Opinion Editorials, October 2007
|
|
The West Must Not Forget What it Did to Iraq
By Jan Oberg
ccun.org, October 20, 2007
The sanctions against Iraq, the most cruel in human history, preceded the invasion and present occupation. At least 1 million innocent Iraqis were killed by the sanctions.
The US and its allies insisted on keeping them in place years after everybody knew that Saddam had been disarmed by the UN inspectors and could not threaten anyone. Those were the days of the Clinton Administration - including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore and Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright.
This sanctions crime - like the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Okinawa, Congo and Rwanda - the list could be longer - must never be forgotten. For they must never be repeated.
Please see this video by John Pilger who is among the five finest of his profession.
Begin to talk about our crimes too and not only Saddam's. Please ask yourself whether we will ever win the Iraqi hearts and minds if we do not pull out all the troops, ask their forgiveness and reconciliation and begin a completely new policy of of respect and partnership.
If at all there is a road to freedom and democracy anymore for the Iraqi people - among the most victimised in history - it starts the day all foreign troops have been withdrawn.
Sanctions is a conveniently closed chapter in Western minds, media and policy circles. But it all started with the killing of the first million Iraqis by one of the most terrible Weapons of Mass Destruction: Sanctions. Pilger's video says it all: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15385.htm
When you have watched it, please use TFF's resources. We have constantly pointed out that the war on Iraq would become a predictable fiasco. In contrast to many others, we said it before the war started - here:
http://www.transnational.org/Area_MiddleEast/MiddleEast_2002-2005.html
We continue to work against the human folly - and deliberate mass murder - that war is, the war on Iraq more than most: http://www.transnational.org/Area_Index_MiddleEast.htm
The authoritative study on the sanctions is written by TFF Board member Hans von Sponeck http://www.transnational.org/SAJT/tff/people/hc_vonsponeck.html - who for very special reasons, as you see, know Iraq from the inside.
More about his book here: http://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind-War-Sanction-Regime/dp/
1845452224/sr=1-1/qid=1159474346/ref=sr
_1_1/102-4719541-3542511?ie=UTF8&s=books
Finally - and completely ignored by the "old" media outside the Internet - TFF's comprehensive plan for peace in and with Iraq. http://www.transnational.org/Area_MiddleEast/2007/TFF_Iraq_Peace_Plan.html
The only other peace plan that tries to ask: What would the Iraqis need in the future - is US Democractic Peace Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's (also ignored by the media, at least outside the US). Both have been called "unrealistic"...
If war looked so realistic and wise to so many, should we then be proud that our plan is called "unrealistic"? No - for the issue here is not realism, it is ethics and empathy. And it is even if that is unrealistic in foreign policy and will be ignored by MIMAC - the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex.
See the fate of those who pay the - "realistic" - price of MIMAC's operations in John Pilger's heartbreaking video from 7 years ago. There is no excuse for not knowing now - and remembering our crimes!
"Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died?"
Bob Dylan, May 1963
With best wishes for a kinder world,
Jan Oberg
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
||||||
