On 1/3/06 1:47 AM, "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> "The only difference now is that we are pushing hundreds of
> thousands of Arabs though the butchers' shops -"
>
> in that I don't feel sure about the implied numbers - 'hundreds of
> thousands' - really? it is a rhetorical pick up from an earlier sentence
> about the Great War - and too the word 'Arabs'. Are Iraqis Arabs? I know
> there are marsh ones, or were, the Kurds certainly aren't, Iraq aka
> Mesopotamia aka the Land between Two Rivers had a long standing indigenous
> population before the Moslem invasion and takeover, so I'm not sure about
> that.
The estimation published in Lancet some time ago - widely discredited by
governments but actually stastically very credible - came up with the figure
of 100,000 deaths as a result of the Iraqi occupation. Some people are
suggesting figures now of around 250,000. And yes, most Iraqis are Arabs,
although there are significant minorities among the population. Muslim is
not an synonym for Arabic.
Best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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