We know that some 3000 people died as a result of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. Across the world many people, also innocent, have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of the actions of US military forces.
AlterNet has a piece from TomDispatch in which writer Tom Engelhardt looked at how a life has been valued by the Americans. It all seems to depend on what nationality you are - and where! The differences between a lost life in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US is startling.
"Recently, through a Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU pried loose some of the requests for compensation payments submitted by Iraqis and Afghans (and the military's decisions on them, including denials of payment). They make grim reading. Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher offered this description: "What price (when we do pay) do we place on the life of a 9-year-old boy, shot by one of our soldiers who mistook his book bag for a bomb satchel? Would you believe $500? And when we shoot an Iraqi journalist on a bridge we shell out $2,500 to his widow -- but why not the measly $5,000 she had requested?"
Back in 2005, Iraqi payments already seemed to average about $2,500 for a wrongful death. That, for instance, is what the families of two dozen innocent Iraqis slaughtered in another Marines-run-amok moment at Haditha, also after an attack on a convoy of Humvees that wounded a Marine, received. ("They ranged from little babies to adult males and females," said Ryan Briones, a Marine witness to the event. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood.")
This practice is not new to George Bush's wars. During the Vietnam War, as part of the American pacification program, U.S. officials made what were called "solatium payments" for wrongful deaths caused by American forces. Back then, the U.S. valued Vietnamese adults at about $35 (U.S.), while children's lives were worth about $15.
We don't know who exactly decided on the value in U.S. dollars of the life of a 16 year-old Afghan girl, slaughtered while carrying a bundle of grass to her family farmhouse, or on the basis of what formula for pricing life the decision was made. We know a good deal more about how the U.S. government evaluated the worth of the lives of slaughtered American innocents. For that, however, you have to think back to the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The family or spouse of a loved one murdered on that day was also given a monetary value by the U.S. government -- on average $1.8 million, thanks to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, created by an act of Congress, signed into law by President Bush 13 days after the attacks, and put into operation thanks to 33 months of careful, pro bono evaluation of the worth of an innocent American life by Special Master of the fund Kenneth Feinberg. (Small numbers of illegal immigrants who worked in the World Trade Center were also given these payments, as were larger numbers of foreigners who worked there.) Even here, however, the monetary value of a human life varied greatly, being computed, just as Ettie Pressman's once was, at the mandate of Congress, on the basis of the victim's estimated lost lifetime earnings.
AlterNet has a piece from TomDispatch in which writer Tom Engelhardt looked at how a life has been valued by the Americans. It all seems to depend on what nationality you are - and where! The differences between a lost life in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US is startling.
"Recently, through a Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU pried loose some of the requests for compensation payments submitted by Iraqis and Afghans (and the military's decisions on them, including denials of payment). They make grim reading. Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher offered this description: "What price (when we do pay) do we place on the life of a 9-year-old boy, shot by one of our soldiers who mistook his book bag for a bomb satchel? Would you believe $500? And when we shoot an Iraqi journalist on a bridge we shell out $2,500 to his widow -- but why not the measly $5,000 she had requested?"
Back in 2005, Iraqi payments already seemed to average about $2,500 for a wrongful death. That, for instance, is what the families of two dozen innocent Iraqis slaughtered in another Marines-run-amok moment at Haditha, also after an attack on a convoy of Humvees that wounded a Marine, received. ("They ranged from little babies to adult males and females," said Ryan Briones, a Marine witness to the event. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood.")
This practice is not new to George Bush's wars. During the Vietnam War, as part of the American pacification program, U.S. officials made what were called "solatium payments" for wrongful deaths caused by American forces. Back then, the U.S. valued Vietnamese adults at about $35 (U.S.), while children's lives were worth about $15.
We don't know who exactly decided on the value in U.S. dollars of the life of a 16 year-old Afghan girl, slaughtered while carrying a bundle of grass to her family farmhouse, or on the basis of what formula for pricing life the decision was made. We know a good deal more about how the U.S. government evaluated the worth of the lives of slaughtered American innocents. For that, however, you have to think back to the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The family or spouse of a loved one murdered on that day was also given a monetary value by the U.S. government -- on average $1.8 million, thanks to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, created by an act of Congress, signed into law by President Bush 13 days after the attacks, and put into operation thanks to 33 months of careful, pro bono evaluation of the worth of an innocent American life by Special Master of the fund Kenneth Feinberg. (Small numbers of illegal immigrants who worked in the World Trade Center were also given these payments, as were larger numbers of foreigners who worked there.) Even here, however, the monetary value of a human life varied greatly, being computed, just as Ettie Pressman's once was, at the mandate of Congress, on the basis of the victim's estimated lost lifetime earnings.
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