Disparate Outrage: 150 Deaths is a Tragedy; 500,000? Just a Statistic

They create a desolation and call it peace. – Tacitus

American media are reporting breathlessly about the murder of 50 Iraqi civilians on Sunday.

”Islamic State group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 Iraqi tribesmen, women and children Sunday, officials said, the latest mass slaying by militants who have killed some 150 members of the [Sunni Al Bu Nimr] tribe in recent days,” reports the AP. “[I]n the village of Ras al-Maa...the militant group killed at least 40 men, six women and four children, lining them up and publicly killing them one by one...The militants also kidnapped another 17 people...The attack Sunday...comes after militants killed another 50 members of [the tribe] late Friday and 48 on Thursday, according to various officials who have spoken to the AP.”

That’s a lot of dead people, in just four days.

The actions of ISIL (or ISIS, or al Qaeda, or whichever group we’re supposed to be terrified of this week) are monstrous, to be sure.

But while Americans lament such brutality – always grounds for more US military intervention into the affairs of those living in the Middle East – they conveniently fail to remember the deaths of more than 500,000 Iraqis at the hands of another group of violent butchers: the Neo-Conservatives (in both the main political parties) who control US foreign policy.

In fact, when asked if the deaths of more than half a million civilians – men, women, and children – and the destruction of an ancient civilization was “worth it” to dethrone Saddam Hussein, this monster said it was a fair price.

This is the same Saddam Hussein the Neo-Cons loved when he was murdering Iranians, in case you’ve forgotten.

Hawks in the GOP are blaming President Obama for the current mess in Iraq. Democrats counter that it’s all W’s fault.

All ancient history, to be sure – but only if you’re anxious to forget. Or for everyone else to forget.

Passing the buck to the last administration is always handy, especially when so many people are unwilling to look back any further than that.

Still, facts are persistent. It was Bubba Clinton who really got the ball rolling, by signing the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq just five years later was virtually guaranteed.

Bush 41 at least had the wisdom – and that word should be understood in the present context – to stop short of Baghdad.

As a US Senator, Bubba’s wife was all for invasion in 2003 – before she was against it. Ralph Nader has now correctly identified that would-be tyrant as a “menace to the country” who “represents...a militaristic, brute force foreign policy,” trying to “lean more liberal” [sic] when she’s actually a “corporatist and a militarist.”

Nader even gets a dig in about the former Secretary of State having “lead the way” into Libya, a disastrous military blunder that has resulted in “total chaos [where] militias [are] battling each other, [committing] revenge killings” – and massive human rights violations – in a conflict that is now “spilling over into Central Africa.” He even suggests that Ms. Clinton supports the use of “state terror” to fight terrorism, thus creating “more [terrorists].”

Ouch.

One thing we know for sure: there is a huge chunk of both the Democratic and Republican parties that could easily be united under the banner of War Party. They posture themselves as models of outrage, over atrocities that pale in comparison to their own unforgivable use of the Middle East and its peoples as pawns in a global social experiment that has gone terribly wrong.