KIA:WIA Ratios – Conjuring With The Dead And Ignoring The Wounded

Millions of words have now been written about the numbers of Tamil civilians killed during Sri Lanka’s victory over the Tamil Tigers in May 2009; probably more words than the millions of bullets fired during the war. But something didn’t ring true.

Missing from this civilian casualty toll inflation is any mention of an immutable fact of warfare: the ratio of dead to wounded. This was first analysed in a groundbreaking study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 1999, which examined casualty ratios in wars from 1940 to 1988. The study showed that the “number of people wounded is at least twice the number killed and may be 13 times as high” depending on the conflict type, weapons used and other factors.

Applying this ratio to Sri Lanka’s civilian casualty numbers during the last stages of Eelam War 4 shows a truly appalling misuse of civilian casualty numbers by international humanitarians, whose jaundiced view on Sri Lanka’s victory has led them to disregard basic mathematics, statistics, facts and logic.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mohamed?

The UK has a Jihadi tourism problem. Since 2001 young Jihadis holding British passports have been quietly slipping out of the country to spend their gap years gaining valuable combat experience in hot and dusty places around the world. If they aren’t killed in action, they return home (as UK passport holders they can’t be denied re-entry to Britain) helping to spread the Jihadi gospel in cold, wet Britain and plan acts of ‘home-grown’ terrorism. Since they’re UK passport holders, they can’t just be executed abroad or quietly kidnapped and imprisoned by US forces. What to do?

The solution was simple, elegant, legal and lethal.

The Home Office says: “Citizenship is a privilege not a right. The Home Secretary has the power to remove citizenship from individuals where she considers it is conducive to the public good.”

“Search Interrogate and Destroy” – Hard COIN for Hard Times

In late 2012, workers digging foundations for a new wing in Matale Hospital unearthed partial skeletons of more than 150 people. Of the various theories that sought to explain how this mass grave came to be, the one that most people instinctively thought might be true was that this was the final resting place of victims of death squads from 2^nd JVP insurgency, which from 1987 to 1989 almost brought the Sri Lankan State to total collapse. The counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign, which in turn destroyed the JVP had few equals (except perhaps the 1990s Algerian counter-insurgency campaign and the India’s anti-’Khalistan’ counter-insurgency in the Punjab) for its ruthlessness.

Mass grave being excavated in Matale Hospital, 2012

Unlike today’s COIN warriors who use seemingly benign terms like “Fight, Secure, Build”, Sri Lanka’s COIN warriors used the more honest, “Search, Interrogate and Destroy” to characterise their brutal, blood-stained and ultimately successful campaign to crush the JVP.

Sri Lanka’s Civilian Deaths Bingo

The civilians killed in the last months of Sri Lanka’s bloody, brutal and comprehensive victory over the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) can’t find peace, even in death. The exact number of civilian deaths ranges from 1,000+ (Government of Sri Lanka – GoSL) to 7000+ (UN) to 20,000 (The Times) to 40,000 (various international human rights organisations) to a ludicrous 150,000+ (LTTE supporters).

‘Choose the number that best suits your argument’ is how Sri Lanka’s Civilian Deaths Bingo is being played. The latest UN report has increased the Casualty Bingo number yet again, this time to 40,000. But there’s an unexamined aspect of the last battle – what is an acceptable level of casualties in a hostage rescue operation?

Prabhakaran practicing the Human Shield Manoeuvre

Could Jimmy Savile Fix It for the LTTE? WTF?

“Now then, now then, now then boys and girls..”

Guess who attended the World Tamils Forum (WTF) Conference in March 2009?

If Sir Jimmy and Prabha had lived long enough, they could’ve swapped stories about children.

Sri Lanka War Crimes Test Series – Will Sri Lanka win The Third Test in Geneva?

Can Sri Lanka win the Third Test Match (scheduled to end around 15^th March) of the thrilling five game series of the Sri Lanka War Crimes Test Series being played at the 19th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the inter-governmental body within the United Nations System?

The US has sponsored a resolution aimed at pushing Sri Lanka into implementing its own LLRC (“Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee”) report, whilst unsubtly telling it that unless it does so, Sri Lanka will face unforeseen, negative consequences.

Keeping a straight bat in Geneva?

Mr Poop Goes for a Walk

Amnesty International’s attacks on Sri Lanka’s poor war-time human rights record were rebutted with a kneejerk response from nationalistic Sinhalese politicians: “Amnesty is attacking Sri Lanka because it’s in the pay of the LTTE”. Most people (myself included) scoffed at such paranoid and ridiculous attacks on Amnesty. After all, this was Amnesty International, a neutral organisation dedicated to exposing wrongdoing across on the planet, not beholden to any government and funded solely by its member’s donations.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The paranoids have finally been proven correct. In a bizarre move, Amnesty proudly proclaimed receiving over $50,0000 from an LTTE front organisation, the Canadian Tamil Congress, which recently held fundraising ‘walk-a-thon’ in Toronto for Amnesty International.

 

Alex Neve, Amnesty International accepting $50,000 from the Canadian Tamil Congress, 21st January, 2012

London is looted and ransacked – Amnesty Int’l calls for restraint by “all sides”

What was Amnesty International’s reaction to the London Riots when feral mobs of looters ransacked, burnt and pillaged their way through large parts of the city with the Met impotently standing aside and watching the mayhem unfold? To “call for restraint from all sides”.

This looter couldn’t restrain himself from setting fire to a van and robbing a sporting goods store.

When Pigs Fly: Britain Preaching Human Rights to Sri Lanka

When Britain ruled Sri Lanka

Who issued this scorched-earth policy in response to local resistance against a foreign invasion army?

 ….”cut down every yielding tree, pull down every dwelling house, destroy all fields, canals and irrigation reservoirs, kill all males over the age of 14 years and slaughter all cattle leaving those which are needed for the use of the army.”   The army followed the orders to the letter, killing between 40,000 to 100,000 enforcing the promulgation. The rebel leader was beheaded.

Saying Sorry Is The Hardest Thing To Do

Sri Lanka Army Deeply Regrets..

A ceremonial force once barely capable of defending itself, Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces have fought in cities and villages, in jungles and hills and at sea and in the air. They have mastered the complexities of combined operations and completely annihilated the one of the most effective insurgencies of the last fifty years, the hitherto invincible Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. But one indispensable military skill (which has been successfully mastered by all major Western powers), still eludes them. This is how to say sorry when you kill the wrong people for right reasons and kill the right people for the wrong reasons.