[PLUG-TALK] Chirac's shocker... Iraq.

[Jeme A Brelin]

It's late and I'm just going to address the economic impact here.

In the other issues, I highly recommend y'all take a look at the idea of
"humanitarian intervention" as a cause for military force in sovereign
nations.  The World Court determined SEVERAL TIMES that this is not a
valid reason for using military force because it can only be used by the
powerful against the weak.

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, none wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-12-20 at 16:26, Jeme A Brelin wrote:
> > On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, none wrote:
> > > What reason does this country have to try and profit in a region where
> > > our allies are already very short with us?
> >
> > Money.
>
> And it doesn't cost money to have a military operation?

OK, let's try to understand the basic system, here.  I can't believe I
have to explain this to an adult.

The money spent on the military operation is public money.  It's tax money
collected for to further public good via public agencies.  Our economy
requires this public money to be diverted to private coffers in order to
maintain those private corporations' financial solvency.  (An article in
Fortune magazine a couple of years ago showed that all of the 100 largest
transnationals were bailed out of failure by government money in the
previous five years.)  Business cannot survive on the scale it's
implemented today without direct transfer of public funds and indirectly
through enforced protection of markets..  These are primarily maintained
through government spending and military action.

The money spent on the military action is partly for wages and pensions
for soldiers, but mostly for supplies and equipment (including the massive
development budget) which is handed directly to private corporations.

So we're not talking about money stolen from the Iraqis in this part, but
stolen from the public of the United States and given to the wealthy few
in the form of profits.  It doesn't matter if only 15% of the total budget
makes it to those targets, it's still more than no money getting to them,
so it's done.  It's the cost of doing business.  And 15% of US$87Billion
is no small potatoes.

The Iraqi people get ripped off by taking their natural resources and
handing them to the corporations that rebuild the oil fields.  Contracts
are constructed with a few companies to go in and rebuild the oil fields
in exchange for long-term rights to the oil produced.  Now, we all know
that these companies aren't in it for the humanitarian aid, but for the
profits.  They are getting something worth many times what they are
spending on reconstruction (and in many cases, the reconstruction costs
themselves are being paid for by the American public... though the profits
will not come back to public coffers).  Absolutely ALL of the value of
those natural resources rightly belong to the Iraqi people, but it has
been appropriated and apportioned before they are even given the
opportunity to hold open debate and vote on the fate of those resources.
Furthermore, the Iraqi people have been so depressed by twelve years of
sanctions, they will work quite cheaply.  This just increases the profit
margins for the corporations.  This situation can be maintained for at
least several years by martial law under the guise of preventing Saddam
loyalists from regaining power.

It doesn't matter how much money it costs tax payers, the bottom line is
how much money it makes for the wealthy private interests.  Even better
that they don't have to pay for it themselves.

> So you admit Saddham was a humanitarian nightmere, yet you oppose our
> going in and taking him out. How quaint.

There's nothing quaint about it.  It's a relatively new revelation in
human enlightenment.

For centuries, colonies were maintained and gotten "in the interest of
civilization, humanity, and liberty", as one person wrote.  In fact,
that's the argument that was used to put down the attempt by Cuba to gain
independence from Spain.

After the brutal U.S. invasion of the Phillipines which killed more than
half a million Phillipinos (and sure, after that many were killed, they
were very quick to say who their daddy was), the President of the United
States said, "We are obeying a higher moral obligation which rested on us
and which did not require anybody's consent.  We are doing our duty by
them as God gave us the light to see our duty with the consent of our own
consciences and with the approval of civilization.  It's not a good time
for the liberator to submit important questions concerning liberty and
government to the liberated while they are engaged in shooting down their
rescuers."

Sound familiar?

Woodrow Wilson was supposed to be a fine supporter of democracy and
sovereignty, but he believed that was only for us self-annointed
enlightened states, "not to those at a low level of civilization".
Wilson went on to formally state this view of the new colonialism as
follows, "In questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations
concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the
government whose title is to be determined. [meaning the colonial power
that is occupying the region. -J.]"

So his famous doctrine of Self-Determination only applied to those who
claimed a high level of civilization.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 essentially outlawed war, but made a
specific exception for "humanitarian intervention".  The UN Charter makes
essentially the same statements with one more exception for actions taken
with the approval of the Security Council.

There was this idea that the higher-minded folks can send an invading
force into a country of lower stature and change their way of life simply
because they think it's not right.  On first blush, this sounds
reasonable.  But as soon as you look at how it's been used and what it
actually does, the elitist, unfair, and downright arrogant way in which
the idea takes form in the real world is clearly hurtful and undesirable.

A great book on the subject of humanitarian intervention has been written
by Sean D. Murphy, the Counselor for Legal Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in
the Hague called _Humanitarian Intervention:  The United Nations In An
Evolving World Order_.  It's dense and scholarly, but quite thorough and
novel for someone like me.

Understand that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN
Charter itself have all kinds of areas that need further explanation or
explicit instruction on how to implement the details.  This is done
through what are called "enabling conventions".  The area of "humanitarian
intervention" has never been formally and explicitly described by an
enabling convention or any General Assembly resolution. [It's interesting
and probably very instructive to note that the United States has signed
NONE of the enabling conventions enacted in the UN except for a small
handful that were signed with the specific exclusion of the United States
itself.]

So you can go to the Security Council and see if they agree that an
invasion is warranted or you can go ahead and do so and claim that it's a
humanitarian intervention... but to do so is to risk being brought to the
World Court for an examination of the situation and possible ruling
against you.

The World Court considered the notion of humanitarian intervention as part
of the greater deliberation in the Corfu Channel case (UK v. Albania).
The Court found that there cannot be any such right of humanitarian
intervention.  They wrote that it would simply turn into a right of the
powerful to attack the weak and the weak can never use it to attack the
strong.

This came up again in 1985 when Nicaragua brought the case before the
World Court against the United States for the US attacks on Nicaragua.
The Court found that under the right of humanitarian intervention, the
United States could attack Nicaragua and Nicaragua could attack the United
States, but only one of those is realistic and that's not right, hence the
argument for humanitarian intervention through military force was rejected
again.  It is simply a description of old fashioned colonialism.  The
United States was condemned here for unlawful use of force and demanded to
stop aggression and pay reparations... but the United States ignored this
reprimand and paid no reparations.

The position of the United States has been consistent and clear on this
subject and that position is one of lawlessness.  The State Department's
response is that the United States has sole jurisdiction in decisions made
by the United States and its policies.  It's as if you or I were to claim
that we are only accountable to ourselves when going out on the street.
It's absurdly arrogant, uncivilized, and antisocial.

> If the republicans are so guilty of turning their backs on Saddham, is
> there some reason you're ignoring the fact that Clinton could have gone
> after Saddham and didn't?  Why did Clinton turn his back?

I mentioned earlier that they were following the plan... Clinton was
waiting for the sanctions to have the desired effect of demoralizing and
degrading Iraqi society to the point that they will accept occupation.

> One major problem with your argument is that Saddham's army mostly
> deserted him despite having the capability to do far more damage to the
> coalition.  Not only that, it's easy to find Iraqis who are glad that
> Saddham is gone.

I think it's pretty easy to see that the Iraqi military knew they were
grossly out-gunned and deserted rather than getting blown to shit.  They
simply weren't all that well-armed and there are almost more American
military personel than their are Iraqi civilians (OK, that's an
exaggeration, but they are WAY out of scale).

When faced with that kind of foe, it is no surprise at all that many
pragmatists will fly any flag of allegience that will keep them viable.

> Don't ignore the fact that Lieberman and other democrats were pro war
> too.

First, as I wrote before, Lieberman is a Democrat in official affiliation
only.  If you were to compare his views with that of the two major party
platforms, he comes out much in favor of the Republican Party.

Second, I don't really care if the entire Democratic Party supported this
100%.  The Democratic and Republican parties are of one mind when it comes
to foreign and economic goals and ideals and differ only in specific
policies and plans of implementation... and then only sometimes or in
trivial ways.

There is simply NO public debate in this country about sovereignty,
colonialism, or economic systems.  Any ideas that are not those of the
ruling regime are marginalized or simply ignored.  By focussing the debate
on specific policies, the underlying principles and theories are accepted
and not questioned.  To question them would be outside the scope of every
public policy debate.

I'm reminded of a recent CNN poll regarding the convicted Lockerbee
bomber's set term of imprisonment.  A special court determined that his
imprisonment should be no less than something like 21 years (the exact
number is unimportant).  The poll question was "Is 21 years a long enough
imprisonment term for the Lockerbee bomber?" (or similar wording)  And the
choices were "Yes" and "No".  What the hell kind of question is that?
There is no way to express that it's TOO long.  The debate has been
narrowed down to the term being good enough or too short.  "Yes, it's long
enough."  "No, it's not long enough."

The ruling class (including the corporate media) are able to frame the
questions put to the public and the candidates and therefore have enormous
control over what kinds of subjects are publicly discussed.

I don't think the Democrats and Republicans are any different from one
another politically except in the most meaningless ways.  There is no
public political debate in this country.

> You can't argue against us restoring Iraq's oil industry because it's a
> major part of the Iraqi economy.

I can argue against US restoring it... I wrote before what I think should
be done.  I think the Iraqi people should be given total control and we
should just give them the money to do the repairs without any influence at
all over who does the work or who gets the oil rights.

> If were trying to extract wealth from Iraq, why are we asking France and
> Germany to forgive debts owed by Iraq?

See, this is just plain ignorance of international finance on your part.

It is BECAUSE we are trying to extract wealth from Iraq that we are asking
France and Germany to forgive debts owed by Iraq.

Those debts would be the responsibility of a new Iraqi government.  In
order to pay those debts, the Iraqi government would have to collect extra
taxes (above and beyond what is required to maintain domestic services and
pay back whatever the U.S. decides is appropriate compensation for the
invasion and occupation).  Since the nation is devastated, the best source
of tax income is going to be the foreign corporations doing business in
the restored Iraq.  Removing whatever debts are outstanding decreases the
tax burden for the American corporations that will be running the major
services in Iraq and, therefore, increases profits for the wealthy few who
control those corporations.

Have you considered WHY the people of Iraq are responsible for the debts
incurred by Saddam Hussein?  The economic principles behind Capitalism
were abandoned decades ago because they proved unworkable.  Instead of the
borrower assuming the responsibility of loans and the creditor assuming
the risk, the national government (i.e. the general public) assumes the
risk and responsibility and the creditors go in risk-free and the
borrowers can disappear and leave the debt for the people left in the
country.

The World Bank works exactly this way and is the most efficient tool of
colonialism ever devised.  Some government borrows huge amounts of money
from one of the wealthy nations through the World Bank.  The government
uses that money for something (could be schools, roads, and hospitals --
usually built by constuction companies from the wealthy nations, so the
money never really leaves; could be general support to offset tax-breaks
to lure foreign business into the country; could be for some dictator's
villa and luxuries... doesn't matter).  That government fails to pay back
the loans in a timely manner (schools, roads, and hospitals don't bring in
big revenue; companies find ways to get out before the tax-breaks expire
-- see Fujitsu in Oregon as a fine domestic example; the dictator is
ousted or flees or whatever).

Enter Guido^H^H^H^H^H the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  The IMF's
job is to restructure the nation's economy in order to help the people's
agencies make loan payments... even if the people never saw any of the
money (as in the case of the dictator).  Now, the wealthy nation's banks
don't want to be paid in rupees or dinar or rand or something like that.
They want US Dollars (or maybe Euros).  So the IMF makes it possible for
that country to bring in Dollars and Euros by moving from domestic
production to production for export to the United States and/or Europe.

These loan payments must be met so sacrifices must be made. Producing more
goods for in-country consumption does NOTHING to make the loan payments,
so it's non-essential in the IMF's eyes and should be discouraged whenever
those resources can be used for export. Local farmland that grew grain to
feed people now grows grass to feed cattle for McDonald's.  Wages and
benefits to workers have to be decreased in order to keep the operating
costs low enough to make the American and European businesses keep using
products from that country and ensuring the flow of foreign money to make
the loan payments back to those foreign nations.

This is the mechanism of modern colonialism.

This is the future of Iraq.

> Anyone who purposely creates the image of an insecure Iraq will lenghten
> the coalition presence.

Right... like the State Department.

> There's no gurantee of a living wage in the U.S.

It's a shame.  We're working on that.

> There is a limit on what the coalition can pay where the cost of the war
> has mostly been carried by the United States in the midst of economic
> trouble at home.

And what economic trouble is that?  Profits are still increasing, though
admittedly more slowly than they were five years ago.  A headline story in
USA Today a couple of months ago reported that worker productivity was up
"an astounding 25%".

> We have found places in Iraq where secret programs were in high gear to
> develop ways to defeat airport security complete with bombs that would
> never be caught by any common metal detector.

(Let's assume, as a point of argument, that this is true...)

And do you doubt that the US has such a program (or many such programs) in
its vast military research and intelligence spending operations?

> I wanted Saddham gone where I'm sure others including Lieberman and
> Daschle agree with me.

It's not up to Lieberman, Daschle, Bush, Cheney or any other American
person to determine what is right for Iraq.

The only real indicator we have of what the Iraqi people want is an
election in which Saddam won with 99% of the vote.

Granted, that was clearly not carried out with anything like fair
standards of democracy, but if we wanted to know what the Iraqi people
wanted, we could have encouraged the UN to operate a national vote of
confidence in that country and I think Saddam would have agreed to it
rather than face the sanctions and threat of invasion.  It would have been
a relatively minor cost compared to invasion and could have provided at
least some justification for an act of "liberation" even (perhaps
especially) if he refused to let the vote take place.

> > Remember that the military is really just a method of putting public funds
> > into the hands of the wealthy.  The primary purpose of government spending
> > is to prop up an economic system that is unsustainable without state
> > support.
>
> Tell that to the World War II vets.  Hitler wasn't going to replace all
> governments with fascism and exterminate all Jews and Christians.

It was neither fascism nor the death camps that prompted US involvement in
WWII.  This is VERY clear from the statements of leaders of the day.
Fascism was decried as a political system, but revered by the wealthy as a
great boon for business.  It was supported happily so long as no extreme
version made it across the ocean.  And when news of the extermination of
Jews was printed in the New York Times in 1938 (SIX YEARS before D-Day),
it was on page 8 of the International Section and met with almost no
public response.  It wasn't until the Germans became a threat to trade and
the American companies wanted to enter the war-machine business that the
United States rescinded the Neutrality Act (first to simply allow the sale
of arms to belligerent nations) and enter the Lend-Lease Act and finally
enter the war.  The war in Japan has a similar history with very good
documentation coming to light recently that Roosevelt specifically chose
actions that would provoke an attack by Japan and draw the U.S. into the
war and further information that the administration was aware of the plan
to attack Pearl Harbor but perhaps didn't relay the information to the
Navy in order to maximize the public outrage at this "sneak attack".

> The Colonial army and navy weren't essential to American becoming it's
> own nation, Britain just handed the New World over.

There are several reasons why this is a worthless argument against my
statement.

First, it is from the eighteenth century and therefore pre-Capitalist and
largely pre-democratic.  Modern rationale does not apply.

Second, the U.S. military does not act for defense of sovereignty and
self-determination.  If you'll read the report from the Project For A New
American Century report I mentioned in the previous post, you'll find that
the current rhetoric is that American security depends on putting down ANY
challenge to our world dominance and preventing the rise of a competing
power.  That is to say, it is currently believed that our domestic
security REQUIRES the subjugation of all of the people's of the globe
through military and economic force.

It's funny how the same people that claim that competition brings the best
ideas and actions to dominance are terrified of having competing ideas in
the global arena.  I don't think I'm far off at all when I note the
similiarities with Microsoft's view of competition.  Crush them before
they get off the ground, that way, you don't ever have to do better
yourself.

> Germany and France are very powerful in Europe.  Look at the difficulty
> the EU is having forming a new constitution.  We are not alone among
> European nations that are having difficulties with France and Germany.
> The Czech republic and various former Soviet states come to mind.

Well, somebody's got to provide a counterpoint for debate.  I think they
make some very convincing arguments -- but I'm not seeing them debated
openly.

> War is a spiritual problem that cannot be eradicated by a natural
> solution.

Well, see, this is probably the root of all the reasons Catholicism is a
harmful to human progress.  The belief that people are simply born sinners
and always will be on Earth no matter what we do is misanthropic at best.
It is a pre-emptive justification for every foul act committed in the name
of righteousness.

> Talk went on long enough, only action could end years of sanctions.

Actually, simply ending sanctions could have ended the sanctions.  The
sanctions required action to maintain.  Inaction would have ended them.

> > However, it doesn't ensure the victory of the largest army, so the
> > U.S. is opposed to it as a matter of policy.
>
> If we really are using our army for colonial expansion we could blow any
> international court away.

Uh, we blow them off, which is good enough.  The powerful are smart enough
to pretend to be doing something other than simply subjugating the
indigineous peoples of the world.

> > If you wage war you fight to win, or you don't fight at all. I'll take
> > the latter.
>
> You're a peace nik then.

I'd prefer peace.  Is that a problem?

> You don't know the pope mister there's no free will.  You haven't read
> any official Vatican statement on Iraq either.

I don't know the Pope, but I've read official statements, for sure.

And just because I don't agree with the old fool doesn't mean I can't tell
you what he (or his handlers) said.

> We had U.N. authorization to go in through the twelve resolutions that
> have been passed regarding Iraq.

None of them authorized the use of military force.  That requires approval
from the Security Council.

> > It doesn't take courage to do whatever you want if you're rich and
> > control more guns than anyone in the history of the world.
>
> I'm sure the Chinese have us beat.

I don't want to find out.

> > Huh?!?  Do you have any idea what happened in Bush v. Gore?  Do you
> > understand the basis of that case or the outcome?  Essentially, the
> > court set their own deadline for recounts and then failed to meet that
> > deadline and let the decision stand.
>
> If there's a problem with the court that isn't Bush's fault.

Nobody says it is Bush's fault, only that the election was seriously
broken.

As you say:

> Ballot boxes were not properly secured in New Mexico, bums were paid by
> gore sympathizers to vote for Gore...

The election was seriously broken.

> For a long time every state has needed an extra electoral vote so that a
> candidate can't win with only four states.

I can't say that it's absolutely true that a voter in Montana should have
more impact on the election than a voter in California.  Adding an
electoral vote to each state would have that effect by redistributing the
electoral vote percentages to be even further out of line with population
distribution.

I'm not saying it's the worst thing we could do, but I have a hard time
getting over that point.

> People who voted for Buchanan mistakenly could have asked for
> clarification of the ballot, did they?

Confusion isn't always obvious in the moment.  Have you never mistakenly
picked up one thing thinking it was another?  The wrong color pen or
otherwise?

I'm sure many people KNEW they were marking the correct candidate, even
though they were wrong.  That is why it is called "confusion".

> Florida consistently messes up in Presidential elections.

Again, the election was broken.

> At least the military votes were counted, there's nothing quite like a
> citizen defending a country and not getting to vote in the presidential
> election.

Personally, I don't think people who are directly supported by the public
should be able to vote in elections that impact their livelihood.  Too
often a person will make the pragmatic choice rather than the one that is
idealistically right.

> Don't you mean there are many Europeans and dead people trying to vote
> in this country?

That happens, too.  Another reason we need international election
monitoring.

> Recounts are so expensive and if the vote is extremely close the
> accuracy required makes them even more expensive.  It's better for the
> nation if two candidates are within 1% to 3% of each other to call it a
> tie and let the court decide.

There is absolutely no legal or rational basis for this.

> > And we don't have, in this country, a system of criminalizing the
> > lifestyles of the impoverished and then removing their ability to vote
> > because they are criminals?
>
> Jim Crow laws have been gone for a long time.  If you are an eighteen
> year old or older American citizen you can vote.

...not if you've been convicted of a felony in many states.

When the Drug Enforcement Act was passed, then Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan said, "Passing this bill will be tatamount to creating a
crimewave in our inner cities."  The bill passed and MILLIONS of inner
city youths lost their right to vote forever.

There are other examples of laws that are clearly intended to criminalize
the activities of certain subsets of the population.  These subsets are
always poor and non-white.

> > > In a true Islamic state their are religious police who control
> > > attire and enforce certain rituals, or am I mistaken?
>
> > You're not mistaken.  But you're sorely mistaken if you think that
> > Saddam Hussein was the leader of an Islamic state.  He was regularly
> > condemned by the people of the region for being secular.
>
> So that automatically makes anything he did right because he's not
> religious?

Read that again.  You wrote some crap about an Islamic state in reference
to Iraq.  That is just plain wrong.

> Talk is cheap.  Wanna compete with lobbyists?  Do it, don't whine to me.

The point is that I CAN'T compete with lobbyists and nobody who isn't a
capitalist imperialist can, either.  The game is rigged in their favor
because they set up all the rules.

> > So far, that's what we've been doing there... putting to death those
> > that disagree with American rule.
>
> We haven't killed Saddham, and we are about to risk giving the Iraqis a
> chance to exhonerate him.

I wasn't writing about Saddam Hussein.  Read a copy of the USA Patriot Act
sometime and take a look at Camp X-ray.

As for "the chance to exhonerate him", the United States has already
expressed publicly that it has no interest in Saddam Hussein and his
capture is nothing more than a PR stunt.  The US issued a formal statement
in the weeks before the invasion that Saddam and his sons and close aides
could leave the nation before the invasion and seek asylum elsewhere.  If
there was any interest in "bringing him to justice", why would they do
that?  The purpose was the invasion and occupation, not the capture of
Saddam Hussein.

> We all know that he said that. The president can't necessary reveal a
> smoking gun every time he/she wants to take military action, we wouldn't
> want the president to sacrifice strategy for political approval.

We're not talking about political approval, we're talking about justice.
We do not put a man in prison or on Death Row without a fair trial and we
should not allow the assault on a foreign nation's sovereignty without due
process of law.  Anything less is straight-up tyranny.

> Oil is Iraq's major source of income.  Regardless what we do, the sale
> of Oil is presently how Iraq can acquire food and medicine.

It's true that international trade there will depend heavily on oil for
most of the next generation.  However, giving the oil rights to U.S. and
British corporations is wholesale theft from the Iraqi people.

> It's a desert there, maybe genetically engineered crops will improve
> agriculture there so that it can become less dependant on other nations.

It's not all infertile desert land.  People have been living there for
thousands of years -- long before shipping allowed food to travel
thousands of miles to people's mouths.  The land is capable of sustaining
the people had it not been shelled with radioactive debris and charred
with phosphate, it would be producing food today.  The problem is not food
production, but food distribution.

> > Recall that pre-1991, Iraq had the highest standard of living and the
> > highest quality of life in the Persian Gulf region.
>
> For who, Saddham?  Explain those opulent palaces, does their existence
> improve the welfare of the poorest Iraqi?  Iraq was a great nation and
> it can be again.

It's possible to have good infrastructure and still have loads of waste.
I think you'd agree to that.  Just look at some of the shit the United
States spends money on.

It is a simple fact that the Iraq of fifteen years ago had a higher
standard of living overall than any nation in the region.  The opulence of
Saddam's palaces would only then underscore the abundance of wealth that
nation can provide.

> We should have invaded Iraq 12 years ago to depose Saddham, but the past
> is behind us and always will be so move on already.

Ah, but 12 years ago the people weren't willing to accept foreign
occupation and the army wasn't willing to give up sovereignty.  It took 12
years of bombing and sanctions to break their spirits to this point.

> We invaded because we are sick and tired of U.N. resolution upon U.N.
> resolution where a decade is more than long enough to put a problem off
> and impose embargos instead of solving the issue already.

Um, the USA has violated dozens of UN resolutions and been reprimanded in
the World Court but consistantly ignores those resolutions and reprimands.
It would be the height of hypocrisy to claim that it was the violation of
UN resolutions that led to the occupation of Iraq and the subjugation of
the Iraqi people.

> > Suspected torturers.  They were not tried and were never offered the
> > chance to bring evidence in their own defense.  This is a gross
> > violation of what we consider to be fundamental rights.
>
> There is documented torture and victims who can testify to atrocities.
> They evaded arrest and threatened the lives of coalition troops, there
> is no way to try them because they chose death.

A person has the right to face their accusor and provide for their
defense.  Deadly force should not be used to apprehend mere suspects.

> The Iraqi military capable of repelling the coalition largely chose not
> to.

Do you really believe that the Iraqi military was capable of repelling the
coalition?  You think that little country had the manpower, weaponry, and
confidence to take on the United States and Britain in all-out war?  Bush
has stated that he has no reservations about using nuclear weapons
"tactically".

You're crazy if you think anyone other than China or India would even
consider standing up to a US invasion.  The BEST they can hope for is to
sustain the battle long enough to increase political pressure from other
nations and internally within the United States.  I think that's exactly
what the Iraqi people are doing right now.  They speak nice for the
American cameras and then throw rocks and fire shots when nobody's
looking.

> Providing medicine and food to Iraq civilians isn't propaganda,
> coalition forces really are doing this.

It is both propaganda and bribery.

> Whether or not there are Al-Queada cells in Portland is another
> discussion.

Actually, I just want to hear what you did that got you kicked out of PSU
and gave you "post-traumatic stress".

> > It's like cutting someone open and then telling them they should be
> > thankful that you gave them stitches.
>
> An air campaign isn't precise enough, so we have troops on the ground
> inside Iraq.

After a 12 year air campaign and plenty of UN inspectors to make sure the
nation was totally disarmed, they sent in ground troops.  Brilliant.

Again, rebuilding Iraq is the absolute least we could do and it should be
done with no strings attached.  We're the ones that did all the damage,
after all.

> > Well, they're hurt.  Now's the time to show a little "kindness"
> > (though not respect... the kindness you might show a child).
>
> How do you treat children?

I treat a child as though I "know better" about some things... like
touching hot stoves and standing too close to the edge of high cliffs.
Trust and respect of opinion and ability are limited due to the extreme
inexperience of children.

> > This is classic brainwashing.  The soldiers become the saviors and the
> > people forget that the soldiers are the reason they were suffering in
> > the first place.
>
> Trusting the U.S. presence is wrong?

Yes.  No nation should ever have to endure foreign occupation.

> > WOW!  We're undoing some tiny amount of the damage that we did?  How
> > amazingly humanitarian!
>
> $87 billion isn't pocket change.

No, it's a huge amount of money.  But we wouldn't have had to spend a dime
of that if we hadn't destroyed their infrastructure.

> > The medicine was withheld by our embargo.  The infrastructure
> > (including electrical, water, and sewer systems) were destroyed by our
> > bombs.
>
> Saddham didn't like well fires?

The well-fires were started when invasion was imminent.  It was an attempt
to make the area less attractive to the US.  He underestimated the great
lengths to which the US government will go to ensure profits for oil
companies.  (Who could have foreseen the US$87 Billion?)

> Terrorists haven't attacked the infrastructure blaming the coalition for
> the damage?

There's no evidence of that.  It's all just words from the Pentagon.

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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