Iraq disaster goes on......and on

The disaster that Bush and Blair unleashed when they blundered into Iraq a decade ago shows no sign of abating.   Yesterday at least a dozen people, mainly Shia pilgrims, were killed in a series of bombings across the country.

No one has claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants, some of whom have links to al-Qaeda, have been blamed for much of the recent violence.   On Wednesday, more than 40 people were killed by bombs.

According to the authoritative independent Iraq Body Count monitoring group, last year 4,471 civilians were killed, an increase on 2011.   Every week on average, there are 18 bombings in the country.

Relations between Sunnis and Shias appear to get worse by the day.  Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunnis ruled the roost.     Since the invasion, they feel they have been marginalised and they have begun staging strikes and sit-ins.

* http://lagotafria.blogspot.com.es/  2nd blog on this page discusses my Historia Mundial de los desastres

Continuing disaster in Iraq - 9th anniversary bombings

As the US and UK governments gear up for their next Middle Eastern war - most favoured venue, Iran – a reminder of the continuing bloody disaster we unleashed on Iraq.   On the 9^th anniversary of the invasion, at least 30 people have been killed in a series of bombings in the country.

Two car bombs in the mainly Shia city of Karbala are said to have killed at least 13 people, while another in the northern city of Kirkuk caused the deaths of at least seven.   A pregnant woman died in Fallujah.

Bombings are now part of the daily pattern of life in Iraq.    In January, a suicide bomber killed 53 people in an attack on Shi’ite pilgrims in Basra in the south.   Then a few days later another suicide bomber killed 31 mourners at a Shi’ite funeral in Baghdad.

Nearly 5,000 soldiers in the invading armies were killed, but we have no real idea of the number of Iraqi civilians who have paid with their lives.    Few now contest that it is well over 100,000, but we will probably never know the true number because, as Nikita Khrushchev said of the authorities’ indifference to those who died in the great Soviet famine of 1932-3: ‘no one was counting.’

A new blog

Invasions, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, bird flu – the world seems to get more dangerous by the day. Or does it? In this blog, I am going to be examining disasters in their historical context, and recalling some of the major disasters of the past. The first posts will begin this week.

I am the author of three histories of disasters – “The Disastrous History of London” (which appeared in hardback as “Capital Disasters”), “A Disastrous History of Britain”, and “A Disastrous History of the World” – the latest, which appeared in November. They provide a comprehensive account of the worst disasters to have afflicted mankind whether natural, like volcanic eruptions, hurricanes or disease; accidental such as fires or shipwrecks; or deliberately inflicted like wars, massacres or terrorism.

For further details, see my website http://www.disasterhistorian.com/index.html.