked personal library the 1770 Bengal famine rates a mention only in a major encyclopaedia [10]. The 1943 Bengal famine is totally missing except for a brief reference, namely "famine strikes Bengal" in a massive German chronology of world events and developments, being listed under the category "daily life" for the year 1943 [20].

Nevertheless detailed and expert academic accounts and analyses of the 1943 Bengal famine were prepared shortly after the event despite severe war-time and economic constraints [1,2] and other very detailed accounts have appeared [5,6]. The Satyajit Ray feature film "Distant Thunder" is an immensely moving account of this tragedy seen through the lives of a Bengali intellectual and his wife in a Bengali village setting [4]. The diaries of Lord Wavell give a powerful insight into this period [7].

Australia, the world, "greenhouse" and historical repetition

As an Australian I am very conscious of Australian connections with these appalling events. A significant reason for British settlement in Australia in 1788 (and the consequent decimation of the indigenous aboriginal people) was the need to protect the lucrative British interests in India from its European foes, especially the French [21-23]. The first decade of the colony coincided with appalling famines in India [1]. Wheat from India was imported into Australia in the 19th century [24].

Australia was intimately linked to the defence of the British Empire (and hence the protection of the lucrative slave empire in India) for 2 centuries. The mass destruction for which the British were responsible in India was reflected in numerically far less significant enormities inflicted by Australian colonists on the aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania and mainland Australia and on the indigenous people of the nearby Pacific islands [21-24].

Australia has a more recent Bengal connection. The Bengal famine of 1943-44 coincided with the critical defence of this part of the world against the Japanese advance. The distinguished Australian R.G.Casey became Governor of Bengal in 1944 in the diminishing phase of the famine ( the appointment by his own account being initially locally unpopular because of the prohibition of entry of Indians into Australia) [12,25].

History has an excellent chance of repeating itself if its realities and lessons are ignored. Tied historically to the British Empire, Australians are extraordinarily ignorant of their own (albeit surely unintended) negative global impact in the service of Britain. Thus the xenophobic extermination of the best part of one million Armenians - precipitated by the Allied attack on the Dardanelles - commenced with the roundup of Armenian intellectuals and other community leaders in the day or so before the Anzac landing at Gallipoli in 1915 [26-28]. This unintended consequence of Australian heroism is apparently unknown to most Australians. The recent Gulf War, in which Australia also participated, had similar (and again, no doubt unintended) consequences for Shiites and Kurds.

History may yet repeat itself with respect to the Bengalis. Australia is per capita one of the most profligate contributors to "greenhouse" gas emission and hence global warming. There is unfortunately a current bipartisan political consensus in Australia opposed to effective short-term reduction of such emission. The recent Berlin Climate Change Conference, heavily influenced by the U.S. and similarly-inclined Australia and Canada, concluded with no agreed targets on greenhouse gas emission and produced merely a motherhood commitment to continuing assessment [28]. While global warming may have advantages for some [30], there is a widespread concern that global warming and consequent sea level rises will have a major impact on low-lying regions such as densely populated and impoverished West Bengal and Bangladesh [31-35].

It is quite conceivable that continuing global greed and irresponsibility in relation to greenhouse gas emissions, desertification and forest destruction will have an even more devastating impact on Bengal in the 21st century [31-35] than that of ruthless imperialism in past centuries. We must learn from the appalling consequences of the blindness, complacency and insensitivity with which the world responded at the time to the Jewish Holocaust [36-38] and to the now-forgotten Bengali Holocaust.

Never again.

Cited works

1. Ghosh, K.C.(1944) Famines in Bengal 1770-1943 (National Council of Education, Bengal, Calcutta, 2nd edn, 1987).

2. Das, T.(1949) Bengal famine (1943) as revealed in a survey of the destitutes of Calcutta (University of Calcutta, 1949).

3. Maloo, K.(1987) The history of famines in Rajputana (1858-1900 A.D.) (Himanshu Publications, Udaipur & New Delhi).

4. Satyajit Ray, director, "Distant Thunder", a feature film.

5. Greenough, P.R. (1982) Prosperity and misery in modern Bengal. The famine of 1943 - 1944 (Oxford University Press, New York).

6. Uppal, J.N. (1984) Bengal famine of 1943. A man-made tragedy (Atma Ram & Sons, Delhi).

7. Moon, P. (ed.)(1973) Wavell. The Viceroy's journal (Oxford University Press, London).

8. Kachhawaha, O.P. (1985) Famines in Rajasthan (1900 A.D. - 1947 A.D.) (Hindi Sahitya Mandir, Jodhpur).

9. Merewether, F.H.S. (1898) A tour through the famine districts of India (1985 edn, Usha, New Delhi).

10. History of the Indian sub-continent. Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.9, pp 334-430 (15th edn, 1977, Chicago).

11. Chatterjee, P. (1984) Bengal 1920-1947. The land question (Bagchi & Co., Calcutta).

12. Hudson, W.J. (1986) Casey (Oxford University Press, Oxford).

13. Gordon, L.A. (1990) Brothers against the Raj (Columbia University Press, New York).

14. Thomson, D. (1965) England in the twentieth century (Penguin, London).

15. Trevelyan, O.M.(1952) History of England (4th edn, 1952, Longmans, London).

16. Wells, H.G. (1951) The Outline of History (1951 edition, Cassell, London).

17. Carter, E.H. and Mears, R.A.F. (1960) A history of Britain (Clarendon Press, Oxford).

18. Langer, W.L.(1956) (ed.) An encyclopaedia of world history (3rd edn, 1956, Harrap, London).

19. Porter, B. (1975) The lion's share. A short history of British imperialism 1850-1983 (Longman, London).

20. Grün, B.(1975) The timetables of history. A chronology of world events (1975 edn, Thames & Hudson, London).

21. Ross,J.(1993) (ed.) Chronicle of Australia (Chronicle, Melbourne).

22. Shaw, A.G.L. (1960) The story of Australia (2nd edn, Faber & Faber, London).

23. Frost, A. (1987) Towards Australia - the coming of the Europeans. Ch. 9 in Mulvaney,D.J. & White, J.P.(eds) Australians - a historical library (Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, Melbourne).

24. Clark, C.M.H. (1962) A history of Australia (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne).

25. Murray-Smith, S.(1974) (ed.) The dictionary of Australian quotations (Heinemann, Melbourne).

26. Gürün, K.(1985) The Armenian file. The myth of innocence exposed (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London).

27. Walker, C.J. (1990) Armenia. The survival of a nation (2nd edn, Routledge, London).

28. El-Ghusein, F. (1917) Martyred Armenia (Pearson, London).

29. Pearce, F. (1995) Don't stop talking about tomorrow. New Scientist, 15th April, p4 (see also Editorial, ibid, p3).

30. Moore, T.G. (1995) Why global warming would be good for you. Public Interest, vol. 118, 83 - 99.

31. Eastwood, P. (1991) Responding to global warming (Berg, New York).

32. Edgerton, L.T. (1991) The rising tide. Global warming and sea levels (Island Press, Washington).

33. Leggett, J. (1990) (ed.) Global warming. The Greenpeace report (Oxford University Press, Oxford).

34. Mitchell, G.J. (1991) World on fire. Saving an endangered earth (Macmillan, New York).

35. Myers, N. (1990) The Gaia atlas of future worlds. Challenge and opportunity in an age of change (Penguin, New York).

36. Weissberg, A. (1958) Advocate for the dead. The story of Joel Brand (Andre Deutsch, London).

37. Laqueur, W. (1980) The terrible secret. Suppression of the truth about Hitler's "final solution" (Penguin, London).

38. Wasserstein, B. (1980) Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939 - 1945 (Oxford University Press, Oxford).

Dr. Gideon Maxwell Polya
29 Dwyer St., Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia

22nd May 1995

An edited version of this account has been published :

Polya, G.M.(1995) The famine of history: Bengal 1943. International Network on Holocaust and Genocide vol.10, 10-15.

POSTSCRIPT, July 2005: The US and its close ally Australia still refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and about a year ago a substantial part of Bangladesh was under water from monsoonal run-off. The Anglo-American mainstream media still overwhelmingly ignore the World War 2 Bengal Famine (4 million victims) just as they continue to ignore the horrendous post-1950 avoidable mortality in the World (1.3 billion), the non-European World (1.2 billion) and the Muslim World (0.6 billion). Mianstream media continue to ignore the post-invasion avoidable mortality in US-occupied Iraq (0.4 million) and Afghanistan (1.5 million).

A detailed, wide-ranging account of the Bengal Famine was published by me in 1998 (now out of print but available in some major Anglo-American libraries):

Gideon Polya "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability" (Polya, Melbourne, 1998).

Occupied Afghanistan and Iraq Body Count

2005-07-11T05:32:00.000-07:00

Dr Gideon Polya

What has been the human cost of the US War on Terror involving the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq?

Avoidable mortality (excess mortality) and under-5 infant mortality are powerful indicators of the human cost of global and national circumstances [1] and have been estimated for Afghanistan and Iraq in the post-1950 era using United Nations Population Division data [2].

The human cost of violent First World involvements with Iraq can be assessed for various periods, namely the whole post-1950 era (1950-2005); the Gulf War and Sanctions War (1991-2003); the Gulf War onwards (1991-2005); and the continuing Iraq War (2003-2005).

The the total avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in Iraq have been 5.3 million and 3.4 million, respectively (1950-2005); 1.3 million and 0.9 million (1991-2003); 1.7 million and 1.2 million (1991-2005); and 0.4 million and 0.3 million, respectively (for the period 2003-2005).

The human cost of violent First World impositions in Afghanistan can be assessed for various periods, namely the whole post-1950 era (1950-2005); the period between the Soviet and US invasions and involving US-backed resistance and civil war (1979-2001); the period since the Soviet invasion up to and including the present US occupation (1979-2005); and the continuing US-led Afghanistan War (2001-2005).

The total avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in Afghanistan have been 16.6 million and 11.5 million, respectively (1950-2005); 6.5 million and 4.9 million (1979-2001); 8.0 million and 6.1 million (1979-2005); and 1.5 million and 1.2 million, respectively (for the period 2001-2005).

The very latest UNICEF report (2005) [3] estimates that in 2003 the under-5 infant mortality was 110,000 in Iraq and 292,000 in Afghanistan as compared to 1,000 in the invading and occupying Coalition country Australia (noting that in 2003 these countries had similar populations of about 25, 24 and 20 million, respectively).

The Ruler is responsible for the Ruled and the horrendous post-invasion avoidable mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories is largely due to grossly insufficient provision of life-preserving requisites by the Occupying Coalition [4, 5]. Thus in 2004 the annual per capita medical expenditure in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghanistan Territories was less than 1% (ONE PERCENT) of that in Metropolitan USA. [4, 5].

From mainstream media and official US and Israeli sources it can be estimated that jihadists and Arab insurgents have killed about 5,000 Western civilians over the last 20 years. US military deaths have been 148 (the Gulf War) [6, 7, 8], 208 (Afghanistan 2001-2005) [9] and 1,746 (Iraq, 2003-2005) [9]. The avoidable mortality associated with direct US military intervention in Iraq (1991-2005) and Afghanistan (2001-2005) totals 3.2 million, giving a "death ratio" of "enemy" avoidable mortality/US military deaths of 3.2 million/2,102 = 1,522; the "death ratio" of "enemy" under-5 infant mortality/US military deaths has been 2.4 million/2,102 = 1,142.

In comparison, in World War 2 the "death ratio" of "enemy deaths"/Allied military deaths was 0.6 and the ratio of "enemy deaths"/US military deaths was 37. The huge post-war increase in the "death ratio" of "enemy civilian and military deaths"/US military deaths has been due to "improved" US technology in the areas of aerial bombardment from afar, saving the lives of wounded soldiers and training of soldiers to overcome the natural human disinclination to kill fellow human beings. US "high tech" war destroys from afar and kills huge numbers of civilians (mostly children) mainly through societal disruption and infrastructure destruction. US "high tech" war minimizes politically-unpopular military deaths at the expense of enormous civilian deaths [10].

There is an immense disparity between the ostensible basis of the "War on Terror" , namely 5,000 Western civilian deaths from terrorism (notably the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 atrocities) and the horrendous avoidable mortality in post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan (1.9 million). Thus the so-called "War on Terror" should more reasonably be called a "War for Oil" , a "War on Muslims" or a "War on Muslim Women and Children" [11].

References

[1] For detailed links to writings by Gideon Polya on avoidable global mortality consult his website (see: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html)
[2] United Nations, Department of Economic & Social Affairs, Population Division, "World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision Population Database" (for the latest 2004 Revision update see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1)
[3] UNICEF report, 2005 (see: http://www.unicef.org/index2.html)
[4] Gideon Polya, Countercurrents, 11 March 2005, "Passive genocide in Iraq" (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-polya110305.htm)
[5] Gideon Polya, Countercurrents, 23 March 2005, "Shiavo case quantitates genocidal US racism" (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya230305.htm)
[6] CNN, "Gulf War facts" (see: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/)
[7] William Nordhaus, "The economic consequences of war with Iraq" (see: http://www.fourthfreedom.org/pdf/Hartung_report.pdf)
[8] William Hartung, "The hidden costs of war" (see: http://www.fourthfreedom.org/pdf/Hartung_report.pdf)
[9] Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, 2005 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/)
[10] Gideon Polya, Media Monitors Network, 11 July 2005, "The economic and human cost of Israel & US empire" (see: http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/16112).
[11] Gideon Polya, News Central Asia, June 2005, "Orwellian Anglo-American War on Muslim Women and Children" (see: http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1299)

Horrendous Global Avoidable Mortality and Under-5 Infant Mortality

2005-07-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

Dr Gideon Polya

AVOIDABLE MORTALITY (or EXCESS MORTALITY) is the difference between the ACTUAL mortality in a country and the mortality EXPECTED in a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics.

Using Web-accessible UN Population Division Data [1] it has been possible to estimate avoidable mortality (excess mortality) and under-5 infant mortality for every country in the World since 1950. The results are horrendous.

The 1950-2005 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) has been 1.3 billion for the World, 1.2 billion for the non-European World and about 0.6 billion for the Muslim World - a Muslim Holocaust about 100 times greater than the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) and the World War 2 Bengal Famine in British-ruled India (4 million Hindu and Muslim victims).

By way of corroboration, the under-5 infant mortality has been 0.88 billion for the World, 0.85 billion for the non-European World and about 0.4 billion for the Muslim World.

Whether a person dies VIOLENTLY or dies NON-VIOLENTLY from deprivation or malnourishment-exacerbated disease the end result is the same and the culpability the same.

Further, the Ruler is responsible for the Ruled and hence an Occupying Power is clearly responsible for avoidable mortality in a conquered country. However avoidable mortality and "foreign control" do not cease when foreign soldiers depart - indeed "occupation" can include economic and political hegemony by a foreign power.

First World countries (notably the US, UK, France, Portugal and Russia) variously have a major responsibility for the horrendous post-1950 avoidable mortality in the non-European World through impositions such as colonial occupation, neo-colonial control, corrupt client regimes, militarization, debt, malignant interference, war, civil war, economic exclusion and economic constraint.

War and foreign occupation have had a major impact on avoidable mortality. This is simply illustrated by geo-political grouping of the countries of the World and expressing their post-1950 avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality as percentages of the present (2005) population (indicative of how many post-1950 avoidable deaths or under-5 year old deaths, respectively, for every 100 people alive today for the country or region in question).

Post-1950 avoidable mortality as a percentage of present population has been 2.7% (Overseas Europe, comprising North America, Australasia and Israel), 5.0% (Western Europe), 7.5% (Eastern Europe), 9.4% (Latin America and Caribbean), 10.9% (East Asia), 20.7% (Central Asia), 23.0% (Arab North Africa & Middle East), 25.1% (South East Asia), 27.3% (Pacific), 31.9% (South Asia) and 43.2% (non-Arab Africa).

Post-1950 under-5 infant mortality as a percentage of present population has been 1.5% (Overseas Europe), 1.7% (Western Europe), 3.8% (Eastern Europe), 9.7% (Latin America and Caribbean), 10.7% (East Asia), 12.8% (South East Asia), 13.0% (Pacific), 17.0% (Central Asia), 15.4% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 19.5% (South Asia) and 27.3% (non-Arab Africa).

It can be clearly seen from the above data that proportional avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality correlate with the extent of foreign occupation. For further information on avoidable mortality, under-5 infant mortality and relevant social conditions see my website [2] and the latest UNICEF reports [3]. The impact of war, foreign occupation and foreign malignant interference on avoidable mortality will be explored in future posts.

References

[1] United Nations, Department of Economic & Social Affairs, PopulationDivision, "World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision PopulationDatabase" (for the latest 2004 Revision update see:http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1 )
[2] For detailed links to writings by Gideon Polya on avoidable global mortality consult his website (see:http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html)
[3] UNICEF report, 2005 (see: http://www.unicef.org/index2.html)