1.2 million innocent Iraqis dead; microchips in humans, and more

Last week, the British press reported a new estimate of how many Iraqis have been killed: 1.2 million. The number was gathered through a poll conducted by Opinion research. Here's the question:

In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,499 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

QHow many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003. Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063

Please click on this link if you want a local perspective on these figures - a short interview with our pollster Dr Munqeth Daghir - http://195.158.192.26/munqeth/

How much is 1.2 million? A little more than twice the population of Wyoming, according to the latest U.S. Census. All people killed for having the misfortune of having a leader they didn't elect. How was that their fault???

There were never any weapons of mass destruction. Iraqis have never attacked us on our soil. And even Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve, wrote in his memoir:

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

You'd think 1.2 million killed for a crime they didn't commit would be enough to shame Democrats and Republicans into working together to end the war. But it seems many check their souls at the border when they enter the territory of Washington, D.C. It is a territory, not a state, by the way. People in DC still do not have the right to vote, and the Senate just killed another chance for DC. As Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pointed out, a lot of DC residents are fighting in Iraq. I strongly agree that soldiers deserve a voice in the affairs of the nation they are literally dying to protect, or rather "protect," because Iraq has never ever been a direct threat to the United States.

In other news, chips implanted in lab animals are giving some of them cancer. I feel sorry for the animals, and hope this shows how insane the idea of microchipping people is. How many of you are aware that that is already being done? In a letter to their implanted clients and investors, VeriChip wrote:

Over the last weekend, the Associated Press published an article regarding the safety of one our products, the implantable VeriMed Patent Identification System. More specifically, the article referenced studies in laboratory mice and rats that demonstrate some potential for tumors from a similar microchip to VeriChip. Obviously, this article has caused extreme concern for us and more importantly, for our obligation to you. Rest assured, we remain confident that our VeriChip products are extremely safe as evidenced by the FDA's approval and recent affirmation of that approval.

(In the letter, VeriChip argues that lab rats are often prone to getting cancer at injection sites, and that the implants have worked safely in pets for 15 years.)

How long have humans been implanted? The Defense Department has chipped soldiers (ostensibly so they could always find and rescue them) for at least 12 years. Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City Bombing incident had a microchip in his butt. The Pentagon plans to embed more sophisticated chips for purported medical reasons, according to IntelDaily:

The Department of Defense is planning to implant microchips in soldiers' brains for monitoring their health information, and has already awarded a $1.6 million contract to the Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B) at Clemson University for the development of an implantable "biochip".

Soldiers fear that the biochip, about the size of a grain of rice, which measures and relays information on soldiers vital signs 24 hours a day, can be used to put them under surveillance even when they are off duty.

And in a weird twist, Masonic Lodges around the country have a CHIP program. But no implantation, or at least, not yet, so far as I know. The program takes DNA samples from children and other identifying objects and gives them to parents. But it seems the programs name itself is meant to prepare the people for the day when we are all chipped from birth.

Can people really not see the sinister potential there? Look at this incident, from the New York Times:

Afternoon sunlight poured over the high wooden barriers into the ring, as the brave bull bore down on the unarmed “matador” – a scientist who had never before faced a fighting bull. But the charging animals horns never reached the man behind the red cape. Moments before that could happen, Dr. Jose Delgado, the scientist, pressed a button on a small radio transmitter in his hand and the bull braked to a halt. Then he pressed another button on the transmitter, and the bull obediently turned to the right and trotted away.

The bull was obeying commands in his brain that were being called forth by electrical stimulation – by the radio signals – of certain regions in which the fine wires had been painlessly implanted the day before.

The experiment, conducted last year in Cordova, Spain, by Dr Delgado of Yale University’s School of Medicine, was probably the most spectacular demonstration ever performed of the deliberate modification of animal behaviour through external control of the brain. He has been working in this field for more than 15 years. Techniques that he and other scientists have recently developed have been refined to the point where, he believes, “a turning point has been reached in the study of the mind.”

When was that turning point reached? 1965! The CIA, in its various mind control programs (under the umbrella designation of MKULTRA), experimented with implanting various devices in the brain since at least 1952. How much do you think they've learned in 55 years? If they could stop a bull in his tracks long ago, don't you think the technology exists to stop a human as well, or even to guide him to an alternative action?

I argued recently that what our country needs is conspiracy literacy. People need to understand that there really are people whose goal is the total control of society. Delgado espoused such thoughts, causing some to react, as Scientific American noted in its long October 2005 article about Delgado:

The fiercest opponent of brain implants was psychiatrist Peter Breggin (who in recent decades has focused on the dangers of psychiatric drugs). In testimony submitted into the Congressional Record in 1972, Breggin lumped Delgado, Ervin, Mark and Heath together with advocates of lobotomies and accused them of trying to create “a society in which everyone who deviates from the norm” will be “surgically mutilated.”

Quoting liberally from [Delgado's book] Physical Control [of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society], Breggin singled out Delgado as “the great apologist for technologic totalitarianism.”

If you can't imagine it, you can't prevent it. Expand your mind. There is so much to fight.