The UN, US and Iraq IV

McGentrix

Whist Walter is explaining his point, perhaps you could explain for my benefit what it is about Cuba that so annoys the USA.


Its a nice country full of amiable hispanic types who are determined to live their lives their own way. So they follow a communist/socialist doctrine different from the US. Why not? Does the US actually feel threatened by Cuba? Why still these (to my mind) silly restrictions on visiting and doing business with Cuba? I genuinely don't understand. [ok there was the issue of Soviet missiles, but at the same time the Soviet Union was surrounded by American missiles. And they're gone now along with the Soviet Union, so why still the continued animosity towards little Cuba?]

In Cold War times, we had in Germany the so-called "Hallstein doctrine" :

A basic foreign policy principle of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1955 to 1969. According to this doctrine, the Federal Republic asserted the exclusive right to represent the entire German nation (Alleinvertretungsanspruch). It did not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with states that recognize the German Democratic Republic (DDR). (Exception: The USSR, as one of the victorious powers of World War II.) The doctrine is applied for the first time against Yugoslavia (1957), followed by Cuba (1963) and Arab countries (1965).

Even at those times, we could go everywhere - I've been in the GDR and East Berlin three times in the above mentioned period (one time with the Conservative Youth ).

Hmm that sounds very suspicious Walter. Conservative Youth was obviously a cover, what were you REALLY doing? lol

... it should be noted that if you don't have the blessing of the U.S. gov.and are going through Canada or some such, you can be fined if U.S. authorities find on your person souveniers that are clearly Cuban, or a ticket stub from the leg of your journey from say Jamiaca to Cuba.

"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the [1991] war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit -- we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on."

Top Stories - Reuters
U.S. Kills 8 Iraqi Allies, Bush Seeks World Help
2 hours, 50 minutes ago

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By Fadhil Badran

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops killed eight U.S-trained Iraqi guards and a Jordanian on Friday after mistaking the Iraqis for rebels in the heartland of resistance to the American-led occupation, witnesses said.


Elsewhere in the rebellious "Sunni Triangle," where deposed dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) may be hiding, two U.S. soldiers died, seven were wounded, and three Iraqis were reported killed in a botched raid in the town of Ramadi.

President Bush (news - web sites) kept up pressure on the international community to back up its 130,000-strong contingent in Iraq (news - web sites), saying free nations cannot be neutral in the "fight between civilization and chaos."

In a speech to returning American soldiers, Bush added: "Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilized world, and opposing them and defeating them must be the cause of the civilized world."

U.N. Security Council foreign ministers from veto-holding countries France, Britain, Russia, China and the United States, are due to meet in Geneva on Saturday to discuss a U.S.-drafted resolution to get more international troops and money into Iraq.

In the Iraqi town of Falluja, police officer Assem Mohammed told Reuters a joint force of the local police and the U.S.- backed security force were chasing thieves in a car shortly after midnight when U.S. soldiers opened fire.

"They continued firing for about an hour despite our pleas for them to stop and to tell them we are police and security," Mohammed, who was wounded in the incident, said from his hospital bed in Falluja, about 30 miles west of Baghdad.

Nearly 24 hours later, U.S. military authorities still had no official comment on what had happened. They did say U.S. forces had come under a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the area and one American soldier was wounded.

Other police officers confirmed Mohammed's report and put the toll at eight dead guards and three suspected bandits. At least six police and guards were also wounded.

HOSPITAL BADLY DAMAGED

The Jordanian military hospital in the area was badly damaged in the firing, its side peppered by bullets and shells. Spent bullet casings littered the road nearby, next to dried pools of blood.

An official at the hospital, set up in April to provide medical services to the Iraqi people, confirmed a Jordanian guard died of wounds he received in the incident.

The Falluja Protection Force was set up by the U.S. military with volunteers to help Iraqi police control the unruly town.

In the Ramadi incident, two U.S. soldiers were killed and seven wounded when an American force raided a house in the town, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad in the U.S.-labeled "Sunni Triangle" where support for Saddam is strongest.

Pools of blood marked the sight of what witnesses described as a vicious gunbattle involving small arms and grenades in the early hours of the morning. In confused accounts, neighbors said three Iraqis also died.

"Look at the blood all over the house," housewife Samam Kadhim said. "This is the American behavior -- aggression toward Muslim houses."

Some two hours earlier, guerrillas had detonated a roadside bomb and fired small arms at a U.S. military convoy in central Ramadi, wounding two soldiers, a U.S. spokesman said.



Compounding a violent period even by Iraqi standards, police battled thieves in the center of Baghdad in the latest bout of lawlessness. And U.S. tanks entered Falluja's high street late afternoon in fighting where witnesses saw a five-year-old boy shot in the head.

U.S. CASUALTIES

Guerrillas have killed 71 U.S. soldiers since Washington declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1.

U.S. officials blame attacks on Saddam loyalists and foreign Islamist fighters.

Following Washington's appeal for help, more British troops left a base in Cyprus as part of London's buildup of its 11,000- strong contingent by an extra 1,200 soldiers.

But India turned down a U.S. request for it to send a division of at least 15,000 soldiers, arguing its forces were too busy fighting Islamic separatists in Kashmir (news - web sites).

France, Germany and Russia want to downgrade the U.S. role and have called for stronger U.N. participation in restoring Iraqi sovereignty.

In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said the world body would maintain humanitarian operations in Iraq despite continuing threats after the bloody bombing of its offices in Baghdad last month.

"We should not abandon them in their time of need," Annan said.

It seems a German bank is suing NY state for nine-eleven for $500,000,000.

Deutsche Bank sues over Sept 11
12 September 2003
NEW YORK - Deutsche Bank has sued the US state of New York for more than USD 500 billion for damage done to its building in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks, a bank spokeswoman said Thursday.

Rohini Pagasam said the state's negligence led to damage to the Germany-based bank's building, which stands across from the former site of the World Trade Centre.

In its suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, Deutsche Bank said the building was a total loss. In a statement issued Thursday night, the bank added that it filed the suit because its insurance policies demand it pursue every potential claim against third parties.


The suit accused the state of failing to take steps necessary to protect and clean the 41-storey building after the suicide hijackings that caused the World Trade Centre to collapse.

Tens of thousands of gallons of water that the New York Fire Department pumped into the building to put out a fire were not removed and Deutsche Bank employees were barred from the building and could not undertake efforts to protect it, the suit charged.

But it added that the state did not sufficiently keep its own employees from the site, which led to the theft of hundreds, possibly thousands, of computers.

Today, the building at 130 Liberty Street is a shell covered in black netting with a 15-storey fissure in it, the suit said. Never before have environmental experts found such an extreme mixture of pollutants and mould in a single building, it charged.

At the end of August, a federal judge dismissed a similar USD 500 million suit brought by Deutsche Bank against New York City but ruled it could refile two charges in the original suit.

It was expected to shortly file another lawsuit against Allianz AG and AXA SA to demand both insurance companies take on their portion of the costs to tear down the New York building. Deutsche Bank is demanding USD 1.9 billion but said it was ready to settle for USD 1.05 billion.

Earlier, the insurance firms Chubb Corp. and Zurich Financial Services agreed to pay USD 530 million to Deutsche Bank.

Also on Thursday, a lawyer confirmed that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria were named in a lawsuit seeking USD 300 billion from al-Qaeda and its supporters to compensate victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Eliot Feldman of the Philadelphia-based Cozen O'Connor law firm said the suit was filed on behalf of the families of 400 victims and several insurance companies, including American Re, for "wrongful deaths" and injuries.

The USD 300 billion includes USD 4 billion in insurance claims.

Feldman said that Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria and 500 other businesses and community groups named in the suit are included in the US State Department's list of entities that support terrorists.

He said that Saudi Arabia was named in the lawsuit because a minority of members of the House of Representatives - 200 members - had voted to add the country to the terrorism list, and because a Senate committee was also looking into the charges. The measure failed in the lower House.