The Children Of Iraq: Devastation Untold
“…Line up the bodies of the children, the thousands of children — the infants, the toddlers, the schoolkids — whose bodies were torn to pieces, burned alive or riddled with bullets during the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Line them up in the desert sand, walk past them, mile after mile, all those twisted corpses, those scraps of torn flesh and seeping viscera, those blank faces, those staring eyes fixed forever on nothingness. This is the reality of what happened in Iraq; there is no other reality….”
- Chris Floyd, December 17, 2011
The following is part of a presentation given at the side event of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, a tribunal established in order to investigate allegations of war crimes in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon; the presentation is a compilation of figures and statistics that carry with them names, and identities. They are brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, grandchildren – they are children who have been forced into suffering unimaginable terror, who have been quickly and unashamedly forgotten, or worse, ignored. This is “humanitarian” imperialism and its cost in human suffering, in all of its blood-red glory.
“Of all the statistics that describe the devastation wreaked upon Iraq by the illegal war, the figures describing the plight of Iraqi children are the most troubling and heart-wrenching.
These children will determine the future Iraq. Their wellbeing, or lack of it, will have impact on the lives of all Iraqis regardless their sect, religion, or ethnicity.
The Anglo-American occupation forces and the Iraqi government grossly failed to fulfil their most basic duties towards the children of Iraq.
The Occupying powers bear full responsibility for the violations of the provisions and Conventions related to children. They should be held fully accountable for the harm they have inflicted upon the Iraqi children.”
- The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal
