From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Sep 28 2002 - 12:57:05 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Sorry Samantha, but I cannot let these claims go unchallenged.
>
>
>>We have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq.
>
>
> Huh? By "we", I presume you mean the U.S. The U.S. (and its allies)
> caused the deaths of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
> soldiers only *after* they invaded Kuwait. Any deaths due to sanctions
> are the responsibility of the United Nations (not the U.S.). Furthermore,
> you fail to take into account how many people Sadaam might have had killed
> in northern and southern Iraq if he were entirely free of sanctions.
>
>
I am not even speaking of the soldiers. There were never
hundreds of thousands invading Kuwait. We greatly inflated the
movements of troops and materials in justification. But that is
a different story.
I am speaking of the hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of
them children, who have died since due to continued embargo and
bombings. Many died indirectly through things like lack of
medicine. The bombings, the no-fly zones, were set up by US and
British, not by the UN. We know that altogether hundreds of
thousands of children have died. The UN set up the sanctions,
but they did so largely at our behest and we have been the
strongest force keeping them in place ever since. So no, we
cannot say it was the UN and not US. That is a copout.
I am speaking of actualities, what did happen and continues to
happen, of real deaths and destruction at our hebest and with
our support. I am not speaking of hypotheticals.
>>Exactly what threat is one small nation even with an evil ruler
>>compared to the one remaining superpower bent on aggression at
>>its sole discretion?
>
>
> But *where* is "its sole discretion"? If the U.S. were acting on
> "its sole discretion" we would have nuked Baghdad by now and we
> wouldn't be having these complicated discussions that are on the
> front pages of papers every day. It is precisely because that
> "one small nation" has a huge wealth of oil resources on which it
> can draw to develop WMD and can potentially give those weapons to
> individuals who have no reluctance to use them (even if they must
> die in the process -- i.e. they behave irrationally) that one must
> be concerned with the situation and seek to resolve it.
>
>
Where is its sole discretion? We have said point-blank, most
recently in the National Security Strategy, that we will go
after anyone or any nation anywhere we believe is a threat to us
with or without UN agreement or the agreement of our allies. We
have said we will strike preemptively if we believe it is in our
interest, with no formal process of evaluating or proving the
necessity. We have said we will do so irregardless of
international law. We have declared ourselves and our actions
outside of internatial law. Who is the "rogue" now?
Do you think we are so foolish as to nuke Baghdad, as to kill
millions in one shot, on what meagre grounds we have presented
for military action do our own people, much less to the world?
Do you think such action is in the least justified in any case?
Would you support snuffing out all of those lives now?
Our discussions in our media are very very shallow compared to
the realities involved. The wealth of Iraq has been hugely
curtailed by the sanctions. They cannot even get in sufficient
medicine and necessities much less build up a really threatening
weapon stockpile under these conditions. Again you talk a lot
of hypotheticals, hypotheticals not in evidence as justification
for throwing the region into full-scale war and totally ruining,
imho, any chance for the Arab world to come to peace with the US
and to become more democratic and free.
It is not just "amateurs" who say what I am saying. Generals
have come forward and said that this is a huge military and
strategic mistake. Defense ministers, Secretary of Armed
forces, presidents and presidential candidates and many more who
certainly should be "in the know" and who are not amateurs have
stood up.
>>Are you kidding about no checks and balances outside Iraq? Were you
>>asleep during the last decade of sanctions and bombings of the country?
>
>
> I'm not asleep. The sanctions were approved by the U.N. Care to make
> an argument that the U.N. is a puppet of the U.S. government? The
> bombings as I understand it are primarily of SAM sites that target
> the planes enforcing the no-fly zones. If you review your history
> you may find a major cause of WWII was due to the fact that France and
> Britain ignored the fact that Germany was re-arming itself when it was
> supposed to be "disarmed".
>
We pushed for the attack to start with, under some shady
circumstances. We largely shaped and pushed the sanctions. We
and the British have imposed the no-fly zones. We have been the
strongest voice, except for Israel ever since in keeping these
measures in place. The no-fly zones were not part of the UN
sanctions. We are not back in WWII and Iraq is not Germany and
Saddam is not Hitler. We really should get our heads out of
such rationalizing clouds and look at now and what is really at
stake.
> WWII cost some 40 million lives -- care to go through that again?
>
SIGH.
>
>>If Iraq did anything major outside its borders Saddam is quite aware
>>there would be tremendous hell to pay. But if we attack now, with no
>>good reason I might add , then he has far less of a deterrent against
>>more agressive action.
>
>
> Perhaps true. But you fail to address the probability that the Iraqi
> people would be *far* better off with Sadaam removed and the citizens
> living in a society with no sanctions and potentially a "real"
> democracy.
>
Again, hypotheticals and probabilities. Are they going to be
better off with an occupation force in their country for however
many years it takes before we feel safe? I don't think so. We
are not going into Iraq for their sakes. Don't attempt to
pretend we are after you blithely speak of nuking Baghdad. It
is also hypothetical but I believe the largest thing holding
Saddam in power is the sanctions and the threat of imminent
invasion. You don't start a real democracy by invading and
occupying a country from without.
> Sanctions are the price that the Iraqi people are paying for not
> having removed Sadaam as their "leader".
>
That is so utterly disgusting that I will not even address it.
- samantha
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