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Re-building
of Iraq & POWS
by Cherrie Lynn Lipsett First on putting pictures of Prisoners of war, POW, on TV A good idea for the POW in my opinion. First we know for sure they are POW and so do their families. Second: we know what condition they are in at the time which might keep their captors from perpetuating a lot of torture on them. The Bush Administration never even mentioned that these people were missing. The leaders of the U.S. have had a history of not wanting the public to know about POW since Vietnam. Presumably not wanting public opinion to make the Administration negotiate for POW or consider the POW safety when bombing or making subsequent war plans. I have to hand it to the Clinton Administration. When three of our soldiers were taken POW in the Bosnia conflict the Clinton Administration had the pictures put on our TV immediately. And we demanded that the Red Cross get to go and see them immediately. Unlike the Bush Administration which doesn't want it known that we have troops missing much less POW. I am also wondering about the reconstruction of Iraq. This war is supposedly being fought to free the Iraqi people and to lead them to democracy. So it would follow that the first thing after the war would be to institute a President of Iraqi nationality and set up a government of Iraqis just as we did in Afghanistan. After all as Bush himself said the Iraqi people were of high education levels and had a very progress society before S. Hussein lead it into decline. This was never the case in Afghanistan. If the Afghanistan people could have their own government immediately than surely the more highly educated Iraqi people could have a democratic government of their own people immediately. It seems to me that if Afghanistan with all its war lords and fractions, many more than in Iraq, could govern themselves from the beginning than of course the Iraqis can. There is certainly no need for two years of US military occupation in Iraq if there was no need for this in the far less civilized and educated people of Afghanistan. I think I smell a skunk in the Iraq situation. Iraq has money in the form of oil. Oil royalties for our corporations to steal from the Iraqi people as they did the American Indians in Oklahoma. Also will these corporations going in to get the oil fields operating at peak and who are going to rebuild the bombed buildings of our awesome bombing campaign going to pay taxes on the profits they make in Iraq? All corporations pay taxes on the profits they make in a country to the country. If the Iraqi people had their own government I am sure they would set up laws to see that these corporations pay taxes on their immense profits but under US military rule? I doubt they will pay any taxes on their profits. In fact the Iraqi people will be required to use all their oil royalties paying off these corporations for the rebuilding. Also what style of buildings are going to be built? Will the Iraqi people have any input on this? Will the buildings be in harmony with their life style and culture? I think it is great we have Afghanistan that was liberated just a year ago in the same part of the world and with the same type of people to compare what is done in Iraq to. If there are differences in how democracy is implemented in the two then I think the conquers should definitely have to clarify the reasons. Rebuilding Iraq UN Food Program? by gausscg@yahoo.com I was looking for a way to help with food aid to Iraq that the UN is clamoring for. Here's a site for online donation: http://www.wfp.org/index.asp?section=4 Its the UN's World Food Program by Trevor Batten Re: gausscg's message Personally, I don't see why the US should be allowed to invade countries on spurious grounds and then leave the mess to be cleaned up by others. On the other hand, I wouldn't like to see America clean up the mess either. Perhaps the international community should take over reconstruction -but send the bill to the US and UK. I aallso like the idea of only allowing paid up members to vote in the UN -although I suspect even this has its down side. by cherrie lynn lipsett (cherrie9@intercorp.com) Re: Trevor's post I second this idea. Let the international community take care of the reconstruction and send the bill to the US and UK sounds like the perfect solution. Showing POWs by Trevor Re: Cherrie's post cherrie lynn lipsett wrote: "First on putting pictures of Prisoners of war, POW, on TV A good idea for the POW in my opinion." Public opinion can be a tricky thing -sometimes "good ideas" go horribly wrong. Showing prisoners on TV might possibly make the enemy public feel sorry for them -or it might make the other side even angrier that their soldiers had been used in such ways. Probably with propaganda, just like the use of physical violence, for every strategy there is a counter-strategy. In WWII. the bombing of civilian populations was supposed to discourage people and encourage capitulation -in practice, it seems that it only increassed the hatred for the enemy and increased resistance. Clearly, this is the way many Americans feel about 9-11. However, unfortunately, their anger seems, in many ways, to be playing into the hands of the terrorists. Cherrie wrote: "I am also wondering about the reconstruction of Iraq. This war is supposedly being fought to free the Iraqi people and to lead them to democracy. So it would follow that the first thing after the war would be to institute a President of Iraqi nationality and set up a government of Iraqis just as we did in Afghanistan." This again is a tricky issue. Imagine what would happen if the US had just been invaded and the invader was attempting to set up a new government. How many people do you think would collaborate? What kind of people do you think would collaborate? In any such situation there are probably always people to be found who are prepared to profit from it. People who's beliefs fit in with the interests of the invader -people who might not qualify normally for such a job -people with old scores to settle and who can do that through the new position -greedy people who will exploit any situation for their own benefit -or maybe even people who play a double game by pretending to support the new system while actually feeding information to the opposition. What would those who refused to collaborate think about those who did? Supposing the invader abolished the death penalty, introduced cheap medical aid for everybody and gave income security to those that needed it -how popular would the invader be then? Would the new US government support the invader in other international conflicts? Would the US offer new business opportunities for the invader (as they rebuild the country)? Producing bombs is presumably good for business -and then afterwards there are a lot of opportunities for business by re-supplying and re-building the bombed country. but do we really wish to do a rerun of WWII (complete with the reconstruction of Europe and the collapse of the soviet union)? Isn't this a high price to pay for a nostalgia for colonial economics? As the dot.com boom turns to bust -is "nation building" to be the basis for the next wave of economic expansion (and collapse)? If so, is America the only country allowed to play -or can anybody join in? Cherrie wrote: "I think it is great we have Afghanistan that was liberated just a year ago in the same part of the world and with the same type of people to compare what is done in Iraq to. If there are differences in how democracy is implemented in the two then I think the conquers should definitely have to clarify the reasons." I'm afraid I cannot agree with you that the invasion of Afghanistan was a just business. Kosovo, was perhaps arguable because of a humanitarian crisis -but I don't see how Afghanistan was legallly justifiable. The international community seems to have permitted it because it disliked the Taliban and was sympathetic to America after Sept. 11 -but that does not make it good. If the international community had been honest then and opposed the invasion of Afghanistan (or reacted to the human rights issue even earlier in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo) then perhaps we would not be in the mess we are in now. Regimes that mistreat their citizens should be prosecuted via the international legal system. If that is not capable of doing so then it should be improved (as happened by the introduction of tribunals for ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the new International Criminal Court. Saddam should also have been indicted through such a system (if people were genuinely concerned about his repressive regime). Legal methods might have been a bit slower -but they would not have created the dangeerous political schisms that are now being created. Unfortunately, one can suspect that these schisms are being deliberately encouraged, in order to justify even more military takeovers. It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I believe that one should be extremely wary of doing bad things for good reasons. In my view, one should not make burglary legal just because a burglar breaks into somebody's house and accidentally discovers a sick person whose life they subsequently save by calling an ambulance. Some people grab power by illegal means, others manipulate the good will of others -and some do both. I'm sure that most "evil" people have a "moral" justification for themselves and their supporters. Rebuilding Iraq by Trevor Batten re: Cherrie's post cherrie lynn lipsett <cherrie9@intercorp.com> wrote: "Thoughts on POW's and the rebuilding of Iraq. First on putting pictures of Prisoners of war, POW, on TV A good idea for the POW in my opinion. First we know for sure they are POW and so do their families." Last night (Thursday 27 March) on BBC (domestic) TV a family who had seen a relative paraded as POW on Iraqi TV publicly stated that they were encouraged by his appearance. Not only did it prove that he was alive -they also believed that the public admission that he had been captured gave some hope regarding his continued survival. Assuming that this was not just another propaganda stunt from the British government (demonstrating that families were not demoralized by the Iraqi transmissions) then it would seem that official outrage regarding POWs on TV is just another example of politicians misappropriating citizens feelings -manipulating them for their own dubious puuurposes. From personal and media reports, I have the idea that national politicians to justify the unjustifiable have also abused New Yorkers' grief concerning 09-11. Bush won't pay for food sent to Iraq by Sophia Barkat The Oil for Food Program was a UN sanction on Iraq. It allowed Iraq to buy food in exchange for oil sold at dirt-cheap prices. It was a criminal program even then and Bush just called for the UN to reinstate it. I have a feeling it will be. It is ridiculous to enforce/impose sanctions on Iraq right now. They are under attack. American Library Association says Iraqi Library destroyed by War - by Sophia Barkat Is it a lie if the Press asks you how much reconstruction is needed in Iraq and if you reply, "not much"? Well, Rumsfeld might have left out information on bombed libraries, in a recent Press Conference, but not everyone has. Here's the press release from the American Libraries Association: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/ContentManagement/Content\ Display.cfm&ContentID=28049 |
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