10 March 2003
Nos Morituri Te Salutamus
Salute of Iraqi Citizens to the Coalition of the Willing
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Salute to the Coalition of the Willing
Hail and Salaam to the Coalition of the Willing, to your Leaders, to your Senators, and to your Citizens !
We, the Citizens of Iraq, are gathered here for your entertainment in the first 21st century media circus, to celebrate once again the tradition inaugurated by your forefathers during the time of the Roman Empire -- an empire that your current Leader aspires to emulate.
We who are about to die salute you was the phrase traditionally used by those about to die in the gladiatorial circus arenas of that time. Now millions of you can enjoy the slaughter through the technology with which it is effected. But it remains appropriate that we salute you with those same words -- in the language of that now fallen Empire: Nos Morituri Te Salutamus !
We salute you....
- for the skills and training of your impeccable beasts of war -- which your
civilization is about to unleash upon us in this arena
- for your courage in seeking to ensure that we disarm before unleashing your
long intended attack on us -- history has few examples of great armies requiring
that their opponents lay down their weapons before a battle
- for the conscientious application of your highest moral and ethical values
to justify your need to kill us -- and for sincerely believing that our deaths
will be for the highest cause and that the price will be worth paying
- for praying for guidance so assiduously to the God whom as yet you know
not how to share with ours -- may your God truly bless you for your sacrificial
use of us to increase your understanding
- for your God-given trust, and lack of doubt, that you have a historical
mission to safeguard civilization -- including our own, even though it is
so distant from yours in many ways
- for endangering your own souls in the higher scheme of things by taking
into your hands an understanding of God's will, guided by your Leader’s
spiritual advisors -- in dying we pray that you have made the right choice
- for the sacrifice of your own soldiers abroad in ensuring our salvation
-- especially given the probability that most will die from friendly fire
or suffer for years from radiation-related illnesses associated with the use
of the depleted uranium missiles you intend to use
- for the honour you do us in selecting us as a living sacrifice to your God
-- we hope that shedding our heart's blood will nourish new insights for humanity's
future as believed by cultures of the past.
- for your principled rejection of any need to understand our culture, our
communities and our language, and your conviction that you can export your
democratic values to displace ours -- and that we desire this wholeheartedly
to affirm our cultural identity
- for your uncanny ability to recognize our country and our Leader as embodying
the greatest evil in our region -- when our paltry weapons and skills are
acknowledged to be insignificant in comparison with some of our neighbours,
whose ability to systematically abuse their minorities, flaunting the will
of the international community, exceeds ours by far
- for your diplomatic ability to assemble a "Coalition of the Willing"
-- we trust that they will be paid off as promised, now that they can no longer
confidently appeal any contractual breach within the framework of the international
law that you have undermined in order to kill us
- for your superior insight in recognizing the desirability of moulding our
cultures and institutions in your image -- even whilst you are forced by the
importance of your mission to neglect the many intractable challenges that
are becoming so powerfully evident in your own way of life.
- for your respectful observance of historical pattern in engaging once again
in the heroic endeavour in which your forefathers engaged over several centuries
long ago -- recognizing that neither of our peoples seem to have learned much
of consequence since then
- for your undeclared efforts as Christians to reform and modernize our Muslim
societies and culture -- although we wonder at the relevance of these efforts
given the increasing difficulties you have in sustaining the qualities of
life and authenticity in your modern cultures.
- for mobilizing an honourable core group of former Christian crusading nations
to lead a new crusade to liberate and occupy our Muslim region as did your
forefathers -- the Franks -- in the time of the earlier crusades
- for the historically profound symbolic gesture in appointing a General Franks
to conquer and subsequently rule our country on this occasion
- for the conviction of your expert advisors in the efficacy of direct action
in killing us -- and avoiding any wasteful investment in the futile hope that
those holding radically opposed views could ever dialogue fruitfully, other
than on your terms
- for the wisdom of your advisors, in their networks of excellence and think
tanks, in choosing such a simple method to resolve a complex problem of humanity
-- having learned so well from their past failures in effectively addressing
the issues of poverty, injustice, unemployment, arms proliferation, shelter,
disease, and pollution around the world
- for valuing our arid land and its resources above those of our neighbours
-- condemning them to continuing abuse by their leaders, in the absence of
your humanitarian intervention, in order to privilege the salvation of our
people
- for your consideration in killing us stealthily and from so far away, so
that we can never fully recognize how honourable an antagonist you are --
and then discretely to relieve any personal discomfort arising from your stressful
slaughter with pool-side relaxation and video war games.
- for your unquestioning confidence in the technology that will enable you
to kill us with such great precision -- and your fatalistic acceptance that
if your weapons unfortunately go astray, any level of collateral damage will
be as Allah willed it
- for the manner in which you clean and cover up the messy effects of your
deliverance of death, with unmarked mass graves of unnamed people, filled
by bulldozers with industrial efficiency -- in such curious contrast to the
sorrowful memorialized religious celebration of any deaths amongst your own
soldiers
- for giving some of us the possibility to live after your liberation -- whether
traumatized, bereft of family, maimed, burnt, blinded, incurably affected
by "toxics", or suffering from the radioactive effects of depleted
uranium shells that will empower some of us to pass genetic abhorrent defects
on to our children
- for the considerable resources discretely allocated by you over recent years
in developing a more suitable governance structure for our peoples -- although
we wonder at your preference for associates who have been indicted or convicted
for a variety of offences
- for your efforts to engage in nation-building to provide structures to receive
your gift of democracy to our culture -- despite the modesty of your success
on previous occasions
- for making such wonderful promises to us through your propaganda tracts
and broadcasts -- even though you have had to suffer embarrassment in keeping
such promises on other occasions
- for demonstrating to us and the world, through the UN Security Council,
that the democracy you seek to bring to our country really only works through
tying votes to collateral aid and trade -- those of us who survive will endeavour
to apply these lessons more assiduously, although the approach is long familiar
to our people
- for the loyal support you have given so effectively, as an ally and as a
trading partner, to our Leader -- who has acted so repressively with your
knowledge for so long
- for the chemical and other factories you built for our Leader -- to enable
him to manufacture weapons to attack and slaughter the minorities in our country
- for the weapons you sold to our Leader in the past that enabled him to attack
and slaughter our neighbours -- and allowed us to be slaughtered in return
- for bringing weapons of mass destruction ("daisy cutters", "toxics"
and depleted uranium shells) to our country so we can be reminded what they
look like -- since your inspectors have been unable to find traces of those
you sold to our Leader or enabled him to make
- for the sanctions that you have applied to our country for so many years
to teach us the basic humanity we have been so slow in learning -- depriving
us of essential medical and food supplies, clearly a necessary punishment
even though it has unfortunately resulted in the death of so many
- for the inspired European colonial administration which created and governed
our country in its early years and established the educational and civil frameworks
that gave rise to those who rule us -- and of whom you would now rid us
- for the inspired European leadership, notably in the person of Winston Churchill,
regarding the use of gas on Kurds and Iraqis in the 1920s as a "scientific
expedient" not to be prevented "by the prejudices of those who do
not think clearly": "I do not understand this squeamishness...
I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes"
-- leaving us perplexed by the righteous insistence of your Leader (known
to model himself on Churchill) to remove our Leader who so assiduously followed
this prescription in years past.
- for the amazing power you demonstrate so simply and dramatically through
your instruments of war -- a power that contrasts so significantly with your
total impotence in response to the more complex problems of the billions around
the world whose condition you neglect, exemplified by your continuing need
to increase the numbers that you incarcerate.
- for your conviction that the level of guilt of our brutal Leader justifies
the disruption that you plan to cause to our region -- in the absence of evidence
(now that you seem to have mislaid the receipts) other than your secret and
highly sensitive knowledge of what you and your agents have supplied to our
Leader
- for your conviction that after our deaths you will find additional evidence
to justify the acts you undertake against us -- we sincerely hope that you
will not subsequently be discredited if you are obliged to secretly fabricate
and plant such evidence of our Leader's misdeeds in order to fully justify
our deaths to the world
- for honouring our people by elevating our Leader to be the most wanted man
in the history of mankind, as measured by the unprecedented resources the
Coalition of the Willing is devoting to his removal -- we trust that you will
in future continue to devote a significant proportion of such resources to
the conditions of people in need around the world
- for granting us the opportunity to sacrifice ourselves in celebration of
the values and vision you claim to be universal -- without questioning the
possibility that we might have preferred to live with values of which you
may have no understanding
- for the courage of your leadership in secretly abandoning the many interwoven
values that have sustained your society in favour of the blatant pursuit of
naked power in our region and elsewhere -- we hope that the resulting moral
vacuum in your leadership will bring you to fruitful learnings for the future
and avoid making your culture as arid as our lands
- for the risks you take in relying increasingly on methods developed in totalitarian
societies you formerly claimed to deplore, although emulated by our Leader
-- in dying we wonder at the possibility that unknowingly your society may
become essentially indistinguishable from theirs
- for your Leader's mobilization of the world to avenge a failure of his father
-- a degree of familial devotion and tribal loyalty that we also admire in
our culture, although never having practiced it to such a degree
- for your method of honouring history through seeking to bomb the region
which gave birth to your civilization and culture thousands of years ago --
we wonder whether you will ensure that any remnants of that glorious past
period of our culture have been carefully added to your target list to demean
us further
- for the strict censorship that you will ensure on media coverage of your
method of killing us in order not to offend your audience worldwide and spoil
their appreciation of the skills of the precision bombing of your heroic pilots
-- who are all family men
As we die on your TV programmes, kindly brought to you by CNN and its sponsors, we will try to think of you entertained in your homes and bars, eating your popcorn and pizzas with a cool drink -- and switching to Star Trek when our agonies offend your sensibilities or become too boring.
Hail and Salaam to the Coalition of the Willing, to your Leaders, to your Senators, and to your Citizens !
About to Die, We -- men and women, old and young -- of the Iraqi people Salute You
Nos Morituri Te Salutamus !
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Iraq War casualties according to Lancet surveys The first survey (published on 29 October 2004), estimated 98,000 excess Iraqi deaths (with a range of 8,000 to 194,000) from the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq to that time, or about 50% higher than the death rate prior to the invasion. The authors described this as a conservative estimate, because it excluded the extreme statistical outlier data from Falluja. If the Falluja cluster were included, the mortality estimate would increase to 150% over pre-invasion rates. The second survey (published on 11 October 2006), estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006 (see other estimates and commentaries) |
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