The U.S. has nightmares of seeing Iraq fall into the arms of its Shiite

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in their country, a situation that is now being repeated in Afghanistan.”

The documents released by Wikileaks represent a new stage in counting the toll of the Iraq war and occupation. The U.S. authorities have been forced progressively to take account of the civilian casualties, but the latest posting is still thousands short of the totals compiled by both Wikileaks and the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights, which uses death certificates to compile its list.

“This month,” The Times stated, “the Associated Press reported that the Pentagon in July had quietly posted its fullest tally of the death toll of Iraqi civilians and security forces ever, numbers that were first requested in 2005 through the Freedom of Information Act. It was not clear why the total—76,939 Iraqi civilians and members of the security forces killed between January 2004 and August 2008—was significantly less than the sum of the archive’s death count.

The Times noted that the reports on which archive totals were compiled were only as good as the soldiers calling them in: “One of the most infamous episodes of killings by American soldiers, the shootings of at least 15 Iraqi civilians, including women and children in the western city of Haditha, is misrepresented in the archives. The report stated that the civilians were killed by militants in a bomb attack, the same false version of the episode that was given to the news media.”

This accounting of the civilian death toll, of course, does not include the civilians, many of them children, who died as a result of the degradation of essential services, such as water, electricity, sewage, and hospitals. Adding those factors would multiply the toll enormously.

The New York Times tried to minimize U.S. responsibility for this carnage by claiming that Iraqi fighters were responsible for most of the deaths. But this disregards the well documented reaction of Iraqis who blame the killings on the chaos created by the U.S. attack and the insensitive actions of the U.S. occupation forces and the neighbor, Iran.

mercenary military contractors associated with them. The evident fact is that it was the U.S. assault that created al-Qaeda in Iraq, where it had not existed before. And it was al-Qaeda that inflicted slaughter on Iraqi civilians in its attempt to provoke a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, with the aim of mobilizing Muslim hatred of the “infidel” occupiers and the Shiites who welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The ruthless and provocative actions of al-Qaeda eventually aroused a backlash among local Sunni leaders that the U.S. forces were able to tap. They promoted the organization of local militias, the Awakening Groups, to fight alQaeda. It was these militias that largely marginalized the insurgency and allowed the U.S. to reduce its troop levels and claim victory.

Ironically, in the same week that a more complete picture has emerged about the carnage associated with the U.S. invasion and occupation, a report came out of a trend in the Awakening Groups to return to insurgency.

The New York Times reported Oct. 10: “Although there are no firm figures, security and political officials say hundreds of the well-disciplined fighters— many of whom have gained extensive knowledge about the American military—appear to have rejoined Al Quaeda in Mesopotamia. Beyond that, officials say that even many of the Awakening fighters still on the Iraqi government payroll, possibly thousands of them, covertly aid the insurgency.”

The article continued: “Awakening leaders and security officials say that since the spring, as many as several thousand Awakening fighters have quit, been fired, stopped showing up

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Richard Drew / AP Canadian officials announce loss of Security Council seat, Oct. 12. (From left) Peter Kent, Sec. of State for the Americas; Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon; UN Ambassador John McNee.

tary’s removal of elected president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009. Mexico’s Notimex reported that Canada was the only country in the hemisphere that did not explicitly call for Zelaya’s return to power. Canadian officials repeatedly criticized Zelaya at the Organization of American States (OAS). The ousted government complained that Ottawa failed to suspend aid to Honduras, which is the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America.

Canada has actively supported the U.S.-led campaign against the government of Venezuela. In mid-2007 Harper toured South America “to show [the region] that Canada functions and that it can be a better model than Venezuela,” in the words of one high-level foreign affairs official. During the trip, Harper and his entourage made a number of comments critical of the Venezuelan government.