>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com
>
>
>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>At 11:09 AM -0400 10/9/02, Nathan Newman wrote:
>>>I am against the war in Iraq but a war there is pretty damn irrelevant to
>>>global suffering-- over 30 million people are projected to die of AIDS in
>>>coming years, millions more will die each year from poverty, lack of
>decent
>>>water, lack of food, and so on.
>
>-I missed this first time around. Nathan, are you really arguing that
>-a few extra Iraqi deaths from a war wouldn't really matter much in
>-the big picture? With all the millions who die prematurely, what's a
>-few thousand more? Are you really saying that? Or was this just
>-infeliciously phrased?
>
>As I remember the few thousand deaths of Kosovars before NATO intervention
>was considered a small issue compared to the bigger issue of NATO
>imperialism. I'll dig up the quotes where the words "only" and "2000
>deaths" were rather closely paired in many arguing why Milosevic's crimes
>were not very significant. At points there are choices where relative
>deaths are measured-- that's why all violence is not unjustified if it can
>prevent more.
Wow, you're sure masterful at changing the topic. Most of the "excess" deaths in Iraq over the last 10 years are the result of the U.S.-led embargo and the hangover from the bombing during the last Gulf War (e.g. water purification plants). A U.S. invasion would kill undetermined additional numbers of Iraqis. Not even George Bush is talking about stopping the slaughter of an ethnic minority in Iraq as a justification for war.
Doug