The Calculus of Murder: Simple Math for the Modern Era By Mike Whitney

Aljazeerah Info Center needs your support

Readers are the only source of support for Al-Jazeerah

Send donations by Paypal or by check to: Al-Jazeerah Info Center, P.O. Box 724, Dalton, GA 30722-0724, USA.

By our best estimates, more than 10,000 Iraqis have been killed in Operation Iraqi Liberation. These estimates are a bit shaky since the Defense Dept refuses to count the Iraqis that are killed in the violence. Presumably, that would increase their value to that of American servicemen which, of course, is out of the question.

But, the 10,000 number of casualties is deceptive. The population of Iraq is roughly 25 million. What this suggests is that the number of dead should be increased by 12 times to grasp its proportionate relationship to the population of the US. (The US pop. is 300 million). That means that by comparison, they have lost the equivalent of 120,000 innocent Iraqi lives.

Sometimes simple math like this can clarify the magnitude of suffering precipitated by an act like the Iraq war. We call it the calculus of murder, but it is really just a dispassionate method of breaking down tragedy into numbers we can all appreciate.

120, 000 dead Iraqis becomes the standard for “Liberation.” (The type of liberation that Iraqis are enjoying right now.)

120,000 dead Iraqis is the price we pay for toppling statues of Saddam in the public square. (and transmitting that image across the globe via CNN and other functionaries in the state media)

This sounds like a high price for a small country to pay, but let’s not forget Viet Nam. Many of Talk Radio’s right wing pundits have decided to resurrect Viet Nam, challenging the notion that America was wrong in fighting the war.

More than 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the conflict. That’s a staggering 17% of the population. Let’s forget for a minute, that hundreds of people continue to be killed every year from unexploded ordinance, and that women continue to deliver deformed babies from the chemical warfare that the US waged, and that large swaths of the countryside still produce unsafe levels of dioxins that cause myriad forms of cancer in the local population.

So, according to these same right wing talk show hosts, what would an appropriate number of casualties be for “Liberation?” 25%? 35%? 50%?

Clearly, for some people, no price of American style liberation is too high. That was evident when Nixon considered whether or not to drop nuclear weapons on North Vietnam. Now, there’s a guy who loved liberation!

Again, this is how we can apply simple math skills to expose the absurdity of particular policies.

The other day Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld was asked if he thought the Iraq war might have generated more terrorists.

Rumsfeld adroitly dodged the question with his “trademark” circuitous language, saying that we didn’t have the “metrics” needed for that type of analysis.

But, if we peruse the recent polling done by the non partisan Pew Foundation we do see that nearly 80% of Germans had a favorable view of Americans in 1999. Now, only 14% have a favorable view of George Bush.

These numbers are similar throughout Europe, so at least we have a dependable yardstick for measuring the affect of our policies on public opinion.

The one reliable fact we can draw from this data is that George Bush is the most reviled world leader in the modern era. That’s no small feat.

If we look at the Muslim world, however, we can see the mistake in Rumsfeld’s judgment. We do have the metrics.

In 1999 a poll taken in Indonesia (the largest Muslim population in the world) found that 65% of the people had a favorable impression of the US. A similar poll taken within the last year indicated that that number had dropped to 13%.

What we have done (on Mr Rumsfeld’s behalf) is worked out what we call the “Syllogism of Terror”, a straightforward way to determine the metrics of successfully measuring the increase in terrorism.

a=the accumulated rage of a given population directed at American foreign policy.(In Indonesia’s case 87%)

b=the percentage of people who will commit acts of terror to express their sense of injustice

Applying this simple methodology, (and relying on dependable polling data) we can say with mathematical certainty that the number of terrorists is going up.

As a matter of fact, we are probably on our way to a “bumper crop” in the very near future.

Mr. Rumsfeld should not be so modest; his aggressive recruiting program has had a profound affect on the boost in terrorism and the increased likelihood that Americans will be killed. He is certainly entitled to claim much of the credit.