>From: "Seth Ackerman" <sethia at speakeasy.net>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] 'shillin' with Al Franken Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004
>19:32:48 -0500
>
>From: "Luke Weiger" <lweiger at umich.edu>
>
> > 1) The planners of the raid thought it was a plant for manufacturing
> > weapons; not medicine. The intelligence, as we now know, was completely
> > wrong. I don't think anyone has argued that the Clinton team
>intentionally
> > bombed what they knew to be a pharmaceutical plant; if that was the
>case,
>of
> > course they should be doing time.
> >
> > 2) The bombing raid was planned in such a way that the total of
>civilians
> > killed by the bombing itself was minimized (I believe only one person
>was
> > killed in the raid).
> >
> > 3) I think the US should've rebuilt the factory, though we have very
>little
> > idea just how "severe" the consequences were for the Sudanese people.
>The
> > data is ambivalent at best, and Chomsky's assertion that the death toll
>was
> > substantially greater than 911 was not properly supported.
>
>Luke, stop a minute and think about the ludicrous assumptions embedded in
>your defense of the bombing. The Clinton admin just decided on its own to
>bomb a country when there was no imminent danger of an attack, without any
>international sanction or even an attempt at a diplomatic "solution." If
>they really did think it was a chemical weapons factory, that almost makes
>it *more* scandalous. It's as if one day I drove by your house and sprayed
>machine-gun fire through the window because I "honestly believed" you were
>somehow involved in a threat against my family. No attempt to call the
>police or anything similar. Then when it turns out you had nothing to do
>with the threat against me, I respond indignantly: Sure I made a mistake;
>I'll offer to pay for the damage. But it's not like I did anything
>criminal.
>I deliberately timed the shooting in the midde of the day when I knew you'd
>be out. I only killed one housekeeper. And I really, truly believed you
>were
>threatening me. What else was I supposed to do?
>
>If the US thought it was a bin Laden chemical-weapons factory, it could
>have
>called an emergency session of the Security Council, presented the
>intelligence and demanded a resolution requiring Sudan to let inspectors
>into the factory. (Apparently the dictator of Sudan had privately offered
>years before to let American anti-terror people come in to the country and
>look anywhere they wanted.) If Sudan refused -- unlikely for obvious
>reasons -- we could have gotten a resolution authorizing us to bomb the
>factory. That's the way EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD would have done
>it.
>Otherwise there would be hell to pay. I could just imagine your reaction if
>Syria bombed an Israeli chemical-weapons factory: Well, as long as they pay
>the damages it's okay.
>
>As for the issue of how many people died, it's not relevant to the main
>argument. But for what it's worth, here's what the then-German ambassador
>in
>Sudan (now a fellow at Harvard of some kind) has written:
>
>[It is difficult to assess how many people in this poor African country
>died
>as a consequence of the destruction of this factory, but several tens of
>thousands
>seems to be a reasonable guss. The factory produced some of the basic
>medications of the WHO list, holding 20 to 60 percent of Sudan's market and
>100% for intravenous liquids. It took over three months until imports could
>be
>substituted for these products. It was of course the poor and the
>vulnerable
>who
>died, not the rich.]
>
>Dude, if this is your idea of a 'democratic socialist' foreign policy,
>count
>me out.
>
>Seth
>
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