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

To: KLP who wrote (130951)	5/2/2004 8:29:55 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

You probably know that Iraq was a closed society until after May of 2003, after the US caused the fall of Saddam. Did you know of the many many mass graves? If so, did you alert anyone in the world to that fact? The human rights agencies, for instance? If you did, what did they do? If you didn't, why didn't you if you knew? Let's start off with the Kurds...We knew he gassed the Kurds. The US knew, the UN knew, the world knew. Is it rocket science to figure out they ended up in mass graves? I recall reading [sorry, I don't remember where] that the UN wrote up a resolution condemning Iraq for the gassing of the Kurds and it was vetoed...by the US. It's at least widely known that the Reagan/Bush Administration supported Iraq after gassing the Kurds; blamed it on Iran; and continued to supply biological and chemical agents to Iraq. Doesn't that make Reagan/Bush co-conspirators in the atrocities of Saddam? American military personnel sacrificed their lives to liberate Iraq. I thought they sacrificed their lives for WMD and for Iraq violating binding UN resolutions. The US submitted a resolution exactly for that purpose [though chose to table it, rather than have a vote.] The US never submitted a proposal to the UN to liberate Iraq. It is not that I question the patriotism of President Bush's opponents; rather, I question their humanity. No goodhearted person could oppose removing Saddam Hussein from power, after looking at his record of human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and expansionist tendencies. Since the US made no proposals to the UN regarding the liberaton of Iraq or the humanity issue, as the author puts it. I question whether Iraq's violations of human rights had anything to do with the 2nd Iraq war. One human rights organization has a genocide watch for Sudan and Chechnya. While you're interest seems to be in events in Iraq that occurred 10, 15, 20 years ago....there are events occuring right now in Sudan and Chechnya. If it were a humanity issue for the Administration and the proponents of Iraq War II, why aren't they sending military forces into Sudan and Chechnya? Would you prefer to wait a decade and then bring it up? ushmm.org I'm sure that we could find other areas of the world where there are other severe human rights violations occurring as we speak. Saddam Hussein had Hitler-like expansionist designs on the Middle East. Throwing the ol' Hitler card. Compare the pre-WWII German military force to the military force of Iraq's Army pre-Iraq War II. Saddam was afraid to go into Falluja, and he's got Hitler like expansionist designs on the Middle East. In his dreams and yours. past use of weapons of mass destruction - the very weapons that war opponents now claim do not exist. Fine. Where are they? Coalition forces also made the grizzly discovery of 15,000 people buried in mass graves, verifying that Saddam Hussein was a murderous dictator of barbaric proportions. I saw on McLauglin last night that it's estimated that the US has killed 14,600 Iraqis in Iraq II. I think McLaughlin said that it was 90% civilian. If they were put in separate graves, I guess it's ok. It's certainly one hell of a way to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. Instead, they should be alarmed. Where are Saddam's unaccounted stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons materials, and who has control of them now? I made that very point to some conservative months ago. If Saddam had WMD, he had them under control [he was a brutal dictator if you forgot by now]. It would have to be a primary objective for US Forces to obtain control of those weapons. One must have absolute certainty as to where they are prior to the invasion. It's apparent that we did not. You would think then that the US would be stepping up efforts to find those WMD. After all, they are now under the physical control of some unknown set of persons. What does the US do? They decrease the forces that are looking for WMD. Go figure. Yet, war opponents have chosen to ignore the mass graves and torture chambers in order to criticize the war. The American people should ignore the criticisms of war protesters and support freedom for the Iraqi people. Horse hockey. The opponents recognize the existence of mass graves and every other brutality the was committed under Saddam. The opponents claim that it's a bit late to be taking action on events of 15 or 20 years ago, while ignoring the ethnic cleansing and genocide that is occuring right now. The opponents claim that it's a false motive. jttmab

To: KLP who wrote (130951)	5/2/2004 8:56:52 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Where are the US troops?.... A new analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development predicts that 400,000 people will die in Darfur in the next nine months. The deaths will be a direct result of government-supported violence: a) destruction of food stocks by government troops and allied militias that has taken away food that people need for the coming rainy season; b) displacement that has prevented people from planting crops for harvesting after the rainy season; and c) continuing government restrictions on humanitarian access that exacerbate the already extreme remoteness of the location. AID predicts 30% of the war affected population – currently 1.2 million – will die because of this largely irreversible, entirely man-made crisis. ushmm.org

To: KLP who wrote (130951)	5/2/2004 9:04:18 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Is the problem that Sudan is not sitting on a large oil reserve? ........... Sudan Awareness is a project of Children’s Hunger Relief Fund. Hundreds of villages have been massacred, women raped, children mutilated. Our fellow Christians in Sudan cry out for our help: prayer, food medicine, and Bibles. CHRF is the one of only a few organizations whose volunteers risk their lives daily flying into the zone declared by the UN as the “Red No Go Zone.” See "Terror in Sudan" In the last year alone, the Sudan Government has carried out 132 bombing missions against mostly civilian targets including schools, churches, and medical clinics. The number of people who have died in Sudan is hard to comprehend. (More than 1.9 million people in south and central Sudan have died in the past 17 years), and the number that will still die is even beyond that. We can't save them all, but we can save some. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees: More than 1.9 million people in south and central Sudan have died in the past 17 years as a result of Sudan's civil war. At least one out of every five southern Sudanese has died because of the 17-year civil war. This massive loss of life surpasses the civilian death toll in any war since World War II. Sudan's civil war is the longest ongoing civil war in the world. Over 4 million southern Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes and have become "internally displaced." Sudan has produced more internally displaced people than any other country on earth. More than 80 percent of southern Sudan's population has been displaced at least once, and often repeatedly, since 1983. Nearly 500,000 southern Sudanese have fled Sudan and are now refugees in other countries. There were an estimated 70,000 war-related deaths in the war-produced famine of 1998. More than 1.7 million people now face food shortages in Sudan. Slave raids are occurring on a regular basis in parts of the South. Aerial bombardment by the Sudanese government, including the bombing of schools, hospitals, and relief centers, is increasing throughout southern Sudan. Because of these striking statistics, we need to move fast—more and more children are dieing every day. This is the dry season in Sudan, and the only time supplies can be moved into the remote areas where help is needed most. So please help now. christianity.com\|CHID145710\|CIID%2C00.html

To: KLP who wrote (130951)	5/3/2004 7:59:53 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I hadn't notice this before, but it was brought to my attention by a lurker via PM [Thank you lurker] You say.... Iraqi forces killed this Kurdish woman and child with poison gas in Halabja, 1998. (Photo by Ramazan Ozturk/Sipa Press.) The article comes from the Illinois Leader [subtitle: Illinois' Conservative News Source] illinoisleader.com Interesting that the Illinois' Conservative News source pegs the date at 1998 and you take the time to highlight the year as 1998. Are you folks trying to redate the Halabja incident so that it shows up in the Clinton Administration rather than when is really occurred, Mar 1988? Clever. jttmab