The US, The UN and Iraq

Weather.

Did anybody watch the town meeting between college students in Baghdad and the US? The majority of students in Iraq said they don't want war. They said the are willing to live with Saddam, and he's their problem, not the US's. They said, war will only bring more misery and death. The US students expressed both sides of this issue; the hawks wanted the US to go to war, and the doves wants the UN to continue their inspections. c.i.

sumac

You know, when calculating the really horrid deaths of thousands (limbs blown off, caught in fires and burning to death, seeing this happen to one's children) I wouldn't think the weather forcast of deep importance. But I understand, you mean something else. Something like "my gun is loaded and the barrel aimed, therefore I must shoot this person in front of me, obviously".

Tartarin

Thanks for the NPR piece on evangelical support for Bush and the war idea.

One rather cute bit was the Southern Baptist Confederation representative who justified falling in behind the government plan because Romans 13 says that God ordains the Civil Magistrate (the political leader) - that is, God puts him there, thus we can trust he is acting as God wishes. Do you suppose they were quoting Romans 13 much when Clinton was in office?

well we all know i am naive and not so bright but lets face just a few facts. this is not 1955 Eisenhower america, we have a global economy, a global environment, global terrorism and most of all a global humanity. as long as we continue with our 1955 party politics defining national and international policy rather than the best interests of this fragile globe we call home we will continue with the degradation of the quality of life for all peoples throughout the world; not to say that we as americans are unique in this ostrich endeavor but we do have the onus of power to make greater strides in overcoming primative tribal boundaries. the current conflicts in the middle east be it Israel/Palestine India/Pakistan USA/Iraq are not solvable by force anymore than controlling the weather is remediated by Shoshone rain dances resolving droughts. we can take the opportunity to grow from a human adolescence to a young adulthood or we can continue to throw rocks at each other shattering everyones windows. don't you all think its getting time to evolve into something we can pass down to the generations to come besides killing each other?

"Shock and Awe"
Current U.S. plans for the pending war in Iraq call for an attack on Baghdad as immediately devastating as the 1945 nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those analogies are presented not by wild-eyed anti-war activists, but by the supporters and developers of U.S. military strategy. According to published reports, the attack plans are aimed at inducing in the Iraqis what the strategists define as "Shock and Awe" -- capitalized war-wonk synonyms for overwhelming military terrorism. The plans call for Air Force attacks on Baghdad with 300 to 400 cruise missiles each day in the first two days -- about one every four minutes, and roughly twice the number used in the entire 39 days of the first Gulf War. During the same period, 3,000 "precision-guided" bombs would be launched from ships in the Persian Gulf. In all, the U.S. would lob 10 times more bombs than in 1991. The Pentagon says the primary Baghdad targets would be "military and political" -- but would include the water and power utilities of a city of 5 million people, more than half of them children 15 or younger. When these plans were first reported in late January, Harlan Ullman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told CBS News, "We want them to quit, not to fight, so that you have this simultaneous effect rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but minutes. ... You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power and water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausted." "Exhausted" is rather an understatement. A leaked UN study anticipates many thousands dead, two million Iraqi refugees, 100,000 direct casualties requiring immediate medical care, with another 400,000 afflicted by war-related outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and other diseases. All of these will require attention from a medical system in a country whose infrastructure will be in a state of collapse.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2003-02-21/pols_feature4.html

***

A career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan resigned this week in protest against the country's policies on Iraq.....In his letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times by a friend of Mr. Kiesling's, the diplomat wrote Mr. Powell: "We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners."...Asked if his views were widely shared among his diplomatic colleagues, Mr. Kiesling said: "No one of my colleagues is comfortable with our policy. The idea that the coming war will accidentally liberate Iraqis betrays a breathtaking naivety about the consequences of Western intervention. Outside interference in Iraq has already exacerbated local tensions, and military intervention can only further unravel the fragile Iraqi state. The internationalisation of Iraq's local conflicts threatens to divide Iraqis further and store up conflict for the future, rather than herald anything like a new era of freedom. By turning Iraq into an international issue, America and Britain have paved the way for a carve-up.... On the ground, the divvying up of Iraq between different powers has already started. As part of its deal to allow US forces to use Turkish territory to launch attacks on Iraq, Turkey has been given the green light to double the number of its troops in northern Iraq from 6000 to 12,000 in recent weeks (3). Northern Iraq is territory that the United Nations designated as a 'safe haven' for Kurds following the first Gulf War in 1991, taking the area out of Baghdad's control and granting limited self-government to Kurdish groups..... It might seem odd that Iran - one of America's 'axis of evil' states, remember - can send 5000 heavily armed troops into Iraq without incurring much international condemnation (though the Bush administration is apparently 'concerned'). Perhaps Tehran officials have been buoyed to intervene in Iraq by their meetings with UK prime minister Tony Blair earlier this year, who promised that Iran's interests would be 'taken into consideration' during and after war with Iraq....
http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000006DC7F.htm

***

Key states bow to war pressure
Ewen MacAskill and Michael White
Friday February 28, 2003
International solidarity against a US-British resolution that would trigger war against Iraq began to break down yesterday when three key members of the United Nations security council showed the first signs of wobbling.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,904732,00.html

Blatham,
No, that is not what I meant, but rather, if this horrible thing has to happen, then do it now, when deaths and collateral damage will be fewer. If done now, rather than later. And thanks also for the gratuitous imagery - really not necessary.

(Repeat post, apologies!)

I had the same impression of what you meant, Sumac. But "better not done at all" is my choice, and I think Blatham's parallel was very apt.

Moveon.org is raising money for antiwar ads, selected newspapers, nationwide, ASAP.

Tartarin, I was planning on getting some sleep tonight until I read your post above, describing with vivid clarity that first-strike attack.

I am involved with moveon., too.

sumac

The horrible thing doesn't HAVE TO happen. And why on earth might deaths be fewer now than three months or six months or 12 months or never? I wish the imagery was gratuitious (unwarranted, unjustified) but the opposite is so.

sumac, When I posted a somewhat similar information about the perponderance of children in Iraq, tres came up with some recent stats that that assumption is wrong. The quote in your article, "-- but would include the water and power utilities of a city of 5 million people, more than half of them children 15 or younger."
I know I heard or read this information from media, but was called a "lier" by tres for posting the same information. c.i.

dys

Your last post argues against its first premise. I'm with ya.

Now, c.i., I don't think trss called you a liar. I think he questioned the provenance of a figure you had quoted, but not cited. I believe he offered a cite to a differing figure, figure, and asked for clarification. as I recall the way that exchange went. It was a day or two ago, so its probably many pages back. He may not have been polite, but challenging an assertion is not the same as asserting the author of that assertion is engaged in prevarication.
While it does not change the fact that a large proportion of Iraq's population is youthful, given that with both external and internal hostile action, Iraq's 18-to-35 demographic, particularly male, has for a dozen years been well above global averages as regards mortality. It should be noted too that the higher-than-normal deathrate of the male component of that demographic has been overwhelmingly attributable to military action. Whatever else he may or may not have done, Saddam has been near or at the top of Iraqi Administration for over 20 years, while a generation of Iraqi youth has gone to slaughter. On a per-capita domestic population basis, that puts him in league with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Is the murder of mere millions in lieu of tens of millions less wrong? Somehow, I fail to see any logic in that.



timber

I think tres just found a contradictory source, but am not going to page back to find it.

What sumac said - weather. The weather will soon become to hot to function effectively while wearing full nbc protection. You simply cannot work or fight with sweat running down the lenses of the mask. I did basic at Ft. Gordon, and it can't be done.

Oops! I forgot that Iraq doesn't have any chemical or biological munitions that would require such equipment. Sorry.

timber, I think I addressed my post to sumac. To warn him that the information in his post was in error - according to stats provided by tres. Tres called it a lie. In effect, calling me a liar. c.i.

Asherman-
"I believe that Timber, George, Tress, Steissd and Perception are combat veterans "


Is this true? timber, George, Tress, Steissed, Perception?

Just curious - it will definitely color my perceptions of your responses.

And since everyone is jumping in here - no, Tres didn't use the words "You are a liar". He just responded in his characteristic needlessly cynical, smart assed way that never adds to the dialogue, always puts someone down, and endears him to some of us so.

page 308: My post. I think there's another problem with this war with Iraq. It's been said that over fifty percent of Iraqi's are under the age of 15. This means that any collateral damage will more than likely be children. Has our government considered this? c.i.

What the heck, c.i., it doesn't matter much. I can't figure out why there's a dispute in the deal anyway. A few pages back, someone questioned a citation I quoted, indicating suspicion of the source from which I obtained the quote. I responded with 3 distinctly mainstream links which provided corroboration for my earlier assertion and its foundation. Elsewhere, I have acknowledged that some one else's information in some way successfully has challenged my own information, and cewded the point. Heck, I'm constantly posting and commenting on "News Bulletins" which turn out to be nothing. While that varies from unsatisfying to embarrassing, it isn't "lying", is it?

Now, just to swing this back on topic, and get in a little gratuitous gloating. With Iraq's announcement of apparent intention to comply with the Missile Issue, my earlier posted suspicions that that would be precisely Saddam's style seem to have proven out.



timber

'Scuse me, snood, but I'm seeing a lack of respect, not to say reverence, from both sides of the discussion. I believe you will too, now that your attention is focused. C.i., however, is less disrespectful and/or condecending than most. Again, that applies to the parties of both parts.