Let them eat bombs: The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling

[Guest guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1457436,00.html

 

Let them eat bombs

 

The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling

 

Terry Jones

Tuesday April 12, 2005

The Guardian

 

A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded

that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than

they are now.

 

This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like

George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best

when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities

and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.

 

It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi

youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably

doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition.

Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry,

whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.

 

These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the

Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By

Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to

improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For

example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living

memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed

in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a

factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children

were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.

 

A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United

Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer

remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than

were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: " We think the

price is worth it. "

 

But clearly George Bush didn't. So he hit on the idea of bombing them

instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their

fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks

- but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to

be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly

baffling.

 

And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the

general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military

techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of

Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that,

under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money

we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of

Iraqi children.

 

In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the

poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either

government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price

worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any

amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the

lives of Iraqi kids. You know it makes sense.

 

·Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. He is the author of

Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror

 

www.terry-jones.net