Post-Galbraith Warfare- Bombing can win wars

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Sun Dec 2 10:28:44 PST 2001


Re: Iraqi sanctions. See David Cortright in The Nation for December 3rd. Citing Richard Garfield at Columbia and Mohamed Ali and Iqbal Shah in The Lancet in May 2000, "Excess deaths among children under five yrs. from 1990 through March 1998 to be 227,000. Garfields analysis showed child mortality rates double that of the previous decade...Garfield has recently recalculated his #'ers, based on the findings of ther Ali and Shah study to arrive at an estimate of 350,000 to 2000."

Cortright goes on to compare the much lower morbidity rates under the Kurdish zone in Northern Iraq which was the subject of an article in TNR posted here a few months ago.

Sidenote on Cortright. Was an anti-draft/anti-war activist from the 60's on. Remember a piece by him in Monthly Review from the mid-70's.

With agit-prop leaflets I see from IAC/WWP around town claiming 1.5 million deaths due to sanctions, why do some sectors of the left manipulate liberals with bogus stats? Sanctions have been horrible. No argument there. (And as one active in the coalition in '91 that supported them on Iraq, that was the counter to the IAC organized one that was opposed to sanctions, mea culpa.) But, once this article gets around, more questions will be raised about the motives of the sector of the anti-sanctions movement that is loathe to criticize the Ba'athist regime. Michael Pugliese



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