Weepy Docs Prognosticate

A group of British political doctors, who call themselves Medact, predict over four million casualties in any war with Iraq, according to Reuters this morning. I mention it here not because I question their motives, although I do, and not to question their competence to make this prediction, although they admit on their web site that they are incompetent to make this prediction, but rather I wonder how it is that such a meaningless press release is made public by Reuters and Yahoo news, and has already been picked up by Cox News service, and no doubt will receive much wider distribution as time goes on.

If you read the press release, all you will find is a depiction of a worst-case scenario, in which Iraq launches a WMD attack on Israel "and perhaps other countries," and receives a nuclear retaliation from Israel, or perhaps another country.

Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, is in no way qualified to make these predictions. They boast absolutely no experts in military strategy on their staff, but declare that they are an organization dedicated to spreading information on "the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare." If we need to listen to doctors bloviating on this subject, do we need to allow Mayor Rudi Giuliani to perform surgery upon our appendix? Or get General Al Haig to do a root canal on one of our molars? I guess so, since these are the same people who protected B.J.Clinton's right to act as a gynecologist upon interns in the White House. If doctors can do politics, politicians must be qualified to do medicine.

In fact, no one is qualified to make such predictions. There are too many variables to even make an educated guess. This is just a story that they are telling. Why do they stop at four million casualties? I'll tell you why. They are in denial about the Iraqi threat. Their judgement plan can only see our side using the nukes, and refuses to factor in the much greater probability that the Arabs are the ones most likely to use nuclear arms. One nuke in New York or Washington could easily blow their prediction out of the water, but illuminating the reality that the world is facing today is not the point of this organization. Only white Christian western civilization is capable of such destruction, in their world view. This we know. What we will find out, in the next few days, is which news organs are willing to be complicit in their pacifist campaign. The only problem with pacificism is, it presupposes that one's foe is civilized. Our's is not.