posted on December 26, 2002 06:30:42 PM Helen- Just what is your reason for this thread? To simply alert us that North Korea is a threat? Surprised at the naivete? EXACTLY what is it that Ms. Gandhi is proposing- to once again turn the other cheek? Certainly not to take a military stance! You are doing the Texas two-step, Helen. Like a vegetarian alerting us that pork is the other white meat!
Stusi, since when do I need an ulterior motive to start a thread. This issue is certainly newsworthy. With leaders such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove, I'm concerned about another war. Does this concern appear strange to you? If it does, then you should join the naive group. Sit in the corner with Linda and you can wave flags together while you think that your leaders are taking care of you.
posted on December 26, 2002 06:50:28 PM
Helen- The problem is that your concern about another war is simply that there might be one. No concern for the U.S. protecting itself by sometimes taking a preemptive strike. Once a real threat is determined, good military strategy is appropriate. Instead of crying that the sky is falling maybe you would have a suggestion other than pointless negotiation.
posted on December 26, 2002 07:01:19 PM
Linda_K- Helen lecturing on patriotism is like Mike Tyson lecturing on sportsmanship. I would say turn the other cheek but you could get your ear bitten off that way!
Negotiation and steps toward improving international relations is not pointless. Terrorism is a symptom and until we investigate and correct the cause of the hate that motivates terrorism we will accomplish nothing with war. Preemptive strikes on every country that hates us will only increase the hatred and thus the terrorism.
In addition to negotiation, in the case of Iraq, we should remove sanctions that are killing thousands of children. That would be a step in the right direction, for example.
posted on December 26, 2002 07:14:13 PM
There you go again, Helen. Show me where I've ever said 'unconditionally'. Guess you won't ever tire of putting words in my mouth.
Unlike you, I'm proud to be an American. And I'll proudly wave my flag. If you think you're insulting me, you're not. And I won't be waving it in some corner. I wave it full of pride, up front. I feel very blessed to live in a country like ours. I see a lot of the good we do in the world. I don't always focus on the negative. And I'm proud to choose my countries side because I support it, unlike you.
It would be nice, as Stu suggests, to see your solution to all these horrors the US is creating worldwide. You sure have the criticism, but offer no other solutions.
posted on December 26, 2002 07:20:31 PM
Helen- you are setting an AW record for misquotes. "Preemptive strikes on every country that hates us"? Who said that? I was only raising the issue that you seem to believe there is no circumstance under which it would be appropriate. I certainly do not think it so under most conditions. But when it is, it is! BTW- please be specific as to the supposed "sanctions" that are supposedly killing those children.
[ edited by stusi on Dec 26, 2002 07:22 PM ]
posted on December 26, 2002 07:27:11 PM
That was not a quote.
I am always very careful to copy paste quotes exactly as they are stated. I use italics and when the quote is really dumb, I indicate "quote" at the beginning and "end quote" at the end.
posted on December 26, 2002 07:34:08 PM
The sanctions that are killing the children are banned medical supplies, chemicals and equipment for hospitals and medications that are not allowed in the country. Saddam cannot buy these life saving supplies.
Children are dying of diseases such as leukemia and other diseases that could be treated with appropriate equipment and medication.
Sanctions do not affect Saddam. They only affect innocent people and children.
posted on December 26, 2002 07:48:06 PM
Helen- Do you really believe that Saddam can't get most of the high tech meds and equipment from his "friends"? Maybe it is in his sick interest to cause the world to believe there are many children dying because of our "sanctions"! You are buying into it just as intended.
posted on December 26, 2002 08:07:09 PM
No, it's a real problem and being addressed by the UN right now.
News story today...
Today, according to a study carried out by UNICEF, out of 188 countries, Iraq is at the bottom -- the 188th country in terms of increase in child mortality. In 1990, child deaths were 56 per thousand. In 1999, they were 131 per thousand. "In my own country, in Germany, it is five," says von Sponeck. "This is a trend in Iraq; it continues. Children die because of polluted water, lack of medicine, [and] malnutrition -- three factors that have something to do with sanctions."
posted on December 26, 2002 08:18:14 PM
I agree with you Helen. I don't think it's unpatriotic to want to prevent wars. You can't blow up other places just because you suspect the leaders might want to use their weapons. It only leads to retaliation imo.
posted on December 26, 2002 08:23:41 PM
Right, Kraftdinner!!!
Stusi...
Ramsey Clark on sanctions in Iraq
"September was the last time I visited Iraq. I went to Iraq many times back in the 1980s and went there in October 1990 to urge that every possible action be taken to avert an attack. I went there during the bombing, and spent two weeks there in February 1991. We saw devastating harm to civilians and civilian deaths. Conditions in the last two or three years have improved marginally. There is more food, there is more medicine, four years ago when you went to a hospital -- and I always go to some 15 hospitals when I go to Iraq, so I know all the hospitals and I know some of the doctors -- you saw babies dying and all sorts of miserable things. When you went to the pharmacies they would be empty; there would be a crowd outside with prescriptions, hoping that medicine would come in and that they would get some"
"Today, you go in and there is quite a bit of medicine on the shelves, but if you need chemotherapy, you are probably out of luck. The doctors have to decide which patients should have chemotherapy. For instance they would have about 50 needing chemotherapy, but only enough medicine for 10. You try to save 20 by half doses, but how do you choose? Do you choose younger people? What criteria you should you use to choose? Those who are likely to be saved? "
by Ramsey Clark, US attorney-general in the administration of former President Lyndon Johnson,
posted on December 26, 2002 08:54:01 PM
It's always the same with dictators. They have these huge palaces with gold chairs and stuff while their people starve. What do the leaders gain by this? I often wonder why everything is put into the U.S.'s lap to solve. Are there any other countries working on trying to get rid of any dictators that you know of?
posted on December 26, 2002 09:20:23 PM
The Axis of Evil = germs. We would stuff the drug companies pockets to overflowing if we declared a war on germs.
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on December 27, 2002 04:56:17 AM
Helen- There appear to be only vague references to "sanctions" in these articles and those seem to implicate the UN. Wherever there are medical problems in the world it is easy to blame the U.S. for not helping. Perhaps Hussein is imposing "sanctions" on his own people?
posted on December 27, 2002 07:40:34 AM
Stusi, all over the interet you will find exaggerated numbers of children that have died due to sanctions imposed by the US and enforced by the United Nations...some in the millions. This article discusses the various claims and history of sanctions. Determining an exact number of childrens deaths caused by sanctions is about like counting bodies after a war. Reliable and unbiased information is not easy to find. And during a war, it's difficult to pen down the exact number of deaths directly related to sanctions but there is certainly reason to believe that the number is significant. This article is a very conservative examination of the problem.
Richard Garfield, a public health specialist at Columbia University
Exerpt....
Those who get past the initial frustrations of researching the topic usually end up on Richard Garfield’s doorstep. His 1999 report -- which included a logistic regression analysis that re-examined four previously published child mortality surveys and added bits from 75 or so other relevant studies -- picked apart the faulty methodologies of his predecessors, criticized the bogus claims of the anti-sanctions left, admitted when the data were shaky, and generally used conservative numbers. Among his many interesting findings was that every sanctions regime except the one imposed on apartheid South Africa led to limitations of food and medicine imports, even though such goods were almost always officially exempt from the embargo. "In many countries," he wrote, "the embargo-related lack of capital was more important than direct restrictions on importing medicine or food."
Garfield concluded that between August 1991 and March 1998 there were at least 106,000 excess deaths of children under 5, with a "more likely" worst-case sum of 227,000. (He recently updated the latter figure to 350,000 through this year.) Of those deaths, he estimated one-quarter were "mainly associated with the Gulf war." The chief causes, in his view, were "contaminated water, lack of high quality foods, inadequate breast feeding, poor weaning practices, and inadequate supplies in the curative health care system. This was the product of both a lack of some essential goods, and inadequate or inefficient use of existing essential goods."
Ultimately, Garfield argued, sanctions played an undeniably important role. "Even a small number of documentable excess deaths is an expression of a humanitarian disaster, and this number is not small," he concluded. "[And] excess deaths should...be seen as the tip of the iceberg among damages to occur among under five-year-olds in Iraq in the 1990s....The humanitarian disaster which has occurred in Iraq far exceeds what may be any reasonable level of acceptable damages according to the principles of discrimination and proportionality used in warfare....To the degree that economic sanctions complicate access to and utilization of essential goods, sanctions regulations should be modified immediately."
Garfield’s conclusion echoes that of literally every international agency that has performed extensive studies in Iraq. In 1999 a U.N. Humanitarian Panel found that "the gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated." UNICEF’s Carol Bellamy, at the time her landmark report was released, said, "Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war." The former U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, travels around the world calling the policy he once enforced "genocide." His replacement, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned in protest of the U.N.’s "criminal policy."
posted on December 27, 2002 07:47:17 AM
In the case of sanctions, it is not the sanctions themselves causing harm to the populace--it is the rulers. IIRC, sanctions we have imposed *do* allow medical supplies, food & the like in...it is the PTB in that country which prevent them from reaching the populace. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on December 27, 2002 11:22:34 AM
I once read a short story b y Arthur C. Clarke that was interesting. It was about martian scientists on Mars (naturally) and they were observing the Earth for possiblilitiy of life being there. By using Martian standards for life, Clarke acutally proved scientifically that life could not survive on Earth.
For instance, I recall one that since there was so much oxygen in the atmosphere that spontaneous combustion was actually possible and that the amont of oxygen woud burn out any living creature's lungs.
Those folks who look over those photos and movie clips of Moon landings that have concluded that we never went to there have just the same approach.
posted on December 27, 2002 11:49:57 AM
Imagine North Korea as the Black Knight in this skit from Monty Python and the the Holy Grail.
ARTHUR:
Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
BLACK KNIGHT:
'Tis but a scratch.
ARTHUR:
A scratch? Your arm's off!
BLACK KNIGHT:
No, it isn't.
ARTHUR:
Well, what's that, then?
BLACK KNIGHT:
I've had worse.
ARTHUR:
You liar!
BLACK KNIGHT:
Come on, you pansy!
[clang]
Huyah!
[clang]
Hiyaah!
[clang]
Aaaaaaaah!
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right arm off]
ARTHUR:
Victory is mine!
[kneeling]
We thank Thee Lord, that in Thy mer--
BLACK KNIGHT:
Hah!
[kick]
Come on, then.
ARTHUR:
What?
BLACK KNIGHT:
Have at you!
[kick]
ARTHUR:
Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Oh, had enough, eh?
ARTHUR:
Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Yes, I have.
ARTHUR:
Look!
BLACK KNIGHT:
Just a flesh wound.
[kick]
ARTHUR:
Look, stop that.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Chicken!
[kick]
Chickennn!
ARTHUR:
Look, I'll have your leg.
[kick]
Right!
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Right. I'll do you for that!
ARTHUR:
You'll what?
BLACK KNIGHT:
Come here!
ARTHUR:
What are you going to do, bleed on me?
BLACK KNIGHT:
I'm invincible!
ARTHUR:
You're a looney.
BLACK KNIGHT:
The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then.
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's last leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Oh? All right, we'll call it a draw.
ARTHUR:
Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Oh. Oh, I see. Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
