I never shut up, do i?
Mar. 14th, 2003 01:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hermionesviolinThe children in Iraq are already in sorrowful shape. The last thing in the world they need is another war. More than half the population of Iraq is under the age of 18, and those youngsters are living in an environment that has been poisoned by the Iran-Iraq war, the first gulf war and long years of debilitating sanctions.
One out of every eight Iraqi children dies before the age of 5. One-fourth are born underweight. One-fourth of those who should be in school are not. One-fourth do not have access to safe water.
This generational catastrophe is the fault of Saddam Hussein, no question. But those who favor war should at least realize that the terrain to be invaded by the most fearsome military machine in history is populated mostly by children who are already suffering.
The American military has significantly improved the accuracy of its weapons, and the U.S. has gone to great lengths to develop war plans designed to minimize civilian casualties. But war, as anyone who has been in the military knows, is about killing people. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has already made it clear that the U.S. is planning to deliver what he calls a "shock" to the Iraqi system.
That shock reportedly will be delivered by 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours. The children of Iraq won't be the targets, but that is what their country will face if America attacks.
(On Tuesday the Air Force tested the country's largest nonnuclear bomb, the 21,000-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast, gleefully nicknamed the "Mother of All Bombs.")
After the war will come the humanitarian crisis. There will be the dead to bury and the sick and wounded to tend to. And hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Two-thirds of Iraq's 24 million people are entirely dependent on government food rations, and the remaining 8 million are dependent to some degree. U.N. officials have said plans by the United States to feed the population after the war are inadequate, and food supplies could run out in a matter of weeks.
Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, told me: "The area we're very concerned about is water and sanitation. There's very little ground water in Iraq. At least half the water has to be treated. So if the major power facilities and water treatment plants were knocked out, there would be very significant consequences, and the children would generally be the most vulnerable."
Most Americans will watch this war from the comfort of their living rooms, well out of harm's way. These are a few of the items they might consider as they make up their minds on whether an invasion is a good idea, or whether a search for a better alternative is still in order.
-from "Bombs and Blood" by Bob Herbert
Peace protestors argue for containment and bash sanctions. In a terrific piece, Walter Russell Mead argues that "Sanctions are inevitably the cornerstone of containment" (and posits other costs of containment) and also argues that the current sanctions
exist only because Saddam Hussein has refused for 12 years to honor the terms of a cease-fire he himself signed. In any case, the United Nations and the United States allow Iraq to sell enough oil each month to meet the basic needs of Iraqi civilians. Hussein diverts these resources.
France, China and Syria all have a common reason for keeping American and British troops out of Iraq: the three nations may not want the world to discover that their nationals have been illicitly supplying Saddam Hussein with materials used in building long-range surface-to-surface missiles.
FARTING IN THEIR GENERAL DIRECTION: "Oh no, some Americans have changed the name of toast and fries in a pathetic protest of what we feel is an obstruction of our genuine security concerns. How exactly is that a bigger deal than France, this week, officially banning the booing of their National Anthem, an offense now punishable by prison time and cash fines? We Americans may be jingoistic flag-waving primitives, but we're still allowed to jeer the national anthem." - from the Letters Page of AndrewSullvan.com. (I want some source linkage for this.)"When peace stands for surrender, fear, loss of dignity and freedom, it is no longer peace. It's suicide."
-from a piece by someone who knows the horrors of WWII and Vietnam, who thinks this issue is a dilemma and that this should have been taken care of a long time ago, and whose article i find problematic
Is the US really more dangerous to world peace than a mass-murdering, genocidal dictator who has invaded his neighbours, used chemical weapons, stowed away hundreds of tons of anthrax and tortured tens of thousands to death? Is it now an imperialist nation?
...
America was forged in the first place by the families of Protestant settlers who had a work ethic, a strong sense of right and wrong, and a hostility to governmental power and royal authority. ... Americans are still by nature disrespectful of authority, deeply democratic by instinct, very conscious of their freedom, and particularly happy to live in a vast and beautiful land which is free from external threats.
...
Americans are not warlike people, but they will now go after rogue states and terrorists because, if they don’t, no one else will. All over the world, America takes on responsibilities because others shirk them.
-from an article in The Spectator
From: Steven C. Den Beste <sdenbes1@san.rr.com>
To: Elizabeth Sweeny
Date: Thursday - March 13, 2003 1:46 AM
Subject: Re: Now they're proposing a 6-point alternative to war.
On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 23:49:48 -0500, you wrote:
>I don't know how much this is floating around the major media, but Smith
>(the college i'm at) is full of war protestors, so i recently came
>across a proposed 6-point alternative to war --
>http://www.sojo.net/action
>Will be interested to see your takes on it, if you happen to post about
>it.
>
>~Elizabeth Sweeny
They can't possibly be that naive, can they? Do they really think that
indicting Saddam would somehow lead to the end of his rule? Or that
"coercive disarmament" could happen without a prior invasion?
Who are these people?
--------
Steven C. Den Beste sdenbes1@san.rr.com
Home page and web log: http://denbeste.nu/
On the horrors of war:
-- http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/10/Thehorrorsofwar.shtml
From: "Glenn Reynolds" <reynolds@libra.law.utk.edu>
To: Elizabeth Sweeny
Date: Thursday - March 13, 2003 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: Now they're proposing a 6-point alternative to war.
I'll check it out. I spent a fair amount of time at Smith when I was
in law school -- I had a girlfriend there. I remember it fondly.
Date sent: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 23:49:48 -0500
From: "Elizabeth Sweeny" <esweeny@email.smith.edu>
To: <reynolds@libra.law.utk.edu>,<sdenbes1@san.rr.com>
Subject: Now they're proposing a 6-point alternative to war.
> I don't know how much this is floating around the major media, but Smith
> (the college i'm at) is full of war protestors, so i recently came
> across a proposed 6-point alternative to war --
> http://www.sojo.net/action
> Will be interested to see your takes on it, if you happen to post about
> it.
>
> ~Elizabeth Sweeny
no subject
Date: 2003-03-14 04:04 am (UTC)The principles are relatively simple to me now.
War is a bad idea.
Sanctions and inspections work if Saddam wants to remain wealthy and in power. There is plenty of money in Iraq if Saddam wanted to feed his population. Instead he has chosen to violate basic human rights in order to build anti-American sentiment.
Saddam's human rights violations are not a basis of regime change. There is no logical basis for regime change.
As part of the UN, the US should not take any unsupported actions.
It should be made clear to Saddam that if he throws inspectors out, or inspectors throw up their hands and leave, the US is free to bomb any site it regards as suspicious. That the UN should back.
You don't kill someone else's civilians because you are worried about your own. It is not logical, or moral.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-14 09:18 am (UTC)Word to that.
Elizabeth, honey, there was something that you didn't mention in your Alix rant that I wanted to ask you about. Remember when she read that list of the countries we've bombed, and stated that a successful democratic government has never resulted from any of these attacks? I'd be interested to hear your response (and possible evidence to the contrary, knowing you ;)).
no subject
Date: 2003-03-14 11:00 am (UTC)A nation loses that protection if it chooses to violate the sovereignty of other nations. Proven major material support to terrorists does construe such a violation. But by that I mean supplying a terrorist with a biological or chemical agent to use. (And not supposition of collaboration, not providing safe harbor or medical treatment or simply letting them travel through.)
It also loses it if there is a world consensus (the UN) that they have done something so heinous that the world must step in.
The argument for preemptively squashing a threat, is the argument of an insecure bully, and like that of regime change is an argument that has no logical end if you are paranoid enough.
If Saddam stays in his borders and even reluctantly cooperates with inspectors, we have no business saying that he has to change the way he treats the average Iraqi even if it is appalling to us. A war would hurt the average Iraq, and afterwards what quality of life are they promised?
And I don't know where Tony Blair came up with his compromise resolution. It was so bad that Bush must have written it for him.
The UN is far from perfect. Too often it has been the puppet of the US. But with the cold war gone, we either deal with situations through diplomacy, or we become world dictators. We have used every dirty trick in the book to stay on top and in the end we will still become one among many. (A thought old school Washington will not even consider.) Our actions need to start having a moral basis if we hope to have any respect in the new world that is emerging. And that is not just limited to our government's actions, it applies to individuals as well.
Contempt masquerading as compassion
Date: 2003-03-14 12:45 pm (UTC)With all due respect, that is one of the most uncaring and selfish things I have ever read.
RAS
Re: Contempt masquerading as compassion
Date: 2003-03-14 12:59 pm (UTC)Re: Contempt masquerading as compassion
Date: 2003-03-16 08:01 am (UTC)At one point, the law kind of said this, "What happens inside a family is its own business. No one else has the right to interfere."
But of course, "what happens inside a family" to a large extent means what people who have power in the family do, and that frequently meant what the senior male does. So if he beat his wife or his kids, or any of hundreds of other rotten things, that was nobody else's business, and nobody had a right to do anything about it.
We now think that that is a little extreme. Senior males can have too much power, and they can abuse the power they have. Some times it is appropriate to interfere with what is going on "inside" a family. Of course, some times it isn't.
Most countries are not the equivalent of respectful, egalitarian, democratic families. They are the equivalent of patriarchies, some more abusive than others. Some times it is a good idea to try to stop the worst abuse, even if a lot of the other partriarchs don't agree.
RAS
Re: Contempt masquerading as compassion
Date: 2003-03-16 09:09 am (UTC)