The Geneva Conventions are quite clear about the responsibility of the invader and occupier to do everything in their power to preserve the life of civilians.  

Unfortunately the above data show that the US (and its allies) have grossly violated the Geneva Conventions in these Asian Wars - and have done so in vast excess over the "enemy civilian"/"German soldier" "kill ratio" of 10 in the  Ardeatine Caves atrocity. The reason for these horrendous US "kill ratios" is that high technology US warfare preserves politically-sensitive military lives at the expense of enemy civilian lives through high technology killing from afar (more bombs were dropped on tiny, remote Laos by the US than on all of Europe in all of World War 2); better training of its soldiers to kill; and through improved medical technology to save the lives of wounded soldiers.

Of course the real obscenity is revealed when one considers that about half of the victims are innocent infants under the age of 5. The under-5 infant mortality was 0.3 million (Korea, 1950-1953); 5.6 million (Indo-China, 1957-1975); 1.3 million (Iraq, 1990-2003); 1.4 million (Afghanistan, 2001-2005); and 0.3 million (Iraq, 2003-2005). US state terrorism has exacted a horrendous civilian death toll in US Asian wars.

HORRENDOUS GLOBAL HUMAN COST OF US STATE TERRORISM

Using UN Population Division demographic data it is possible to calculate the post-1950 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) for every country in the world. Violent occupation by countries clearly does not help and neo-colonial prior threat and post-occupation periods also contribute to the “body count”. One way of assessing the HUMAN IMPACT of such occupation is by expressing “post-1950 avoidable mortality” as a percentage of the present population – thus for the USA this is 8.455 million/300.038 million = 1.5% (one of the best figures in the World and reflecting US wealth and INTERNAL respect for life).  However for the countries that the US has militarily occupied in the post-war period (ignoring immediate post-war occupation of Axis countries and a huge list of US-complicit wars and tyrannies in which US forces were not involved) the post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population has been 82.109 million/342.477million = 24.0%; about half the victims of this horrendous US state terrorism have been infants under the age of 5. 

The war crimes of US state terrorism (and its allies) are horrendous and demand action by the International Criminal Court (albeit with the US in absentia because it does not recognize the Court's jurisdiction over Americans). The murder of 5,000 Western civilians over 20 years is an awful set of crimes but the full extent of the crimes of the responsible non-state terrorists  has been realized in the appalling and utterly disproportionate mass murder and passive genocide by US state terrorism. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity (see here ).

There is a serious threat to Australia from US state terrorism. A “terrorist attack” by the US or its surrogates in Australia would be of immense benefit to the US “War on Terror”.  However the Australian Government - that is legislatively grossly violating fundamental civil and human rights (freedom of expression, freedom of association and no detention without charge) - is itself complicit with US state terrorism. Australia is unprotected from attack by US state terrorism. 

ACTUAL AUSTRALIAN DEATHS LINKED TO US STATE TERRORISM 

As stated above, there have only been 3 terrorist-caused deaths in Australia in 3 decades and these are speculated by an expert witness as being due to Australian Security itself. While there is continuing mainstream media hysteria about the POSSIBILITY of terrorist attacks in Australia, these same media utterly IGNORE some 2,000 21st century Australian deaths linked to US state terrorism. 

The breakdown of the 7 million annual world-wide deaths from tobacco, drugs and alcohol (2003) is as follows: 4.9 million (71%; tobacco-related), 1.8 million (26%; alcohol-related), 223,000 (3%; illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine and amphetamines); and 70,000 (1%; heroin-related). 

The estimated current breakdown of Australian deaths from tobacco, drugs and alcohol is as follows: 19,000 (tobacco-related), 7,000 (alcohol-related); 700 (accidental deaths from illicit drugs) and about 400 (opioid-related accidental deaths).

The UK had a major role in development of the opium trade involving British India and China (18th-20th centuries). Major mortality events linked to British opium-linked exploitation of India and China include the Great Bengal Famine (1769-1770; 10 million deaths), other 18th-19th century famines in India (tens of millions of victims); 25 million 19th century cholera deaths (due to cholera dissemination by British shipping, rail and canals); the 19th century China Opium Wars and the subsequent Tai Ping rebellion (20-100 million associated famine victims); extraordinary Indian population stasis between 1890 and 1930 (due to famine, malnutrition, cholera, plague and influenza); and finally the WW2 man-made Bengal Famine in WW2 British India (4 million victims; speculated in Colin Mason’s “A Short History of Asia”  to have been a deliberate scorched earth policy to block Japanese invasion from Burma – and accordingly near-comprehensively deleted from British history).

Post-war, the US had a major role in the setting up of the opium trade in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Burma (via the Kuomintang Nationalist Army and connected war-lords), the strategy evidently being connected with anti-Soviet and anti-Chinese policies and supporting armed anti-communist elements.  In 2000 the 2 biggest sources of opium were Burma and Afghanistan. However in 2000 the victorious Taliban decided to destroy the opium poppy crop (notwithstanding its considerable financial importance) and before the US invasion in 2001 it had been virtually all destroyed. However the US victory meant that by 2002 Afghanistan under US guns had regained its previous important position as a major World opium producer.

In 1999 there were 1,084 accidental opioid-related deaths in Australia, representing 77% of accidental illicit drug-related deaths; by 2001 this had declined to 413 (representing 58% of accidental illicit drug-related deaths) due to a heroin drought in Australia. Resumption of Afghan opium and heroin production under US administration will presumably increase heroin availability and hence heroin-related deaths.

Continuing, US de facto pro-opium policies (including price-elevating domestic banning and the huge post-invasion opium expansion in Afghanistan) make the US (and its UK and Australian allies) complicit in the 70,000 heroin-related deaths globally EACH YEAR (14 times the total number of Western civilians killed by jihadists over 20 YEARS) and about 500 heroin-related deaths in AUSTRALIA EACH YEAR due to criminal activity benefiting directly from US state terrorism in which the Australian Government and its politicized Security are both slavishly complicit. (It should be noted that these estimates of heroin-related deaths are independent of injection-related HIV and other infections. According to UNAIDS there are currently 37.8 million HIV-positive people worldwide, 4.8 million were newly infected in 2003, 2.9 million died in 2003 and 20 million have died since 1981). 

Former president of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, a great and good man who helped rescue Indonesia from 40 years of US-backed military dictatorship, has recently indicated that the Bali bombings (that have killed about 100 Australians) probably involved the military. Successive Australian Governments and Security have supported the US-backed Suharto dictatorship and trained (and have recently resumed training) the notorious Kopassus Special Forces units responsible for immense atrocities against civilians. The major crimes of the US-backed Indonesian military have been 500,000 people murdered in 1965 (the “anti-communist coup”); hundreds of thousands imprisoned since 1965; 200,000 East Timorese murdered out of a population of about 600,000 during the 30 year Indonesian occupation after the US-sanctioned invasion; horrendous human rights abuses in addition to outright killings; backing of militias responsible for atrocities in East Timor after the independence referendum (information denied to Australian servicemen, NGOs and police by irresponsible Australian Government and Security); atrocities in Papua and Aceh over 40 years; the SIEV X refugee boat disaster (353 mostly women and children drowned in a process involving Indonesian military and police and variously Australian Government and Security); continuing military-backed atrocities against Christians that have killed thousands; and a post-1950 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) for Indonesia of 71.5 million.

US state terrorism-linked Australian Government and Security with resultant CLEAR COMPLICITY in the criminal, post-2001 deaths of about 2,000 Australians (not to mention the current 4,000-6,000 avoidable indigenous Aboriginal deaths EACH YEAR) have already installed appalling legislative violations of Australian civil and human rights – and have now secured substantial bipartisan support for even more draconian violations of Australian rights.