Juan_Bottom wrote:Oct 7th, 2007
Osma's 'three reasons for enmity against the United States.
#1 The U.S. Imposed sanctions against Iraq from 1991 to 9/11: "One million Iraqi Children have thus far died thought they did not do anything wrong."
#2 American Policies towards Israel and her occupied territories: "I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine."
#3The Stationing of U.S. troops and the building of military bases in Saudi Arabia: "and before all the army of infidels depart from the land of Muhammad.
Of this list, as an American, #1 is the most troubling for my conscience. I can't help but empathize with Osama on some level. I feel awful even thinking that but I do.
ViperOverLord wrote:Way to mischaracterize conservative values. You are the one that should read your crap carefully.
1. We don't want ruthlessly stamp out the enemy
2. Iraq was a brutal place that threatened national security. We liberated 20 million people. I'm not sorry that you have a problem with that.
3. We don't base our beliefs on God being on 'our side.' God loves everyone equally. But you will find that there is a very sinister undercurrent of murder in the Middle East. That is why there are honor killings, assasinations and just your general politics of murder based on theocracy. You don't see politicians getting killed here because a Christian was offended.
GET AN F'ING CLUE BEFORE YOU POST YOUR OFFENSIVE DRIVEL
I'm sorry, but you just pissed me off. Allow me to rebuttal.
Your #2 is a complete fabrication. We didn't liberate them... unless you want to say that we liberated them from the UN, which imposed US and UK sanctions on the people of Iraq in an attempt to kill enough people quietly that they did the work of overthrowing Saddam without us.
Allow this:
The U.S. imposed sanctions on Iraq between 1991 and 2003. George Bush Senior's NSA General Brent Scowcroft gets a lot of credit here for being one of the Morons whose actions directly/indirectly lead to 9-11(Madeline Albright gets some of this credit too). Here's how it went down, see he, and G.B. Senior wanted to make Iraq ungovernable... because they didn't want to invade during the Gulf War, right? So they came up with a plan to cause revolt in Iraq. They dropped
90,000 tons of bombs in Iraq in a month and a half. They targeted Power plants (they destroyed 18 of 20) and Iraq's water pumping and sanitation systems. While this alone is a direct violation of the parts of the Geneva Convention , that's not what should grab you.
What should grab you was the United State's goal during this bombing campaign. We knew, ahead of time, that by destroying these vital systems we would create increased outbreaks of disease and high child mortality rates. That's right motherfucker's, we bombed Iraq in a way that was targeting unborn children. The anti-abortionist's championed a president that authorized killing unborn Iraqi children.
Any way, if you're reading this, you prolly want statistics. Dr. Thomas Nagy did all this work for us. The Primary Document that you should see, is "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," dated January 22, 1991. Allow me to quote a snippet
"[Iraq's river's] contain biological materials, pollutants, and are laden with bacteria. Unless the water is pruified with chlorine, epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid could occur."
One of the items our US/UK embargo blocked after destroying these sanitation plants, was chlorine.
in 1995 Colonel John A Warden II wrote
"As a result, [of the shut down of water treatment plants] epidemics of Gastreonteritis, cholera, and typhoid broke out, leading to perhaps as many as 100,000 civilian deaths and doubling the infant mortality rate."
May 1991 A team from the Harvard School of Public Health suggested:
at least 170,000 children under the age of five will die in the coming year a=from the delayed effects of the bombing.
I also mentioned that bombing these sites was a violation of the Geneva conventions right? If you don't believe me it's under Article 54 (2) of "the protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions August 12, 1949, relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), June 8, 1977"
What I find most interesting about this, is that although the US refused to sign this, we are still liable for War Crimes!
Our sanctions after-the-fact (1/3 of the reason Osama attacked us) deepened the effects of the bombing. They were, without doubt, the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a nation. U.N. Security Council Resolution 661 froze all foreign Iraqi assets and authorized everyone to cut off trade. We so strongly applied our embargo that Iraq had almost no money to buy basic medicine's for it's people.
Richard Garfield:
Iraq's legal trade was cut by an estimated 90% by sanctions
In 1995 the U.N.F.A. wrote
an estimated 567,000 Iraqi children are estimated to have died from the sanctions
This lead to a short lived outcry from several worldwide watch-groups. So, in '96 the UN adopted it's "Oil for Food" program. While it was a public relation's win, it did nothing to save Iraqi lives. All proceeds were banked by the UN, and they skimmed off 47% to pay for alleged war crimes against Kuwait and some for the Kurds in Iraq.
All this time, the US alone held onto the right to veto or delay anything that Iraq ordered. And we did, a sh!tload. from '01 - '02 holds on humanitarian aid tripled. We denied medicine, firefighting equipment, school supplies including computers and printers, milk production and pasteurization equipment, ect. Of course, we also continued blocking chlorine, and all parts for building/reparing water purification and sanitation machines/plants.
Anupama Rao Singh, the United Nation's Children's Fund Rep to Iraq:
Children under five were dying from malnutrition-related diseases in numbers ranging from a conservative 2,600 per month to a more realistic 5,357 per month.
Richard Garfield himself estimates that through 2000, US imposed sanctions killed approx. 350,000 children.
I can go on and on about the US being the Iraqi liberators. We were holding them hostage this whole time!!! We were killing their children!
And your #3 is just utterly ridiculous.
The United States has abducted and tortured more people than all the Iraqi and Afgahni insurgents by all accounts. We have purposefully killed more civilians than both combined. All of that which we have done through "collateral damage" is prohibited by the Geneva conventions "Common Article 3."
When I say that we have killed more civilians... the Boston Globe estimated the number between twice and ten times the numbers killed by insurgents bombs.
6/2/2005 Iraqi Interior Ministry announces that:
Insurgent violence has claimed some 12,000 civilian lives. The American military has killed between 21,000 and 50,000 civilians.
However that same year the Iraqiyun Humanitarian Organization released it's study that the US had killed 128,000 civilians.
In Afghanistan, according to Robert Fisk, B-52s alone accounted for 3,700 deaths by 2001.
After this, until 2007 most reports are for individual attacks.
12/29/2001 52 people slain by American forces (over half women and children)
1/23/2002 16 villagers and 14 woman and children killed in separate incidents
6/30/2002 An AC 130 gunship opens fire on a wedding killing 48 bodies. All but three are women and children. At first the US claimed the gunship had come under fire, but later admitted it's mistake after a special forces investigation proved that it had not. The US promised to build schools, roads, and a hospital in the area as a reprieve. But so far has not.
During the Shock and Awe attack of Iraq the Defense department drew up plans to kill Saddam and other high value targets. By US rules, Rumsfeld had to sign off ANY air strike
"thought likely to result in the deaths of more than thirty civilians."
He signed off on all 50 that came to him. None of the high value targets were killed.
