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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (56235)	11/8/2002 1:04:48 PM
From: epsteinbd	Respond to of 281500

Nadine, I do remember that for Somalia, France did send food. B. Kuchner (minister of something, then) even unloaded a full bag of rice on his shoulder in the same setup then general Mac Arthur, when he came back to the Philippines. Kuchner was widely attacked for that show in the French media, but it was utterly unfair.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (56235)	11/8/2002 1:07:19 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

....the US has shipped tons of grain, which the Zimbabweans are refusing for fear of European anti-GM export rules. The last I heard about this was that it was most likely ethnocide disguised in the form of anti-OGM jive. This doesn't contradict your point, but seems more than plausibly the real explanation for that situation. Those looking to exterminate other peoples routinely attempt to block delivery of humanitarian aid, and if it can be clothed in terms palatable to the Greens and other anti-globalization idiots, well, all the better. France's involvement in Rwanda really revolted me, they were up to their necks in that one and have no cause to be pointing fingers at other Western nation's geopolitical errors.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (56235)	11/8/2002 1:32:16 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

A couple of months ago, when I pointed out Zimbabweans would starve, someone wrote back, what are we supposed to do? save the world? we can't. Oh, okay. As to the Kurds, after the Gulf War, we abandoned them. Looks as though no one is a hero here. U.S. pledges protection for Kurds in Iraq By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES The United States agreed yesterday to protect Kurds in northern Iraq during any operation to oust Saddam Hussein to avoid a repeat of an aborted 1991 uprising that the Iraqi leader crushed. But a senior U.S. official declined to say the United States would offer similar protection to dissident Shi'ite Muslims in southern Iraq, who contend that Washington abandoned them during their simultaneous 1991 uprising. The official said that "should Saddam move against the Kurds, we would respond." "Beyond that, all is hypothetical," the official told reporters after a day of meetings with six dissident Iraqi groups at the State Department to coordinate strategy to oust Saddam. users.qwest.net Myth: In spite of all facts, history, and logic, in the case of the Gulf War, the US was in the right because Hussein was such a criminal, and even though US motivations were not pure, the ends basically justified the means. Reality: Well, let's see: what were the ends? The brutal Iraqi occupation of Kuwait was replaced by the brutal reinstatement of the Kuwaiti government, which immediately set about summary arrests and executions of "suspected collaborators." The leadership of Iraq remained the same, and the Iraqi exile community of democratic opposition (who, by the way, had opposed the war, along with everyone else, not that anyone in the US would know such a community even existed, since it had been systematically frozen out of US media) was in no way strengthened. The Kurdish people who had been again encouraged to rise up against Iraq were cut off again (see above) and again brutalized. Billions of dollars were wasted. The local environment was devastated. Gasoline prices went up and stayed up. US troops came home suffering from "Gulf War Syndrome," responsibility for which the US denied repeatedly (so much for "supporting the troops"). 100,000 to 200,000 or more people were killed, and Iraqi infrastructure was so devastated that cholera and typhoid epidemics raged, threatening to kill another 100,000 or more, mostly children, according to one Harvard study. All in less than two months. However, interestingly, the Kurds view Europe as a haven, a heaven...and are seeking fake passports (they don't want to get them in Baghdad) to flee to Europe.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (56235)	11/9/2002 12:33:15 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 281500

According to this article, the US may intervene to get humanitarian aid actually delivered to the Zimbabwe people. theage.com.au US poised to act against Mugabe November 8 2002 By Andrew Meldrum Harare The United States Government warned yesterday that it might take "intrusive, interventionist measures" to deliver food aid directly to millions of famine-hit Zimbabweans if President Robert Mugabe continues to starve his political opponents. That particular comedy has been going on entirely too long, I hope something concrete can be finally be done.