From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue Feb 05 2002 - 22:44:21 MST
On 5 Feb 2002 at 2:43, L' Ermit wrote:
> [Hermit 2] Excellent response as always. In the interests of time, forgive
> me if I snip the concurred items and opinions and continue only with "issues
> in contention."
>
> [Hermit 1] Supposition: US based oil companies supported "slant drilling" by
> Kuwait into the Iraq oil body, which was a primary reason for the Iraq
> take-over of Kuwait.
>
> [Joe Dees 2*] This has been claimed, but slant-drilling could not tap much
> of iraq's oil, because it can only extend a few miles. More plausible
> reasons would be Saddam Hussein's desire to increase seaport access to the
> Persian Gulf and to use Kuwait as a stepping stone in a greater mission to
> conquer the sparsely populated but oil-rich Arabian peninsula.
>
> [Hermit 2] Refer [url]http://www.rense.com/general3/slant.htm[/url] Iraq has
> suggested that the level of theft is some 300,000 barrels a day. At
> [url]http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Iraq_CIAHits.html[/url] it
> suggests a 1990 value of $14 billion a year. Then from
> [url]http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/iraq.html[/url] we see that this is on
> a total production by Iraq of around 2.5 million barrels per day. Thus
> around 12% of Iraq's production capacity. This is significant in anybody's
> language.
>
I do not see Saddam looking into the future as far as the depletion of the fields;
such an eventuality would not occur before his natural-causes demise, at any
rate. The oil that Kuwait was pumping would not have meant that the Iraqi wells
would be pumping less. At any rate, besides the desire for a seaport and
hegemony over the Muslim holy lands, bestowing upon Saddam Hussein (he
hoped, I'm sure) the mantle of Arab leadership by osmosis, the desire for all that
other Arabian Peninsula oil, and the stranglehold such a control would cede him
over the global economy, would have to have been a greater consideration by
orders of magnitude than concern about a 12% that was not missing from what
Iraq was at the time extracting.
>
> [Hermit 1] Supposition: It is alleged that the US told Iraq that border
> disputes with Kuwait were not of interest to the US and that this
> contributed directly to the invasion of Kuwait.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] There is truth in this contention, but the last thing that the
> US intended was for an Iraqi invasion to proceed. This unfortunate
> eventuality seems to have been prompted by miscommunication born of
> sloppiness and preoccupation-induced neglect.
>
> [Hermit 2] I quote
> [url]http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Iraq_CIAHits.html[/url]:
> [quote] The most famous example of that is the meeting between Saddam and
> the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, five days before Iraq invaded
> Kuwait. As CIA satellite photos showed an Iraqi invasion force massing on
> the Kuwaiti border, Glaspie told Hussein that "the US takes no position" on
> Iraq's dispute with Kuwait. A few days later, during last-minute
> negotiations, Kuwait's foreign minister said: "We are not going to respond
> to [Iraq]....If they don't like it, let them occupy our territory....We are
> going to bring in the Americans." The US reportedly encouraged Kuwait's
> attitude. Pitting the two countries against each other was nothing new. Back
> in 1989, CIA Director William Webster advised Kuwait's security chief to
> "take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq to put
> pressure on Iraq.'' At the same time, a CIA-linked think tank was advising
> Saddam to put pressure on the Kuwaitis.
> [/quote]
> [Hermit 2] This appears to be a more than ordinary "miscommunication born of
> sloppiness and preoccupation-induced neglect". Indeed there are claims that
> the US was involved in orchestrating the entire affair, including luring
> Iraq into attacking Kuwait. Claims that I currently find dubious, but not
> completely beyond the realms of possibility. Ask me in 50 years time.
>
It sounds like classic miscommunication between State, defence and the various
intelligence communities, the sort of consequentially disastrous
miscommunication that, in the wake of the WTC atrocity, we have supposedly put
in place safeguards to forfend. Will they work? Ask me in 50 years time.
>
> [Hermit 1] Supposition: It has been proved that most of the hysteria over
> the post invasion treatment of the citizens of Kuwait was induced by the
> government of Kuwait, with at least tacit US approval.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] There are still several thousand missing Kuwaiti citizens; they
> apparently were either executed and disposed of by the Iraqis or brought
> beck to Iraq as prisoners.
>
> [Hermit 2] My contention is not that there were problems with an abrogation
> of human rights, particularly during and post the Gulf war, but rather that
> the pre-war hysteria was developed based on Kuwaiti sourced propaganda.
> Refer e.g. [url]http://mediafilter.org/MFF/Hill&Knowlton.htmll][quote]
> On October 10, 1990, as the Bush administration stepped up war preparations
> against Iraq, H&K, on behalf of the Kuwaiti government, presented
> 15-year-old "Nayirah" before the House Human Rights Caucus. Passed off as an
> ordinary Kuwaiti with firsthand knowledge of atrocities committed by the
> Iraqi army, she testified tearfully before Congress:
> "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital...[where] I saw the Iraqi soldiers
> come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were
> in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the
> incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
> Supposedly fearing reprisals against her family, Nayirah did not reveal her
> last name to the press or Congress. Nor did this apparently disinterested
> witness mention that she was the daughter of Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah,
> Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S. As Americans were being prepared for war,
> her story- which turned out to be impossible to corroborate - became the
> centerpiece of a finely tuned public relations campaign orchestrated by H&K
> and coordinated with the White House on behalf of the government of Kuwait
> and its front group, Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
> In May 1991, CFK was folded into the Washington-based Kuwait-America
> Foundation. CFK had sprung into action on August 2, the day Iraq invaded
> Kuwait. By August 10, it had hired H&K, the preeminent U.S. public relations
> firm. CFK reported to the Justice Department receipts of $17,861 from 78
> individual U.S. and Canadian contributors and $11.8 million from the Kuwaiti
> government. Of those "do- nations," H&K got nearly $10.8 million to wage one
> of the largest, most effective public relations campaigns in history.
> From the streets to the newsrooms, according to author John MacArthur, that
> money created a benign facade for Kuwait's image:
> "The H&K team, headed by former U.S. Information Agency officer Lauri J.
> Fitz-Pegado, organized a Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses on
> September 12. On Sunday, September 23, churches nationwide observed a
> national day of prayer for Kuwait. The next day, 13 state governors declared
> a national Free Kuwait Day. H&K distributed tens of thousands of Free Kuwait
> bumper stickers and T-shirts, as well as thousands of media kits extolling
> the alleged virtues of Kuwaiti society and history. Fitz-Pegado's crack
> press agents put together media events featuring Kuwaiti "resistance
> fighters" and businessmen and arranged meetings with newspaper editorial
> boards. H&K's Lew Allison, a former CBS and NBC News producer, created 24
> video news releases from the Middle East, some of which purported to depict
> life in Kuwait under the Iraqi boot. The Wirthlin Group was engaged by H&K
> to study TV audience reaction to statements on the Gulf crisis by President
> Bush and Kuwaiti officials. "
> All this PR activity helped "educate" Americans about Kuwait-a totalitarian
> country with a terrible human rights record and no rights for women.
> Meanwhile, the incubator babies atrocity story inflamed public opinion
> against Iraq and swung the U.S. Congress in favor of war in the
> Gulf.[/quote]
>
I do not deny that Kuwait was aware that the squeaky wheel would get any US
military grease that might be forthcoming, and that in a democratic country it was
crucial to sway public opinion to their side. I also detest the Kuwaiti treatment of
women and dissident opinions (as I do the Saudi treatment of the same), but the
mass gassings of Kurds in the north and the mass electrocutions in the south - by
electrifying the Umm Qasr delta south of Basra during the Iran-Iraq war - when
combined with the invasion itself, and its distal aims (the rest of the Arabian
peninsula) simply meant to me that we had a mad, brutal berserker ruling a
behemoth military that was barrelling like a juggernaut towards the heart of the
global economy, killing, stealing, pillaging, raping and razing as it went, and it
quite simply had to be stopped.
>
> [Hermit 3] As far as the "missing" are concerned, I am sure that Iraq was
> involved in brutal murders. Then again, the Kuwaitis are not saints either.
> Refer e.g. [quote]Amnesty International accused Kuwait in late February of
> "serious human rights violations" during the three years since U.S.- and
> GCC-led coalition troops freed Kuwait of Iraqi military occupation. "The
> Kuwaiti government has failed to apply even the minimum international
> standards to its law courts, and scores of suspected `collaborators,'
> detained since 1991, continue to be sentenced to prison terms after grossly
> unfair trials," the London-based human rights groups said.[/quote]
> [url]http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0794/9407060.htm[/url]
> Refer also [url=http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE170011996]Five
> years of impunity: human rights concerns since the withdrawal of Iraqi
> forces[/url] [quote]During the Martial Law period, Kuwaiti Government forces
> and armed civilians, often acting with the knowledge or acquiescence of
> government officials, carried out a campaign of arbitrary arrests, torture
> and extrajudicial executions of individuals suspected of collaboration with
> Iraqi forces. Many of those detained disappeared and their whereabouts
> remain unknown. The victims were mainly non-Kuwaitis, including Iraqis,
> Palestinians, Jordanians and members of the bidun community (stateless
> Arabs).[/quote].
>
I'm quite sure that the not-clean hands of the Kuwaitis were involved in a lot of
these, but they pale by comparison to the many thousands killed, kidnapped and
vanished by the Iraqis. I'm also sure that many of those that were tried and
sentenced did indeed commit the crimes for which they were charged, and most
probably others as well. I'd like to see true democracy, freedom of expression,
civil and human rights egalitarianism, religious tolerance, and mutual non-
aggression in all those nations.
>
> [Hermit 2] Supposition: The US was not prepared to accept a simple retreat
> from Kuwait by Iraq, resulting in the Gulf War.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Iraq had six months during the build-up to withdraw; far from
> taking that route, they instead asserted that Kuwait would henceforth always
> be a part of a Greater Iraq, and promised the 'mother of all battles'
> should coalition forces endeavor to
> disengage Iraq from Kuwait.
>
> [Hermit 2] The rhetoric on both sides was more than a little heated. In
> fact, Iraq "annexed" Kuwait (1990-08-08) only after the US had frozen Iraqui
> assets (1990-08-02) invoked economic sanctions (1990-08-06) and moved troops
> and equipment to Saudi Arabia (82nd Airborne and several fighter squadrons)
> (1990-08-07). Even so, in the January meeting in Geneva between James Baker
> (US Sec State) and Tariq Aziz (Iraq F.M), Iraq had already accepted
> Resolution 660, but believed that the US would attack them whatever they
> did, [quote]You know, at that time, until the resignation of Margaret
> Thatcher, she was telling everybody that 'we will attack Iraq even if Iraq
> withdraws from Kuwait,' you know that. She was asking for the dismantling of
> Iraqi armament even if Iraq withdraws from Kuwait, so what does that mean?
> It means first, that they will not go to United Nations to seek permission
> because mainly she and George Bush were talking about Article 51 of the UN
> Charter, which entitles them to support an ally, Kuwait, to attack Iraq and
> act against Iraq. That was the official position of both the United States
> and Britain. Secondly she was saying we must dismantle Iraq from its
> military power. How could that be done without destroying Iraq, without a
> war? You cannot dismantle the military power of a nation unless there is
> some sort of a war. As it happened in Japan, as it happened in Germany in
> the Second World War, you just don't do that by diplomatic means.[/quote]
> [url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/aziz/2.html[/url]
>
But in fact the coalition forces were supported by the UN. And OF COURSE we
were moving troops into place after the on-the-ground Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
(but before their paper annexation), to forstall their continuing it into the heart of
the arabian peninsula. Knowing what was at stake, Saudi Arabia begged,
pleaded, cajoled and implored us to intervene; they rightly saw that their very
existence as an independent country hung in the balance.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: The US based its initial attack strategy on Iraq on the
> destruction of civilian infrastructure, including water purification and
> sewage plants, knowing that this would result in massive sickness and
> death-tolls and that the majority of deaths would be civilians. This mode of
> attack was selected, approved and implemented by the US despite the fact
> that the deliberate targeting of civilian facilities is absolutely forbidden
> in terms of the UN charter.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Actually, the major targets were military defences and
> associated infrastructure, and troop concentrations, all of which Saddam
> Hussein placed in direct proximity to what he hoped would be shielding
> civilian infrastructure.
>
> [Hermit 2] While I have scanned hundreds of photographs of before and after
> imagery, and listened to hours of analysis determining effective and
> ineffective techniques deployed in the Gulf War, almost none of that related
> to city installations (bar security police installations) as the Iraqi
> prefered Soviet style distribution of targets of value. However the effects
> of massive bombing of civilian areas was clearly apparent in the aerial
> imagery I have reviewed.
>
> [Hermit 2] Far more destructive has been the declassification of US
> documents.For example, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," dated January
> 22, 1991.
> [quote]"Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals
> to purify its water supply, most of which is heavily mineralized and
> frequently brackish to saline," the document states. "With no domestic
> sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential
> chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations
> Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will
> result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This
> could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease."
> ...
> "Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack
> of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease,
> including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population
> were careful to boil water."
> ...
> "Iraq's overall water treatment capability will suffer a slow decline,
> rather than a precipitous halt," it says. "Although Iraq is already
> experiencing a loss of water treatment capability, it probably will take at
> least six months (to June 1991) before the system is fully
> degraded."[/quote]
> [url=www.gulflink.osd.mil]Partially declassified in 1995[/url]
>
> Then "Disease Information," also dated January 22, 1991.
> Headed:
> [quote]"Subject: Effects of Bombing on Disease Occurrence in Baghdad."
> "Increased incidence of diseases will be attributable to degradation of
> normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution,
> electricity, and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. Any urban
> area in Iraq that has received infrastructure damage will have similar
> problems."
> ...
> "acute diarrhea" brought on by bacteria such as E. coli, shigella, and
> salmonella, or by protozoa such as giardia, which will affect "particularly
> children," [or by rotavirus, which will also affect] "particularly
> children," It cites the possibilities of typhoid and cholera
> outbreaks.[/quote]
>
> Then "Disease Outbreaks in Iraq," dated February 21, 1990 [but the year is
> clearly a typo and should be 1991]. It states:
> [quote]Conditions are favorable for communicable disease outbreaks,
> particularly in major urban areas affected by coalition bombing….Infectious
> disease prevalence in major Iraqi urban areas targeted by coalition bombing
> (Baghdad, Basrah) undoubtedly has increased since the beginning of Desert
> Storm. . . . Current public health problems are attributable to the
> reduction of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification
> and distribution, electricity, and the decreased ability to control disease
> outbreaks… most likely diseases during next sixty-ninety days (descending
> order): diarrheal diseases (particularly children); acute respiratory
> illnesses (colds and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly
> children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children);
> meningitis, including meningococcal (particularly children); cholera
> (possible, but less likely)[/quote]
>
> Please note that the analysts suggested that Iraq might blame the US for the
> deliberate destruction of water supplies, and suggested that this be
> countered by claiming that there were “legitimate military targets” in the
> vicinity, or that this destruction was accidental collateral damage. Note
> that this was prior to US attacks. Sound familiar? This is easily countered
> by the fact that in early February, in a joint United Nations Children's
> Fund (UNICEF)/World Health Organization report, the quantity of potable
> water was reported as being:
> [quote]less than 5 percent of the original supply, there are no operational
> water and sewage treatment plants, and the reported incidence of diarrhea is
> four times above normal levels. Additionally, respiratory infections are on
> the rise. Children particularly have been affected by these
> diseases.[/quote]
> Refer also [url]http://www.progressive.org/0801issue/nagy0901.html[/url] and
> other associated resources including the links and instructions to access US
> documents provided at the foot of that page.
>
All that they have to do to get their water purified is to allow UN inspectors to
oversee the use of imported chemicals and equipment, to ensure that it is not
diverted for chemical weapons manufacturing purposes. Saddam would rather
have the propaganda and the weapons programs than a healthy civilian
populace, especially since a healthy civilian populace might constitute more of an
internal threat to his military rule.
To intentionally atttack public health utilities is not the manner in which I would
conduct a war; but then again, under such restrictions, we might have lost Europe
in WW II (although in the Iraqi case, defeat was not a concern so much as the
human cost of delay was, in my opinion).
>
> [Hermit 1] Supposition: It is alleged that the US was not prepared to accept
> a surrender or retreat by the Iraq army after their surrender and instead
> massacred vast numbers of them in cold-blood - again completely contrary to
> international law.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] This is patently false; one of the major mistakes that the
> Coalition forces made in the waning days of the war was to open their lines
> and allow the tanks and troops of the encircled Republican Guards to return
> to Iraq. These troops and tanks were later used to massacre Shiites in the
> south and Kurds in the north.
>
> [Hermit 2] It is not "patent" to me. South Africa had observers, and I read
> their reports. But it is generally available. e.g.
> [url]http://pnews.org/art/5art/warHORROR.shtml[/url]
> [quote]Iraq accepted UN Resolution 660 and offered to withdraw from Kuwait
> through Soviet mediation on February 21, 1991. A statement made by George
> Bush on February 27, 1991, that no quarter would be given to remaining Iraqi
> soldiers violates even the U.S. Field Manual of 1956. The 1907 Hague
> Convention governing land warfare also makes it illegal to declare that no
> quarter will be given to withdrawing soldiers. On February 26,199 I, the
> following dispatch was filed from the deck of the U.S.S. Ranger, under the
> byline of Randall Richard of the Providence Journal:
> Air strikes against Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait were being launched
> so feverishly from this carrier today that pilots said they took whatever
> bombs happened to be closest to the flight deck. The crews, working to the
> strains of the Lone Ranger theme, often passed up the projectile of choice .
> . . because it took too long to load.
> New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd wrote, "With the Iraqi leader facing
> military defeat, Mr. Bush decided that he would rather gamble on a violent
> and potentially unpopular ground war than risk the alternative: an imperfect
> settlement hammered out by the Soviets and Iraqis that world opinion might
> accept as tolerable." In short, rather than accept the offer of Iraq to
> surrender and leave the field of battle, Bush and the U.S. military
> strategists decided simply to kill as many Iraqis as they possibly could
> while the chance lasted. A Newsweek article on Norman Schwarzkopt, titled "A
> Soldier of Conscience" (March 11,1991), remarked that before the ground war
> the general was only worried about "How long the world would stand by and
> watch the United States pound the living hell out of Iraq without saying,
> 'Wait a minute - enough is enough.' He [Schwarzkopf] itched to send ground
> troops to finish the job." The pretext for massive extermination of Iraqi
> soldiers was the desire of the U.S. to destroy Iraqi equipment. But in
> reality the plan was to prevent Iraqi soldiers from retreating at all.
> Powell remarked even before the start of the war that Iraqi soldiers knew
> that they had been sent to Kuwait to die. Rick Atkinson of the Washington
> Post reasoned that "the noose has been tightened" around Iraqi forces so
> effectively that "escape is impossible" (February 27, 1991). What all of
> this amounts to is not a war but a massacre. [/quote]
>
> [Hermit 2] In addition, I urge you to read and consider
> [url]http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/legal/us_war_crimes_gulf.html[/url]
> titled
> [quote]US War Crimes During the Gulf War By Francis Boyle. The following
> paper was presented by FRANCIS A. BOYLE, Professor of International Law at
> the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to a symposium held by the
> Albany Law School. The symposium, held on February 27, 1992, was titled:
> International War Crimes: The Search for Justice. This paper documents the
> numerous occasions that international laws were broken and disregarded
> during the Gulf War.[/quote]
>
I urge you to consider the fact that we let the lion's share of 200,000 armored
Republican guards out of an encirclement where we could have pinned them
down and killed every last one, rather than attack them as they were leaving so
they would be reluctant to return. We were not so interested in sparing Iraq
casualties as we were interested in leaving them a viable military for border
defence, should Iran have attempted to take advantage of the situation in the
south. However, rather than employ them for this purpose, Saddam Hussein
proceeded to use those divisions to slaughter minority citizens in both the north
and south of his own country, aided by air power, until we stopped him from
doing so by imposing a no-fly zone and threatening to come to their aid.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: The US adopted a deliberate policy of attempting to
> destabilize Iraq and to that offer provided support to the Kurds, including
> offers of air protection.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] A move of which I heartily approve, considering what was being
> done by the Iraqis to their northern Kurdish minority (including chemical
> warfare butchery and the wholesale genocidal destruction of entire Kurdish
> communities).
>
> [Hermit 2] But contrary to the Charter of the UN... and undoubtedly using
> the Kurds as "terrorists." Is the supporter of terrorists then not a
> terrorist? In which case, why is the US still looking for Bin Laden? Are
> your standards different depending on who the victim is?
>
What Saddam Hussein has done to the Kurds makes what Israel has done to the
Palestinians look like childs' play, and the Kurds have done much less back; how
could you support noninterference in the Kurdish situation while urging the US to
impose a solution in israel and Palestine?
>
> [Hermit 1] Supposition: A Kurdish insurrection resulted, whereupon Turkey
> objected to the support for the Kurds and the US immediately abandoned them,
> resulting in massive retaliation by Iraq and a huge Kurdish death toll -
> exacerbated by massive Turkish campaigns against the Kurds, to which the US
> has turned a blind eye.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Of this I am truly ashamed; we should've continued until an
> autonomous Kurdish homeland was established. We turned our backs upon those
> whom we had befriended and who were helping us with our common objectives.
> Kinda like we did with Afghanistan after the Soviet pullout. I sincerely
> hope that we've learned the dire consequences of such behavior now and will
> not repeat such travestous debacles in
> the future.
>
> [Hermit 2] It has already been repeated in Bosnia, in Chechnya and in
> Afghanistan where all three have been effectively handed back to Russian
> control.
>
I don't think so, except in the case of Chechnya, from whennce came bombings of
Moscow and mass kidmappings/murders by Islamic terrorists affiliated with
Osama Bin Laden; in Bosnia (who handed over several Al Quaeda to us recently)
and Afghanistan, the Russian contingent (and they are minorities in either case)
are apparently behaving themselves well.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: Every attempt to lift the sanctions on water purification
> equipment or chemicals has been blocked by the US.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Mainly because of the chemical-weapons uses to which much of it
> could (and most likely would) be put.
>
> [Hermit 2] A slippery slope argument from you? The fact that this decision
> results directly in the death of hundreds of thousands of children does not
> bother you at all? You agree with the immortal words of Madeleine Albright
> when she told CBS in 1996 that containing Iraq was worth the death of
> 500,000 Iraqi children?
> [url]http://home.att.net/~drew.hamre/docAlb.htm[/url]
>
It might sound heartless and cruel,but we are facing a heartless and cruel
adversary; better theirs than mine, and they are actively seeking to reify the
second alternative. If Saddam Hussein truly cared about those kids for anything
except as dead propaganda tools, all he'd have to do would be to abandon WMD
programs and allow international monitors of the uses to which he put water
purification equipment and chemicals. His hands are the bloody ones; we are just
unwilling to give him the wherewithal to trade their blood (which he could indeed
not spill if he wished to spend the gigapetrobucks for their benefit) for our own, a
chance he would jump at like a frog on speed.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: Every attempt to investigate any aspect of the above by the
> UN has been blocked by the US using its Security Council vetoes.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Mainly because several countries there (most notably Russia)
> possess massive economic incentives favoring sanction-lifting regardless of
> the threat Iraq poses in the region. They wish to legislate a global
> community 'blind eye' toward such dangers for pecuniary reasons.
>
> [Hermit 2] And "pecuniary interests" don't drive the US? I would suggest
> that this is not common knowledge. Indeed, we have only to look at China's
> "most favored" status to know that "pecuniary interests" do sometimes drive
> US foreign policy. Indeed, I wonder if you can think of a time when they
> didn't. To limit my homework, shall we limit the question to the last 25
> years? But I was not referring to the lifting of sanctions but to the
> investigation of International crimes by the US, and in particular, war
> crimes.
>
Such an investigation is contemplated as a wedge to split the coalition and as a
tool to push for the lifting of sanctions, without any behavior modification on Iraq's
part. I am not happy about our greedy-corporation-political-contribution-driven
blind-eye-turning vis-a-vis China following Tiananmen Square, either. I still do
not buy their prodicts when i can help it. But I believe that the old guard doomed
their system the moment they engaged in an attack against their most educated
and privileged children, the source of their future leaders. Give it 20 or 30 years
more, when the survivors and their sympathizers have replaced the dying old
guard and advanced into their positions of power and influence, and the changes
we have already seen begun there will accelerate into, I formly believe, eventual
democracy.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: According to UNICEF, the sanctions have, to date,
> contributed to the deaths of in excess of half a million children under the
> age of five.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] If this includes starvation, that is laid quite properly at the
> feet of Saddam Hussein, who starved his people to fortify his military.
>
> [Hermit 2] It does include starvation, but it cannot be laid at Saddam
> Hussein's door. People with diarrhea can't obtain nutrition from food, even
> when it is provided to them. It can safely be laid at the hands of those
> blocking attempts to lift the sanctions on water purification equipment and
> chemicals (as advocated even by many US Senators and Congressmen) by those
> arguing that they "might be used" to develop chemical weapons - despite the
> complete lack of efficacy of such weapons and Iraq's total inability to
> deliver such weapons in anything but token quantities.
>
Their use of chemical weapons in the extinction of entire villages does not appear
to be token or inefficacious to me, nor does their undoubtable willingness to
supply them to third parties for importation and use here. And some of the
equipment could be modified to produce and concentrate much more lethal
biological agents. And are you maintaining that all starving people in Iraq suffer
from dysentery?
>
> [Hermit 2] Fact: The US knew and knows that these children are dying, and is
> not taking action to prevent this.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Whaddaya call the agreement to allow those gigabucks of oil to
> be sold for food and medical supplies; chopped liver?
>
> [Hermit 2] Something like that. Understanding economics, I know that the
> money isn't to make internal payments but to provide forex buy things from
> other countries. And $130 dollars per person does not buy much of anything.
> Particularly when what is desperately needed (clean water) is not available
> simply because of US driven sanctions motivated by patently improbable
> slippery slope arguments.
>
That's enough money to IMPORT enough clean drinking water for the populace.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: When the US claims that the collapse is caused by the Iraq
> government misspending the money they receive, this is entirely dishonest.
> In the 4½ years of the "oil for food program" up to July 2001 (which is the
> last date for which I found information), sales of oil from Iraq generated a
> total of $ 44.4 billion in sales in the period December '96 to July 2001. Of
> this, the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva retained $0.30
> per dollar (or $ 13.32 billion) to defray claims made by governments,
> companies and individuals who feel that they were victimized as a result of
> the invasion of Kuwait, leaving an amount of $31 billion. Of this, only half
> had been paid to Iraq ($13.5 billion). In Saudi Arabia, with access to
> modern equipment, the cost of oil recovery and handling makes up 60% of the
> net exported value. If we assume the same figure for Iraq that means the
> cost of production in the same period was 26.64 billion, leaving a shortfall
> of around $13 billion rather than any net income. Even if we ignore
> production costs, if you divide $13.5 billion by 20 million people, that
> yields $675/person over the 4.5 year period - or about $150 per person per
> year.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] That is enough to feed the people in that region, considering
> what dollars are worth and what foodstuffs cost there. Plus, Iraq does
> include the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and historically produces most of its
> own food (when resources to do so are not diverted for military purposes).
>
> [Hermit 2] This assumes the money is for internal use, it is not. Internal
> money can be created at the cost of inflation (being done) and generating
> debt (already done). It is required for external supplies. And US, World
> Bank and Jane’s Defense Weekly figures on Middle East arms acquisition show
> that any claim that significant diversion of funds is being made for arms
> acquisition is fallacious.
>
It's being done not to buy arms, but to develop the internal capacity to make them.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: In the US, King County has an annual budget of $ 2.8
> billion to sustain the infrastructure for 1.7 million people. Iraq is
> offered 10 billion to sustain 20 million and to pay for the oil industry
> that generates the money. In reality that number is closer to $ 3 billion,
> given the much higher costs of dealing with Iraq and their aging
> infrastructure. Are you beginning to see a picture here? In the US
> infrastructure costs in King County are $ 1,647 per person. In Iraq, total
> GDP per person is somewhere between $130 and $200 per year. Note that,
> excluding the issue of production costs; this is the entire amount that
> Iraqi civilians have received under the "oil for food" program per person
> per year. This is not paid to the population; it is to enable the
> importation of food, medicines, water purification and sanitation,
> agricultural equipment and supplies, electricity generation, civil
> infrastructure and education. Florida has, per capita, more water than Iraq.
> What was your water bill last year?
>
> [Joe Dees 2] differences in the value of money in different parts of the
> world, combined with the potential for domestic food production, render this
> argument specious and rhetorical.
>
> [Hermit 2] No, I don't tell lies. I don’t need to. You are missing the
> points explained above – and more. In mid 1990 Iraq imported more than 70%
> of its basic needs (UN data).
>
This is because they were already on a military footing, preparing to seize Kuwait
and beyond, and indeed had been on such a footing since the beginning of the
Iran-Iraq war in 1980. The ability to redirect effort and resources towards the
production of civilian goods was there, but Saddam Hussein was, and is, not
interested in such options. Nor do I think he ever will be.
>
> That was brought to a halt by UN Resolution
> 661 freezing Iraqi assets and imposing sanctions. UN Resolution 985 of 1995
> allowed Iraq to resume exportation of a limited amount of oil through the
> Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline in Turkey. The so called "oil for food swap"
> allowed Iraq to export up to US$2 billion worth of oil every six months,
> with one third of that sum being garnished to pay for war reparations. In
> 1998, this figure was increased to US$5.2 billion per six months. Despite
> the increase in value of oil exports, Iraq has only the ability to pump US$4
> billion worth of oil per month as it is unable to import vital components to
> repair its war damaged oil wells. In addition, the "oil for food" swaps are
> just that, oil for food to be supplied from outside the country. Iraqi
> essential services remain in an immediate post war state as the importation
> of parts and components to repair them are embargoed. Just to restore Iraq’s
> electrical system would require US$14 billion. The country which used oil
> revenue to purchase and import 70 per cent of its basic needs cannot now
> even obtain aspirin, toilet paper or disinfectant.
>
I do not see these as essential; although I like mine, toilet paper is not something
that is even preferred in much of europe, where they have bidets; it is an artifact
of american culture. Few people will die without aspirin, and those that need it
badly could get it from a relative of the willow tree. Anyone can ferment
disinfectant, if they can resist drinking it.
>
> [Hermit 2] In the US, with ready access to the needed supplies, the cost of
> water per gallon delivered exceeds 1/2c per gallon in most jurisdictions.
> The UN estimates survival (not crop growing) to require 15 lt or 4 gal a
> day. That's 80 million gallons a day for 20 million people. Or 29 billion
> gallons a year. Or 150 million dollars a year. In the US. In Iraq, they
> cannot buy the chemicals - at any price. Which makes the discussion moot.
> The World Bank estimates that Iraq will need to spend in excess of 70
> billion dollars to bring its utilities back to 1980 levels.
>
They cannot buy the chemicals because of the pictures of that devastated
Kurdish village that were globally seen by populations and world leaders. Is your
solution to give them the chemicals and accept the deaths of those they kill with
the misused ones as collateral damage?
>
> [Hermit 2] I suggest you read [url]
> http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/Iraq%20A%20Childs%20Cry%20for%20Help.html[/url]
> for an eye-opener.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: On the 5th of December 2001, the US ambassador to the
> Security Council, went before the Chamber to say that the US government is
> satisfied that the "oil for food" program meets the needs of the Iraqi
> people. Being able to do basic arithmetic, I find this unlikely. Sanctions
> always mean starving the poor until the rich surrender. For example, in 1987
> UNESCO recognized that Iraq was the country that had made most progress in
> combating illiteracy). Today illiteracy in Iraq is back to 45% and rising.
> US sanctions have meant that there is no longer a middle class or
> professional class in Iraq. This practically guarantees poverty and social
> unrest there for the next 40 to 60 years.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] There are only two classes in Iraq; the extended family and
> military of Saddam Hussein, and everybody else. he has engineered a Spartan
> culture where if you're not a soldier or one of his pampered family than
> you're a worthless (to him, except for propaganda purposes if he lets you
> starve) peon.
>
> [Hermit 2] But this was not true prior to 1991 when Iraq was the fastest
> growing regional economy. And it is not caused by him according to every UN
> program that has reported on the situation there. I wonder why you
> [i]believe[/i] otherwise? Can you provide me with a source?
>
I believe otherwise because I know about all the money going in there, and I know
that if it weren't being misspent, that he'd lose his WMD programs, a pampered
and therefore loyal military, and the horror stories he loves to regale swayable
people like you with. I have nothing against providing the Iraqi people with the
ability to make or import everything they need, so long as such provisions are not
abused by a certain dictator who has and most certainly would abuse them, to our
pain and dismay.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: There are Americans who claim that their foreign policy
> does not encourage terrorism.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Some does, some doesn't. The only ways that Iraq can rejoin
> the community of nations are to either depose the Hussein family and
> institute a democratically elected republic in place of their military
> junta, and to allow the UN inspectors back in with no shell games, and
> honestly destroy the WMD's they have so far accumulated and end the programs
> designed to develop and make more.
>
> [Hermit 2] Iraq believes, possibly with reason, that this won't make a
> difference. The example of Iran shows that they may be correct. The UN does
> not believe that Iraq can deliver WMDs. The US posseses WMDs and the ability
> to deliver them. Are you advocating that the US abandon its WMD programs?
>
We don't plan to do what Hussein has tried to do. And the US is indeed reducing
their arsenals of nuclear weapons, curtailing their chemical weapons programs,
and ended their biological weapons program (perhaps prematurely, since we
need to keep biological defence current), we are doing these things as fast as we
can persuade other major powers with these capabilities to verifiably accompany
us. If you are going to type a moral equivalence between the aggrandizing
territorial ambitions of that bloodthirsty madman and the requested military
assistance agaist despots and aggressors and the humanitarian aid that the US
has endeavored to provide to many countries without even a thought of holding
on to their territory, then we truly have nothing whatsoever to discuss, because
obviously we are not just speaking from differing perspectives, but from different
planets.
>
> [Hermit 1] Supposition: This requires a degree of stupidity, ignorance or
> self-delusion far exceeding the ordinary.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] So does the correlatively opposite contention that ALL US
> foreign policy encourages terrorism and that the countries from which it
> issues have nothing whatsoever to do with it, a position which I doubt that
> you would assume.
>
> [Hermit 2] You are correct. Not everything the US does encourages terrorism.
> Just a lot of it. Read up on what the Senate is saying about US involvement
> in Bolivia these days for another example.
>
South America is in danger of a coronary inFARCtion.
>
> [Hermit] Supposition: The fact that Islamic Nations which have advanced from
> primitive societies to approach industrialization (Iran, Libya, Iraq) appear
> to have suffered from sanctions which have reversed this progress leads
> one to surmise that this is not happenstance.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] After taking power in a military coup in 1968 and nationalizing
> the oil industry there, Libya's Moammar Qadaffi sponsored several terrorist
> actions, including the bombing of a Berlin nightclub frequented by US
> military personnel, the Gulf of Sidra attacks, and the bombing of Flight 107
> over Lockerbie, Scotland; he seems, however, like
> Castro, to be mellowing with age (but not enough to allow free elections in
> either case).
>
>
> Iran held 55 American hosteges for 444 days, calls us the Great Satan, and
> even recently are said to have not only allowed Al-Quaeda leaders to escape
> Afghanistan via their country and overseen the creation, training and supply
> of forces hostile to the Karzai interim government there, but also to have
> harbored the Lebanese terrorist Imad Mugniyeh (the architect of the Beirut
> embassy and marine barracks truckbombings as well as the hijacking of TWA
> flight 847) and allowed him to attempt
> to secretly ship 50 tons of heavy weapos to a Palestinian Authority that was
> publicly buffing olive branches. As long as the hard-line cleric Ayatolluh
> Khameneii rather than the popularly elected president Khatami holds the real
> power there, they will be a source of terrorism throughout the middle east.
> I would definitely love to see that
> balance of power shift for the benefit of everyone (except for the radical
> imams), both inside and outside Iran.
>
> [Hermit 2] You and me both. But so long as we oppose democracy in the Middle
> East (with all that that implies) it isn't going to happen. I left this in
> because there has been very little evidence of the involvement of Libya or
> Iran in terrorism (or even the PLO - and the Imad Mugniyeh weapons shipment
> - on the face of it - seems more likely to have been destined for the
> Lebanon rather than the Palestine). Only a lot of claims that they are doing
> so. Do you ever wonder why? I do.
>
Actually, the shipment was to be released in its 83 waterproof containers with
gauges to allow air to be released so they would float just beneath the surface,
then they were to be picked up off the coast of Gaza by Palestinian 'fishing
vessels' - according to the captain of the Karime A, an officer in the Palestinian
Authority Navy.
>
> <snip - time troubles>
>
> [Joe Dees 2] I have severe problems with those who equate Israel's
> targeted killings of those who suicide bomb their citizens and those who
> recruit them and wire them up with most Palestinian suicide bombers' and
> machine gunners' goal (to kill as many Israelis as possible, but usually
> civilians at nightclubs, in school buses, or celebrating bat mitzvas - a bar
> mitzva for an adolescent girl).
>
> [Hermit 2] Knowing the Israeli doctrine and practice (very well), I would
> suggest that any talk of "targeted killings" is unjustified by reality. I
> had similar feelings about the US supported ANC... And Russia feels the same
> way about Saudi Arabia etc, etc. I think we agree that all terrorism is
> unacceptable.
>
Okay, do a comparison. What percentage of Israel's targeted killings are indeed
homicidal Islamic militants and guerilla killers and planners vs. civilian
noncombatants, vs what percentage of Palestinians' suicide bombings and
machine gun suicide attacks are Israeli miltary personnel vs. CN's?
>
> [Hermit 1] Just as the US appears to have lost all support for her actions
> in Iraq – even from her allies during the war.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] I think that this is wishful thinking on your part. But even
> if it were true, if the clear and present danger of them making WMD's to use
> on us, or to supply terrorists to use on us, is ascertained, we should go it
> alone rather than wait for another
> domestic massacre like the one in New York to justify us before world
> opinion.
>
> [Hermit 2] I wish the opposite. I wish the US were able to cooperate with
> the rest of the world rather than stomping on it and wasting the sympathy
> they had after 911. And despite Mssrs Bush and Rumfeld's opinions and your
> repetition of it, the world would have cooperated with the US had the US
> cooperated with the world. In my, and many other International observer's
> opinions, "going it alone," US style, only makes the probability of further
> attacks more inevitable, not less so. But my interpretation comes from
> reading as many foreign sources as I can find. It is far from unique, indeed
> it appears to be dominating the conference in Munich as I write this.
>
The US has seen what responding perfunctorily, or not at all, has gotten us,
more, and increasingly bloody, and increasingly domestic, terror attacks. If these
sunzabitches, whether they believe themselves following a celestial mandate and
enjoying divine license, or are simply hungrily power-mad, are gonna attack us
anyway (as they have), I'm all in favor of imposing a cost on such actions, and of
making that cost, insofar as we can manage, terrible, i.e., impossible to exist and
bear. In other words, I'm in favor of preemptive murder. The moment we find that
specific people are planning a terror attack against our land or people, we should
reach out and snuff their sorry asses, and anyone who dares to step forward and
fill the gap in the terror ranks that this causes should receive more of the same. I
don't care if terrorists like us any more (they won't, because we're unbelieving
infidels, or because we've got something they want and can't afford to buy), but
they WILL respect us, because they will, henceforth FEAR US!
>
> [Hermit 1] Just as the US appears to be currently losing support in her “war
> on terror” for her callous and possibly illegal treatment of prisoners from
> Afghanistan.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] That tempest in a teapot has died down since we allowed
> international observers to inspect the conditions there. People saw the
> tabloid pictures of shackled, bemittened Al-Quaeda with their eyes and ears
> covered and sensationalist headlines screaming torture and stampeded to the
> conclusion that it must be true; in fact, the
> most noninvasive manner in which one can prevent a prisoner from attacking
> guards is to 1) hinder their movements so that cannot act to attack and 2)
> cover their percpetual apparati so they cannot locate guards to attack.
> These people are still pubicly saying that they consider the murder of
> Americans to be their holy duty and that they will endeavor to fulfill that
> duty for the balance of their days; one prisoner has already Mike-Tysoned a
> guard. Hardy minimum security candidates.
>
> [Hermit 2] The "tempest" has only gone on hold while the world waits to see
> what the next step is. Something the US has so far avoided announcing. You
> know what my opinion was (International trial followed by execution or
> incarceration). But I think that it is now too late for that and the US
> climate will not allow it. Which means that the US will have to take the
> responsibility for all of its actions alone. Including any actions which are
> seen as partisan or ignoring International law or treaties. Which would make
> her indeed as rogue as the opponents she claimed to be opposing.
>
Bin Ladin made it clear in his fatwa that he was ordering the killings of all
Americans, civilian or military; he did not name either another nation or the
international community.
They called it the World Trade Center, but it was in metropolitan New York City,
US sovereign territory, just like the Pentagon was, and just like the other target
would have been if not for the bravery of the passengers of Flight 93, and we, as
the attacked and aggreived party, have every right to help these dear martyrs for
Allah to paradise and the promised ministrations of their celestial virgins.
And AS ROGUE? Once again, the depth of your moral relativism astounds and
amazes me. To dare to equate the execution of terrorists with the hijecking of
civilian aircraft and the flying of them into skyscrapers populated with clueless
civilians just pursuing their own lives strikes me as light years beyond the pale,
even for you.
>
> [Hermit 1] Fact: The House of Saud are calling for the US to leave from
> Saudi Arabia, and US Defense analysis recommendations are to implement a
> withdrawal as expeditiously as possible in order to minimize the probability
> of insurrection or further collapse of relations.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Some people within that family of 30,000 have anonymously
> expressed such desires to interviewers; the public position of the Saudi
> government and of Prince Bandar is that they desire us to remain.
>
> [Hermit 2] I think events are running faster than you imagine. Refer e.g.
> [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64536-2002Jan17.html[/url]
> [quote]Crown Prince Abdullah has taken the lead of the faction within the
> royal family arguing that the kingdom would be safer without the U.S.
> military presence, Saudi sources said. In contrast to King Fahd, still
> technically the monarch though he is completely incapacitated after strokes
> and other illnesses, Abdullah has not had long years of a close working
> partnership with the United States. He is described by Saudis and American
> experts on the kingdom as an astute politician with a good sense of Saudi
> public opinion, who has concluded the American presence is more trouble than
> it is worth.
>
> One big problem for Abdullah, said several past and present officials, is
> anti-American sentiment in Saudi society. "For the first time since 1973, we
> actually have a situation in which the United States is so unpopular among
> the [Saudi] public that the royal family now thinks its security is best
> served by publicly distancing itself from the United States," remarked Chas.
> W. Freeman Jr. a former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh and frequent visitor to
> the kingdom.[/quote]
>
I have nothing against us leaving if the host country desires and formally requests
same (which has not yet happened). I think that the Saudis might find it a much
more dangerous world than they presently imagine were we to both vacate the
Arabian peninsula (including Kuwait) and allow the sanctions against Iraq to end.
In fact, that might be a good idea; if Iraq then moves on the peninsula again, we
could once again counter, and do it complete and right this time. In any case, the
Saudis are going to have to deal with the Wahhabist terror-educating/exporting
(via the madrasas), training and funding machine based in their own country,
however, or the Wahhabists will eventually foment another cataclysmic attack
against the US whose source will be undeniable, in which case we would return in
a fashion guaranteed not to please them.
>
> <snip - we agree on terrorism, and terrorists, just not the why of it>
>
> [Joe Dees 2] I see your position that Christians are to be excoriated,
> as Christians, for the same type of behavior that Muslims commit in spades,
> while dismissing the expressed (in the Koran and beau coup Muslim
> pronouncements) linkage between the behavior and a radical subset of the
> faith, as illogical, irrational, and unreasonable in the extreme. Denial
> ain't a river in Egypt.
>
> [Hermit 2] I see little difference between the Christians and the Muslims. I
> see the US Governments actions as having caused more harm - to herself and
> to the inhabitants of Muslim nations - than terrorist actions have caused to
> the US and her citizens. The refuge in a fundamentalist religion is simply a
> matter that the people doing this don't have very many (any?) alternatives.
> I continue to argue that you are not showing that the religion is
> responsible for the horrors.
>
The religion's holy book urges its believers to jihad, a position reinforced by their
division of the world into Islam and War and the statement that there will never be
peace until the entire globe is Islam, and that this is an eventuality that Allah
desires and whose reification is a demand upon the pious. It's there in black and
white, and the fact that it's followers are much more amenable to carrying out
such holy carnage (as proven by both their words and their actions) than the
christians have been for hundreds of years, and most certainly the last hundred,
is historically indisputable.
>
> Judeo-Christianity shares the religious roots
> and for every "nasty" passage in the Qur'an, there is an equally nasty
> passage available in Christian beliefs.
>
Actually, having read them all, the Quran is much nastier (and I include the
Pentateuch in this judgment). The New Testament is the least bloody of all three.
>
> Given equity and a strong middle
> class in Islamic society, Islam will be as much danger to the world as
> Christianity - and of as much relevance. Which is to say, with the exception
> of the fundamentalist 20%, hardly any at all.
>
This is exactly what Pakistan had, before Zia Ul-Haq began their backslide into
Islamic fundamentalism. They still have much of the middle class, but some of it
has relocated abroad. I sincerely hope that Pervez Musharraf is able to reverse
that troubling trend.
>
> [Hermit 2] “Denial ain't a river in Egypt.” Perhaps it was amusing the first
> time. I am trying very hard to see the entire story. And the more of it I
> find out about, the more egregious the US role appears. I have no motivation
> for supporting [I]any[/I] religion, or preferring anyone’s stories over
> another. I am fully competent to balance claims and know that history is
> better found in account books than books of accounts. I am reasonably
> literate and know that everyone has an angle. My “fault” seems to me to be
> purely that I do not see the US (or Christians) as having hands any cleaner
> than Saddam Hussein – or bin Laden. And I’m not entirely isolated in that
> opinion either.
>
No, there are other terminal ethical relativists in the postmodern ranks, who like to
dig back a hundred and fifty years and blame present whites for slavery, or
search diligently in every silver lining for any scrap of cloud they can find in order
to proclaim that these folks, too, were equal parade-rainers, in the face of torrents
of blood flowing in our city streets poured by those vile malefactors you would
argue have no redder hands, despite their videos. However, I consider your
position to be the political equivalent of what Sokal was lampooning on the
physics front; the deconstruction of distinct inequatables into meaningless and
amorphous mush.
>
> But I do think this can change, and that the answer is fewer
> professional politicians and more public involvement in politics, fewer
> “closed doors” and more information, less religion and more humanism, fewer
> arms and more aid, and most importantly more education.
>
> [Hermit 2] When not bickering over this subject, I think that you usually
> agree with me on all these issues. But on this one topic, you seem to be as
> deeply opposed to looking at the evidence, and there is a wealth of it, as
> George Bush Snr* was determined to ignore similar facts.
>
Educatin and political involvement and humanitarian aid I of course agree with,
but I also maintain that murderous religious memebots require extinction from any
society not catatonized by terminal analysis-paralysis infection or so ashamed of
and guilt-ridden by its own successes that its self-blame-inflicted cultural self-
esteem has bottomed out into the suicudal miasma of believing that it deserves
everything done to it for any reason, or none.
>
> Hermit
>
> *"I will never apologize for the United States of America -- I don't care
> what the facts are." - President George Bush, Sr.
>
> "There ought to be limits to freedom." President George Bush, Jr.
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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