Cool War

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Feb 1 10:00:00 PST 2003


Michael Pollak wrote:


>Joy Gordon's excellent article in the November Harper's about what's wrong
>with the Iraq Sactions regime turns out to be one of the half dozen
>articles they have available online:
>
>http://www.harpers.org/online/cool_war/?pg=1

A paragraph like this:


>Over the last three years, through research and interviews with
>diplomats, U.N. staff, scholars, and journalists, I have acquired
>many of the key confidential U.N. documents concerning the
>administration of Iraq sanctions. I obtained these documents on the
>condition that my sources remain anonymous. What they show is that
>the United States has fought aggressively throughout the last decade
>to purposefully minimize the humanitarian goods that enter the
>country. And it has done so in the face of enormous human suffering,
>including massive increases in child mortality and widespread
>epidemics. It has sometimes given a reason for its refusal to
>approve humanitarian goods, sometimes given no reason at all, and
>sometimes changed its reason three or four times, in each instance
>causing a delay of months. Since August 1991 the United States has
>blocked most purchases of materials necessary for Iraq to generate
>electricity, as well as equipment for radio, telephone, and other
>communications. Often restrictions have hinged on the withholding of
>a single essential element, rendering many approved items useless.
>For example, Iraq was allowed to purchase a sewage-treatment plant
>but was blocked from buying the generator necessary to run it; this
>in a country that has been pouring 300,000 tons of raw
>sewage daily into its rivers.

is clear evidence of the author's pathological hostility to Western Values. Good thing we're so civilized, and about to liberate Iraq from its despot.

Doug



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