Afghan Holocaust – The Awful Truth Versus US Alliance Lies
By Dr Gideon Polya – Aug 22, 2021
The 20 year Afghan War has ended and the war criminal US, UK, NATO and Australian invaders have all but left a devastated land. The Indigenous Afghan Taliban rapidly and peacefully took over all of formerly Occupied Afghanistan as the collaborator government collapsed and the US-trained Afghan forces offered no resistance. A peaceful, liberated Afghanistan hopefully faces a brighter future with the help of its Muslim neighbours, China, Russia and the rest of the civilized world.
The utterly mendacious and racist US and US-dominated Western Mainstream media trumpet a dishonest, hysterical and indeed Orwellian US narrative to the contrary. They regard the collapse of the US-backed regime as a “disaster”, the Indigenous Taliban as murderous and misogynist barbarians, the US Alliance withdrawal as a betrayal, and the 20 year war as a noble attempt to “root out terrorism” and bring “Western civilization”, “human rights”, “women’s rights”, “democracy”, “prosperity” and neoliberal economics to an assertedly “backward” country. This US fantasy ignores the reality that while all terrorism is evil, state terrorism as exampled by US state terrorism, UK state terrorism and Apartheid Israeli state terrorism is vastly more deadly than non-state terrorism. Indeed jihadi non-state terrorism has been a major asset of US state terrorism because every jihadi atrocity provides an excuse for horrendously disproportionate US violence.
For sure, Afghanistan is a poor and undeveloped country, but this is hardly surprising after over 40 years of US-backed or US-imposed war. From the perspective of rich Western “liberals” including me (a secular Humanist scientist ) the Taliban need to embrace “modernity” and seriously address religious dogmatism, misogyny, free expression, science and human rights. However from the perspective of the Taliban fighters emerging from the rubble of 20 years of US bombing the only winning things they had – in the absence of wealth, a sophisticated war industry, an air force and weapons of mass destruction – were extraordinary courage, fervent religious faith, and support from much of the impoverished Afghan population (especially the Pashtuns).
The victorious Taliban have repeatedly stated that there will be an Amnesty and no reprisals for all those who collaborated with the US Alliance invaders and occupiers, and that the rights of women and girls will be respected “under Islamic law”. However anti-Taliban Afghans (notably educated women, journalists, politicians, human rights advocates, collaborators and the sorely oppressed Hazaras), and Western Mainstream media, politicians and commentators declare that the Taliban cannot be trusted, that female rights established under Occupation will be abolished, deadly reprisals against collaborators will be effected, and that Afghanistan will now be subject to a grossly human rights-violating regime of “theocratic fascism”. The Taliban respond by saying that they have “moved on” from their hard-line doctrinaire position of 20 years ago.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All people in Afghanistan and indeed all of Humanity must be accorded all the human rights set out in the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and all countries and governments deviating from this standard must attract proportionate international sanctions through Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) such as those increasingly applied globally to US Alliance-backed but grossly human rights-violating Apartheid Israel. One sincerely hopes that this UDHR standard will be observed and internationally monitored in newly liberated Afghanistan as well as in all countries.
Mahatma Gandhi when asked what he thought of Western civilization famously replied “I think it would be a good idea”. Invading other countries is not civilization but simply racist barbarism. Afghans have invaded zero (0) countries since 1760 when Ahmed Shah, having unified Afghanistan, invaded India and as part of a Muslim-Afghan confederacy defeated the Hindu Marathas at the immense Battle of Panipot (he thence promptly returned to Kabul). In contrast, the US Alliance invaders of Afghanistan have invaded scores of countries. Thus the British have invaded 193 countries, Australia 85, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39 and Canada 25, as compared to Japan 30, Russia 25, Apartheid Israel 12, China 2 and India and nearly all of the Developing World zero (0) [1]. The UN Charter only permits a country to invade another country (a) if it has been attacked by that country, (b) has been invited in by the rulers of that country, or (c) has UN Security Council permission. However the US has repeatedly and grossly abused such UN permission e.g. by killing 28% of the North Korean population, applying Sanctions that killed 1.7 million Iraqis, bombing Libya (formerly the richest country in Africa) back to the Stone Age, and killing 6.8 million Afghans over 20 years as set out below (i.e. in addition to just attacking alleged Al Qaeda bases as implied by the enabling UNSC resolution).The US was denied UNSC approval to do to Syria what it did to Libya, but went ahead anyway, and helped devastate that country.
The serial war criminality of the US Alliance has been enabled by the extraordinary mendacity of the US Alliance governments and Mainstream media (MSM). Summarized below are the horrendous realities of the US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that are ignored by Western MSM.
(1). Massive US lying and the 9/11 false flag excuse for invasion. Numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts conclude that the US Government was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity (3,000 people killed) with some asserting Israeli and Saudi involvement, but US-beholden Western Mainstream media are united in blind belief in the “official version” of mendacious George W. Bush whose administration told 935 lies about Iraq between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 (as assessed by the US Center for Public Integrity). Detailed scientific reports from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Alaska Fairbanks reject the lying Bush “official version of 9/11” and evidence the explosive demolition of the 3 WTC skyscrapers on 9/11 (that necessarily implies US Government involvement in that atrocity) [2].
Extraordinarily, according to the lying Bush “official version of 9/11” zero (0) Afghans or Iraqis were among the 19 alleged hijackers, the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity. Indeed the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list included Osama bin Laden for involvement in deadly attacks on US Embassies in East Africa but not for 9/11. The mendacious and Zionist-beholden Americans invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the basis of actually non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 on the almost certainly false basis that “Al Qaeda did 9/11” and that Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden were present in Afghanistan. The Taliban offered to send Osama bin Laden to a Third country but this was rejected by the Americans. The Taliban offered to surrender but this was rejected by the Americans who thence embarked on a 2-decade genocidal atrocity in which 6.8 million Afghans have died from violence, 1.6 million, and war-imposed deprivation, 5.2 million. Indeed US-installed Afghan president Hamid Karzai has denied the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (the US excuse for invading) and has diplomatically stated that he was not convinced by the US version of 9/11. Obama claimed to have extra-judicially killed Osama in Pakistan in 2011 and then conveniently disposed of the body in the ocean – however Seymour Hersh (Pulitzer Prize winner for exposing the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam ) said that Obama’s story was utterly false except for the killing Osama; famed Dr Paul Craig Roberts (economist, editor, academic, and Father of Reaganomics) averred that the whole story was false i.e. Osama was not killed then; and famed Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto stated 3 months before her murder in 2007 that Osama had already been killed [2].
The proper US response to the 9/11 atrocity should have successively been (a) proper scientific investigation, (b) proper criminal investigation , and (c) open judicial processes against any identified alleged perpetrators. Instead the scientific and criminal investigative processes were flawed and sabotaged by continuing US Government secrecy and dishonesty. Relatives of 9/11 victims are still trying to get the US Government to release secret documents relating to Saudi involvement in 9/11. All the alleged hijackers were conveniently killed and not even a hair sample was retained to determine the identity of the person killed in 2011 and claimed by the US to be Osama bin Laden. Nobody was tried in a court of law by the US for the crime of the century. Instead the US launched a War on Terror or in reality a War on Muslims, a Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide in which 32 million Muslims were killed by violence (5 million) and war-imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 wretchedly poor countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity. 6.8 million Afghan died thus as set out below.
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(2). 6.8 million Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation, 2001-2021. Consulting UN Population Division data for the last 20 years reveals that under-5 infant deaths and avoidable deaths from deprivation in US-, Australia- and NATO-occupied Afghanistan over the last 20 years total 3.6 million and 5.2 million, respectively (for methodology see my book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” [3]) – a huge war crime commensurate in magnitude with the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million Jews killed by the Nazi Germans through violence and imposed deprivation) and in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that state that an Occupier is obliged to provide its Conquered Subjects with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” .
Under-5 infant deaths in the last 2 decades totalled 20,000 for Australia and 60,000 for Occupied Palestine. Of the Occupied Palestinians and Occupied Afghans, about 50% are children and 75% women and children. Occupied Palestine is highly abusively ruled by Apartheid Israel, but the US Alliance over the last 20 years has been 60 times worse in relation to the horrendous infant mortality of its Occupied Afghan subjects. The US Alliance politicians complicit in this Afghan Genocide, Afghan Holocaust and passive mass murder of Afghan children should be publicly held to account, at the very least at the ballot box. It is very difficult to estimate violent deaths in war. However based on expert epidemiological and survey research, the US Just Foreign Policy has estimated about 1.5 million violent Iraqi deaths in the Iraq War (2003-2011). In the same period Iraqi deaths from war-imposed deprivation totalled 1.2 million. Accepting expert advice that the Afghan War was 4 times less violent than the Iraq War yields an estimate of 2001-2021 Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation totalling 1.6 million and 5.2 million, respectively. Thus 2001-2021 Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation total 6.8 million.
(3). US restored the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry and caused 5.8 million opiate-related deaths world-wide since 9/11. Resolutely ignored by Western MSM is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report that 0.6 million people die from illicit drugs each year with 290,000 such deaths linked to US protection of the Occupied Afghanistan opium industry. According to the UNODC, global drug deaths totalled about 0.2 million in 2001 and about 0.6 million in 2019, and accordingly the average of annual drug deaths in this period was 0.4 million per year. Assuming that 90% of these drug deaths were opioid-related, that of these about 90% were due to opiates (such as opium and heroin, as opposed to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and tramadol), and that of these opiate-related deaths 90% were linked to Afghan opium production, then the average global death rate from Afghanistan-derived opium in the last 2 decades would have been about 290,000 million deaths per year – for a total of 5.8 million deaths since 9-11. For religious reasons the Taliban banned alcohol, banned smoking for public servants, and after 2000 banned opium production. Thus one can estimate that as of September 2021 – about 20 years after the 9-11 atrocity in which 3,000 were killed – about 20 years x 290,000 deaths per year = 5.8 million people would have died due to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 to 90% in 2007 [4].
The US Government has had a long and evil history of opiate drug trafficking in Turkey, thence in South East Asia during the Indo-China War years , and presently in Afghanistan, South East Asia and Latin America. The perceived benefits variously included (a) corruption and funding of covert CIA operations, (b) criminal devastation of urban African-American communities, (c) fostering covert links with corrupt and criminal regimes, and (d) using opiates to afflict and undermine “enemy” countries such as Russia, China and Iran. Afghanistan is less useful now to the US Government because of opium production in South East Asia, Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala, and synthetic opioid production. The synthetic opioid fentanyl is 50-100 times more potent than the opiate morphine. According to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) there were 70,630 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2019, of which 70.6% involved opioids such as heroin and certain prescription drugs, and 51.5% involved synthetic opioids.
(4). 4 million Iranian deaths in the 4-decade US-imposed Iranian Holocaust. US Government-beholden Mainstream media continue to turn reality on its head by ignoring this US-imposed carnage of 5.8 million opiate drug-related deaths world-wide linked to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 6% of world market share in 2001 to 93% by 2007. Further, Mainstream media ignore the reality that Iran is the world leader in combating this deadly scourge of US-protected Afghanistan opiate drugs and instead beat the drums of war against Iran by the nuclear terrorist and serial invader countries of the US, Apartheid Israel, the UK and France. Iran has not invaded another country for 1,500 years, does not have nuclear weapons, nor any intention of building them, and repeatedly declares that it wants a nuclear weapons-free Middle East [5]. Iran has suffered enormously from famines associated with British and Russian occupations in WW1 andWW2 , with up to 8-10 million dying in the 1917-1919 famine. Famine recurred in 1942-1943 with up to 3-4 million dying [6].
Since the removal of the US-backed Shah in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the US has enacted 4 decades of deadly hostility to Iran through sanctions and violence that can be described as a 4-decade US War on Iran. 1 million Iranians died in the 1980-1988 US-backed Iran-Iraq War and 3 million Iranians died avoidably from deprivation in 4 decades of variously applied sanctions. Now UK machinations, US sanctions with threats of “obliteration”, and Apartheid Israeli bombing of Iranian facilities in Syria, Iraq and Iran threaten a devastating hot war of 3 nuclear powers against a peaceful and non-nuclear-armed Iran. The estimates of the number of nuclear warheads held by the 9 nuclear weapons countries are as follows together with the population of each country: US (5,800-6,185; 331.6 million), Russia (6.372-6.490; 145.0 million), China (300-320; 1,439.3 million), France (290; 65.3 million), UK (200-215; 68.0 million), Pakistan (160; 222.3 million), India (150; 1,384.4 million), Apartheid Israel (90; Jewish Israeli population 6.7 million), and North Korea (30-40; 25.8 million). The world is existentially threatened by nuclear weapons and climate change. The US has used nuclear weapons to destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and genocidally racist Apartheid Israel has destroyed nuclear facilities in Syria, Iraq and Iran. The US has repeatedly threatened to devastate North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan. Thus President Donald Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea and to “obliterate” parts of Iran. A Google Search for the phrase “nuke Iran” yields about 50,000 results. In relation to the present US evacuation from Kabul (Biden’s Saigon), geriatric mass murderer President Joe Biden has stated “We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary”.
(5). Post-9/11 32 million Muslim Holocaust and 34 million American Holocaust. The 2001-2021 Afghan Genocide and Afghan Holocaust( 6.8 million deaths from violence and imposed deprivation) is part of a US-imposed, post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, and imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people) [6, 7]. The Afghan War has cost the US $2 trillion and the War on Terror about $6 trillion, huge sums that could have been spent at home for the benefit of American people. Thus it is estimated that about 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year from “lifestyle choice reasons” (e.g. smoking, drinking, cars, pollution, guns etc) and from “political choice reasons” (voting for pro-One Percenter, pro-war, pro-Zionist , pro-Apartheid Israel and fervently neoliberal politicians). Thus 1.7 million per year x 20 years = 34 million Americans have died thus since 9/11. Since 9/11 Zionist-beholden US Administrations have spent $6 trillion in killing over 30 million Muslims abroad rather than on trying to keep over 30 million Americans alive at home.
(6). 7,000 post-9/11 US combat deaths versus 146,000 US veteran deaths from suicide. Throughout the world people show respect for the soldiers of their nation who risk privation, injury and death in the service of their country. However shocking data on US veteran suicides reveals a huge gap between “patriotic” US politician rhetoric and actual delivery of government services to often damaged and traumatized US veterans. About 7,018 American soldiers died in the post-9/11 US War on Terror in Occupied Iraq (4,566) and Occupied Afghanistan (3,452) but vastly more US veterans have died from suicide. The US Veterans Administration has found that an average of about 20 US veterans have suicided daily in the past few decades and thus post-9/11 US veteran suicides have totalled (20 suicides per day) x (365.25 days per year) x 20 years = 146,100. Veteran suicide is a serious problem in other countries of the US Alliance, notably Australia .
(7). China observes but the US Alliance grossly violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Genocide Convention. Killing in war occurs not just through violence (active killing) but also through avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation (passive killing). Mass mortality in a Subject population occurs in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (the Fourth Geneva Convention) that unequivocally demands that the Occupier must supply its conquered Subjects with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Infant mortality (under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) is 12 ( China ), 16 ( Tibet ), 6 (USA ) and 111 (US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan). The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) (maternal deaths per 100,000 live births) is 20- 27 ( China ), 100 ( Tibet ), 14 ( USA ) and 400-1,200 (US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan). This constitutes evidence of horrendous US Alliance war crimes in Occupied Afghanistan in gross violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and thence of the UN Genocide Convention. Mass infant mortality and mass maternal mortality in US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan is evidence of a huge war crime committed over 20 years in gross violation of the UN Geneva and Genocide Conventions [8].
In relation to “the fullest extent of the means available to it” the GDP (nominal) per capita (US dollars, 2021) is as follows (in brackets) for Afghanistan ($592), China ($11,819), US ($68,309), UK ($46,344), Germany ($51,860), France ($44,995) and serial war criminal US lackey Australia ($62,723). Occupation by a violent foreign power typically involves deadly imposed poverty as exampled by the GDP (nominal) per capita (US dollars, 2021) for Occupied Palestine ( $3,156) and Occupier Apartheid Israel ($47,602). In relation to the Chinese province of Xinjiang (population about half Uighur and half Han Chinese) the mendacious and genocidally racist US Alliance Mainstream presstitutes rail about an alleged a “Uighur Genocide” but the China Daily reports : “Xinjiang’s maternal mortality rate was down from 43.41 per 100,000 in 2010 to 26.65 per 100,000 in 2018, the infant mortality rate declined from 26.58‰ to 14.02 ‰ [i.e. 14 under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births], Xinjiang’s average life expectancy was 74.82 years in 2015… there has been no mass sterilization in the region”. China is legitimately criticized by human rights advocates for its harsh treatment of dissidents, Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates and the Uighurs. However the reported mass incarceration and re-education of 1 million Uighurs, while objectionable to humanitarians as a violation of human rights, does not constitute “genocide”. In contrast, the 2 decades of active killing of Afghans and Taliban, and the passive mass murder of Afghan infants, children, women and men by the US Alliance certainly amounts to “genocide” that is defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
RELATED CONTENT: Lessons from Afghanistan: War is Only Good for Those who Profit from it
(8). Comparing Nazi and US Alliance Occupied/Occupier death ratios of 10 and 1,970, respectively. In 1944 in response to Italian partisans ambushing and killing 30 German invaders, the Nazi Germany dictator Adolph Hitler ordered reprisals involving 10 Italian men and boys executed for every German soldier killed. The order was carried out with over 300 Italian men and boys executed in the Ardeatine Caves Massacre. So far the 2001-2021 Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide has involved 3.6 million under-5 infant deaths, 5.2 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation (most of them children), 1.6 million violent Afghan deaths and a total of 6.8 million Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation. 3,452 US soldiers died in the Afghan War. The Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War is accordingly 6,800,000/ 3,452 = 1,970 or about 200 times greater than the 10 advocated by Nazi mass murderer Adolph. Hitler.
The estimation here of 1.6 million violent Afghan deaths in 2001-2021 involves comparisons between active and passive killing in the Iraq War and the Afghan War, and hence considerable uncertainty. However Mainstream US estimates are much lower. Thus the BuzzFeed estimates “240,000: Approximate total [violent] deaths as a direct result of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan… That’s roughly 80 times the death toll of the September 11, 2001 attacks”. However the estimates of 3.6 million under-5 infant deaths and 5.2 million Afghan deaths from deprivation derive from precise arithmetic based on UN Population Division data. Hence ignoring violent Afghan deaths, the Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War is US 5,200,000/3,452 = 1506 or about 1,500 and thus 150 times greater than the 10 advocated by Nazi mass murderer Adolph. Hitler. It gets worse. The post-9/11 Muslim deaths/ 9/11 death toll = 32 million/3,000 = 10,667, 1,067 times greater than the Them/Us reprisals ratio of 10 ordered by Adolph Hitler.
(9). Vital post-war aid provision versus extraction of US Alliance, collaborator and other anti-Taliban people. Western Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes are quite rightly concerned with the need (and indeed moral obligation) of the US Alliance to extract thousands of US Alliance citizens (government or NGO employees) and thousands of Afghans with well-founded fears of harm from the Taliban as employees of the US Alliance, journalists, politicians, former soldiers and other employees of the US-backed regime, writers, humanitarian activists and particularly women’s rights activists. The US and the US Alliance remain in occupation of Kabul Airport until this “mission” is completed, secure in the threat from President Biden that “We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary”. This Biden threat is empirically backed up by an Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War of 1,970, and America’s horrendous and ever-increasing historical record of genocidal violence against people around the world from extermination of Indigenous people to nuclear and non-nuclear destruction of whole cities.
Occupied Afghanistan was heavily dependent on international aid and Biden has threatened to hamper such aid and hence post-liberation recovery if the new regime doesn’t play ball. This is a vile and contemptible threat of “more of the same” coming from a war criminal country, the US, responsible for 6.8 million Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation over the last 20 years – carnage greater than that of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million Jews killed by violence and imposed deprivation). One naturally has compassion for the thousands of fearful people (especially female activists) seeking to leave Afghanistan. It is also clear that the US Alliance governments have a moral responsibility and duty of care towards the thousands of Afghans who collaborated with them. However largely ignored by Western Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes is the urgent need for international aid to preserve the lives of tens of millions of ordinary Afghans. Thus it is estimated that for Occupied Afghanistan in 2020, under-infant deaths totalled 76,000 and avoidable deaths from deprivation totalled 106,000. In 2020 the “under-5 infant mortality as a percentage of total population” for Afghanistan (0.1950%) was a shocking 118.5 times greater than for Japan (0.00145%), evidence of gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention by the occupying US Alliance countries. To this carnage we must add the avoidable deaths from deprivation among the circa 3.3 million internally displaced Afghans and the 2.5 million registered Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan from Afghanistan (present population 39 million). Serial war criminal and mass murderer Biden has already frozen the assets of impoverished Afghanistan, a move that will entrench Afghan mass mortality from dire deprivation. Anti-Taliban Western “liberals” fervently supporting the undoubted right of Afghan women to publicly expose parts of their body should spare a thought for the undoubted right of Afghan women to see the survival of their children.
(10). Exposure of the perpetrators of the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide.Racism is evil and cruel because we have no control over where and to whom we are born. War is the penultimate in racism, and genocide is the ultimate in racism, noting that “holocaust” implies a huge number of deaths, and Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide (2001-2021) has been associated with 5.2 million Afghan deaths from war-imposed deprivation and an estimated 1.6 million violent deaths. However the US-backed removal of a progressive socialist Afghan government in 1978 led to the Russian invasion in 1979 and 10 years of war between the Russians and the US-backed Mujahideen (2.9 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation in 1979-1989). The subsequent 10 years of civil war concluded with Taliban victory (3.3 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation in 1979-1989). The Afghan deaths in this 43 years of Big Power-instigated violence is 13 million (this ignoring deaths from violence in the period 1979-1999) [3, 4, 9].
This is an immense crime that demands war crimes trials before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for perpetrators of an Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide. That is not going to happen because the US does not recognize the authority of the ICC whereas the ICC cravenly accepts the authority of the US. However international and intra-national war crimes trials by eminent humanitarians are feasible and urgently required. My radical proposition is that the truth is more important than punishment of the guilty (the more so since the latter is unlikely to ever happen). Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in post-Apartheid South Africa, war crimes trials should be constituted on the basis that there should be no punishment for truth telling accompanied by sincere apology.
Thus, for example, in my own country, Australian, we honour all soldiers who have served Australia, but we must condemn the war criminal politicians who sent them to avoidable and illegal wars. US lackey Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation. An inquiry has recently revealed that Australian soldiers were allegedly involved in illegal killings of 39 Afghan civilians or combatant prisoners. Soldiers involved in one-on-one war crimes should be subject to proper judicial processes, but so too should warmongering politicians complicit in gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the UN Genocide Convention and numerous other International Conventions in US Alliance-occupied countries such as Occupied Vietnam, Occupied Afghanistan, Occupied Iraq and Occupied Palestine. The Australian Coalition Government is largely ignoring its inescapable moral obligation to protect Afghans who collaborated with US Alliance occupiers. However Australia is also ignoring its obligation to justice and the “international rules-based order” by resolutely ignoring its varying complicity in the following atrocities (dates and deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation in brackets): the Afghan Holocaust (2001-2021; 6.8 million), Iraqi Holocaust (2003-2011; 2.7 million), Palestinian Genocide (1914 onwards; 2 million), post-1950 US Asian wars (1950 onwards; 40 million), post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust (2001 onwards; 32 million), WW2 Bengali Holocaust (1942-1945; 6-7 million) and the ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide (1788 onwards; 2 million). As demanded by Indigenous Australians in relation to the 2-century Aboriginal Genocide, Australia urgently needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to deal with over 2 centuries of Australian involvement in war crimes and genocides, including the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide.
Final comments.
The Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide has been associated with 6.8 million Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation. The US Alliance has grossly violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, the UN Genocide Convention and numerous other International humanitarian conventions. This atrocity has been enabled by the racism and mendacity of Western Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes. In the absence of international exposure, let alone international war crimes trials, and inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in post-Apartheid South Africa, inter-national and intra-national war crimes trials should be legislatively constituted on the basis that there should be no punishment for truth telling accompanied by sincere apology.
Unfortunately the Awful Truth is comprehensively suppressed in the self-assertedly democratic West that disingenuously boasts freedom of expression but is subject to media control by neoliberal Big Money. World hero Julian Assange has been incarcerated for 9 years for revealing American-documented US war crimes. In US lackey, Corporatocracy, and Murdochracy Australia I have had the honour of being rendered “invisible” in the last decade for giving science-based mortality estimates for horrendous US Alliance war crimes ignored by Mainstream media.
What can decent people do? Decent people must (a) inform everyone they can; (b) urge and apply Boycotts Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, collectives, corporations and countries involved in any violent military invasions and occupations of other countries; and (c) insist on science-informed truth-telling and justice for all victims of genocidal US and US Alliance war and genocidally racist exceptionalism.
References
[1]. “Stop state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ .
[2]. “Experts: US did 9/11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, 2007; now available for free perusal on the Web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .
[4]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Opiate Holocaust – US protection of Afghan opiates has killed 5.2 million people since 9/11”, Countercurrents, 10 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/us-imposed-opiate-holocaust-us-protection-of-afghan-opiates-has-killed-5-2-million-people-since-9-11/ .
[5]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel bombing Syria & Iraq – hotting up deadly 4-decade US war on Iran”, Countercurrents, 14 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/apartheid-israel-bombing-syria-iraq-hotting-up-deadly-4-decade-us-war-on-iran .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.
[7]. Gideon Polya, “ Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .
[8]. Gideon Polya, China’s Tibet health success versus passive mass murder of Afghan women and children by US Alliance’, Global Research, 7 January 2018: https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-tibet-health-success-versus-passive-mass-murder-of-afghan-women-and-children-by-us-alliance/5625169 .
[9]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”. He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020) and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2021). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/
Featured image: File Photo
