Howard Kveck said:In article <[email hidden]>,
Gunner said:Yup. When Bush's high crimes and misdemeaners rise to that of
Clinton..the Right will be [censored].
Hmm, "Clinton's high crimes and misdemeanors" - you are aware that the House held
a lame duck session in December to impeach him, and that the (GOP controlled) Senate
acquitted him? Secondly, you must be joking to consider that lying about an
adulterous affair is worse than breaking the law (FISA) to spy on US citizens, or
breaking long-standing treaties (the Geneva Conventions), or any of the things that
President Cheney gets up to (i.e. claiming to be part of neither the executive or the
legislative branches and being exempt from any and all oversight). Those being just
the tip of the iceberg, of course.
Somehow you seem to be missing Carnivore and Echelon and this list
http://prorev.com/legacy.htm
Then there are the at minimum..5 victims of this serial rapist you so
ardently defend.....
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n7_v14/ai_20301298
And this...
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/crime2.html
Quoted message said:
Quoted message said:In fact..the Right is already
[censored] about Bush. Has been since we elected that moderate SOB. A
whole bunch of conservatives have been complaining about Bush since he
accomplished exactly what he promised when he ran for office. But
considering there were no other viable choices....we got what we voted
for. Least its not still called the Whitehouse, rather than Kremlin West
as it would be if any of the Dems had won.
Ah, the old "conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed" argument. Very
nice. It's rather laughable to think that Bush is considered a "moderate" - if one
looks at the things his admin. has gotten up to, he is nothing less than a radical.
And his *is* the worst administration this country has ever seen.
Snicker..compared to a Marxist...Bush is a "radical" but to
conservatives, Bush is a moderate. So Comrade...your claim is noted and
laughed at.
The Clinton Legacy
The Progressive Review
This list was compiled at the end of the Clinton administration.
Our Clinton Scandal Index
RECORDS SET
- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal
malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and
associates*
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal
investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to
testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign
contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from
abroad
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a
state court
* According to our best information, 40 government officials
were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes
that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14
because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban
Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the
Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of
these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in
addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were
imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones
was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering
the White House.
Using a far looser standard that included resignations,
David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138
appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical
cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the
same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through
History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138
administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had
been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct
and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved,
the record of his administration was the worst ever."
STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty
pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two
Clinton business partners): 14
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal
investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal
investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal:
3
CRIME STATS
- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the
Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes:
47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency:
33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the
Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case
of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122
SMALTZ INVESTIGATION
- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in
cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture
Secretary Mike Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6
million
CLINTON MACHINE CRIMES
FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS
HAVE BEEN OBTAINED
Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery (4),
tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5),
fraudulent loans, illegal gifts (1), illegal campaign contributions (5),
money laundering (6), perjury, obstruction of justice.
OTHER MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS
AND CONGRESS, OR REPORTED IN THE MEDIA
Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws,
illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive
technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of
perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted
intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees,
lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials,
flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members,
real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate
drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for
personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors,
using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug
money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and
others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI
director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his
associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing
jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, improper
acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, improper futures trading, murder,
sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge,
shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed
documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White
House employees, inviting drug traffickers, foreign agents and
participants in organized crime to the White House.
ARKANSAS ALTZHEIMER'S
Number of times that Clinton figures who testified in court
or before Congress said that they didn't remember, didn't know, or
something similar.
Bill Kennedy 116
Harold Ickes 148
Ricki Seidman 160
Bruce Lindsey 161
Bill Burton 191
Mark Gearan 221
Mack McLarty 233
Neil Egglseston 250
Hillary Clinton 250
John Podesta 264
Jennifer O'Connor 343
Dwight Holton 348
Patsy Thomasson 420
Jeff Eller 697
FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES: In the portions of President
Clinton's Jan. 17 deposition that have been made public in the Paula
Jones case, his memory failed him 267 times. This is a list of his
answers and how many times he gave each one.
I don't remember - 71
I don't know - 62
I'm not sure - 17
I have no idea - 10
I don't believe so - 9
I don't recall - 8
I don't think so - 8
I don't have any specific recollection - 6
I have no recollection - 4
Not to my knowledge - 4
I just don't remember - 4
I don't believe - 4
I have no specific recollection - 3
I might have - 3
I don't have any recollection of that - 2 I don't have a
specific memory - 2
I don't have any memory of that - 2
I just can't say - 2
I have no direct knowledge of that - 2
I don't have any idea - 2
Not that I recall - 2
I don't believe I did - 2
I can't remember - 2
I can't say - 2
I do not remember doing so - 2
Not that I remember - 2
I'm not aware - 1
I honestly don't know - 1
I don't believe that I did - 1
I'm fairly sure - 1
I have no other recollection - 1
I'm not positive - 1
I certainly don't think so - 1
I don't really remember - 1
I would have no way of remembering that - 1
That's what I believe happened - 1
To my knowledge, no - 1
To the best of my knowledge - 1
To the best of my memory - 1
I honestly don't recall - 1
I honestly don't remember - 1
That's all I know - 1
I don't have an independent recollection of that - 1
I don't actually have an independent memory of that - 1
As far as I know - 1
I don't believe I ever did that - 1
That's all I know about that - 1
I'm just not sure - 1
Nothing that I remember - 1
I simply don't know - 1
I would have no idea - 1
I don't know anything about that - 1
I don't have any direct knowledge of that - 1
I just don't know - 1
I really don't know - 1
I can't deny that, I just -- I have no memory of that at all
- 1
THE CLINTON LEGACY:
LONELY HONOR
Here are some of the all too rare public officials,
reporters, and others who spoke truth to the dismally corrupt power of
Bill and Hill Clinton's political machine -- some at risk to their
careers, others at risk to their lives. A few points to note:
- Those corporatist media reporters who attempted to report
the story often found themselves muzzled; some even lost their jobs. The
only major dailies that consistently handled the story well were the
Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.
- Nobody on this list has gotten rich and many you may not
have even heard of. Taking on the Clintons typically has not been a
happy or rewarding experience. At least ten reporters have been fired,
transferred off their beats, resigned, or otherwise gotten into trouble
because of their work on the scandals. Whistleblowing is even less
appreciated within the government. One study of whistleblowers found
that 232 out of 233 them reported suffering retaliation; another study
found reprisals in about 95% of cases.
- Contrary to the popular impression, the politics of those
listed ranges from the left to the right, and from the ideological to
the independent.
PUBLIC OFFICIALS
MIGUEL RODRIGUEZ was a prosecutor on the staff of Kenneth
Starr. His attempts to uncover the truth in the Vincent Foster death
case were repeatedly foiled and he was the subject of planted stories
undermining his credibility and implying that he was unstable. Rodriguez
eventually resigned.
JEAN DUFFEY: Head of a joint federal-county drug task force
in Arkansas. Her first instructions from her boss: "Jean, you are not to
use the drug task force to investigate any public official." Duffey's
work, however, led deep into the heart of the Dixie Mafia, including
members of the Clinton machine and the investigation of the so-called
"train deaths." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports that when she produced a
star witness who could testify to Clinton's involvement with cocaine,
the local prosecuting attorney, Dan Harmon issued a subpoena for all the
task force records, including "the incriminating files on his own
activities. If Duffey had complied it would have exposed 30 witnesses
and her confidential informants to violent retributions. She refused."
Harmon issued a warrant for her arrest and friendly cops told her that
there was a $50,000 price on her head. She eventually fled to Texas. The
once-untouchable Harmon was later convicted of racketeering, extortion
and drug dealing.
BILL DUNCAN: An IRS investigator in Arkansas who drafted
some 30 federal indictments of Arkansas figures on money laundering and
other charges. Clinton biographer Roger Morris quotes a source who
reviewed the evidence: "Those indictments were a real slam dunk if there
ever was one." The cases were suppressed, many in the name of "national
security." Duncan was never called to testify. Other IRS agents and
state police disavowed Duncan and turned on him. Said one source,
"Somebody outside ordered it shut down and the walls went up."
RUSSELL WELCH: An Arkansas state police detective working
with Duncan. Welch developed a 35-volume, 3,000 page archive on drug and
money laundering operations at Mena. His investigation was so
compromised that a high state police official even let one of the
targets of the probe look through the file. At one point, Welch was
sprayed in the face with poison, later identified by the Center for
Disease Control as anthrax. He would write in his diary, "I feel like I
live in Russia, waiting for the secret police to pounce down. A
government has gotten out of control. Men find themselves in positions
of power and suddenly crimes become legal." Welch is no longer with the
state police.
DAN SMALTZ: Smaltz did an outstanding job investigating and
prosecuting charges involving illegal payoffs to Agriculture Secretary
Mike Espy, yet was treated with disparaging and highly inaccurate
reporting by the likes of the David Broder and the NY Times. Espy was
acquitted under a law that made it necessary to not only prove that he
accepted gratuities but that he did something specific in return. On the
other hand, Tyson Foods copped a plea in the same case, paying $6
million in fines and serving four years' probation. The charge: that
Tyson had illegally offered Espy $12,000 in airplane rides, football
tickets and other payoffs. In the Espy investigation, Smaltz obtained 15
convictions and collected over $11 million in fines and civil penalties.
Offenses for which convictions were obtained included false statements,
concealing money from prohibited sources, illegal gratuities, illegal
contributions, falsifying records, interstate transportation of stolen
property, money laundering, and illegal receipt of USDA subsidies.
Incidentally, Janet Reno blocked Smaltz from pursuing leads aimed at
allegations of major drug trafficking in Arkansas and payoffs to the
then governor of the state, WJ Clinton. Espy had become Ag secretary
only after being flown to Arkansas to get the approval of chicken king
Don Tyson.
DAVID SCHIPPERS was House impeachment counsel and a Chicago
Democrat. He did a highly creditable job but since he didn't fit the
right-wing conspiracy theory, the Clintonista media downplayed his work.
Thus most Americans don't know that he told NewsMax, "Let me tell you,
if we had a chance to put on a case, I would have put live witnesses
before the committee. But the House leadership, and I'm not talking
about Henry Hyde, they just killed us as far as time was concerned. I
begged them to let me take it into this year. Then I screamed for
witnesses before the Senate. But there was nothing anybody could do to
get those Senators to show any courage. They told us essentially, you're
not going to get 67 votes so why are you wasting our time." Schippers
also said that while a number of representatives looked at additional
evidence kept under seal in a nearby House building, not a single
senator did.
JOHN CLARKE: When Patrick Knowlton stopped to relieve
himself in Ft. Marcy Park 70 minutes before the discovery of Vince
Foster's body, he saw things that got him into deep trouble. His
interview statements were falsified and prior to testifying he claims he
was overtly harassed by more than a score of men in a classic witness
intimidation technique. In some cases there were witnesses. John Clarke
has been his dogged lawyer in the witness intimidation case that has
been largely ignored by the media, even when the three-judge panel
overseeing the Starr investigation permitted Knowlton to append a 20
page addendum to the Starr Report.
OTHER
THE ARKANSAS COMMITTEE: What would later be known as the
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy actually began on the left - as a group of
progressive students at the University of Arkansas had formed the
Arkansas Committee to look into Mena, drugs, money laundering, and
Arkansas politics. This committee was the source of some of the
important early Clinton stories including those published in the
Progressive Review.
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SCANDALS E-LIST: Moderated by Ray
Heizer, this list has been subject to all the idiosyncrasies of Internet
bulletin boards, but it has nonetheless proved invaluable to researchers
and journalists.
JOURNALISTS
JERRY SEPER of the Washington Times was far and away the
best beat reporter of the story, handling it week after week in the best
tradition of investigative journalism. If other reporters had followed
Seper's lead, the history of the Clintons' machine might have been quite
different.
AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD of the London Telegraph did a
remarkable job of digging into some of the seamiest tales from Arkansas
and the Clinton past. Other early arrivals on the scene were Alexander
Cockburn and Jeff Gerth.
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, among other fine reports on the Clinton
scandals, did the best job laying out the facts in the Vince Foster
death case.
ROGER MORRIS AND SALLY DENTON wrote a major expose of events
at Mena, but at the last moment the Washington Post's brass ordered the
story killed. It was published by Penthouse and later included in
Morris' "Partners in Power," the best biography of the Clintons.
OTHERS who helped get parts of the story out included
reporters Philip Weiss, Carl Limbacher, Wes Phelan, David Bresnahan,
William Sammon, Liza Myers, Mara Leveritt, Matt Drudge, Jim Ridgeway,
Nat Hentoff, Michael Isikoff, Christopher Hitchens, and Michael Kelly.
Also independent investigator Hugh Sprunt and former White House FBI
agent Gary Aldrich.
SAM SMITH of the Progressive Review wrote the first book
(Shadows of Hope, University of Indiana Press, 1994) deconstructing the
Clinton myth and the Review developed a major database on the topic.
The Clintons, to adapt a line from Dr. Johnson, were not
only corrupt, they were the cause of corruption in others. Seldom in
America have so many come to excuse so much mendacity and malfeasance as
during the Clinton years.
THE CLINTON LEGACY
The Hidden Election
USA Today calls it "the hidden election," in which nearly
7,000 state legislative seats are decided with only minimal media and
public attention. The paper took brief notice because this is the year
the state legislatures perform their most important national function:
drawing revised congressional districts based on the most recent census.
But there's another important national story here: further
evidence of the disaster that Bill Clinton has been for the Democratic
Party. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures,
Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of last
November that lead had shrunk to 288. That's a loss of over 1,200 state
legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the
Democrats control only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.
Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state
legislatures than the Republicans. After November, the Republicans
control one more than the Democrats. Not only is this a loss of 9
legislatures under Clinton, but it is the first time since 1954 that the
GOP has controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied
in 1968).
Here's what happened to the Democrats under Clinton, based
on our latest figures:
- GOP seats gained in House since Clinton became president:
48
- GOP seats gained in Senate since Clinton became president:
8
- GOP governorships gained since Clinton became president:
11
- GOP state legislative seats gained since Clinton became
president: 1,254
as of 1998
- State legislatures taken over by GOP since Clinton became
president: 9
- Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans since
Clinton became
president: 439 as of 1998
- Republican officeholders who have become Democrats since
Clinton became president: 3
NATIONAL CONF OF STATE LEGISLATURES
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legman/elect/hstptyct.htm
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legman/elect/demshare2000.htm
And lets not forget his war crimes.....
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/ClintonWarCriminal_Herman.html
and this.....
Clinton’s Worst Crimes
By David L. Harten January 26, 2001
President Clinton was impeached for the wrong crimes. Unlike most
Republicans, I never thought Clinton should have been impeached for his
affair with Monica Lewinsky. Yes, it was immoral, but as my wife likes
to say, Americans elected him to be President, not Pope.
At the beginning of the impeachment drive, I agreed with those who
argued, "Nobody died because of Clinton’s extramarital affair." Surely,
I thought, other Presidents had done much worse actions that had cost
people’s lives. However, Clinton’s later acts to distract Americans from
his extramarital affair were truly criminal and impeachable, causing
thousands, of deaths. I agree with the essay "The Blood on Bill
Clinton's Hands," except for one major shortcoming: OSC left out the
most serious, and most blatant, of Clinton's war crimes.
The people of Serbia, Kosovo, the Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are
not the only or most obvious victims of Clinton's affair with Monica
Lewinsky. The day before the House impeachment vote, Clinton bombed
Iraq, delaying the impeachment vote. He continued the bombing throughout
all the days of the impeachment vote. Only an hour or two after the
House impeachment vote ended, Clinton ended the bombing, saying, "We
have achieved our objectives." Of course, because the objective was to
delay and distract from the impeachment vote! In all other respects, the
bombing hurt U.S. and international interests.
Clinton gave several excuses for bombing Iraq on the eve of the
impeachment vote, especially the (bogus, but unquestioned) claim that
Iraq had stopped cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors. In reality, Iraq’s
cooperation with UNSCOM inspectors had actually been increasing, despite
U.S. attempts to provoke a confrontation. However, knowing the
impeachment schedule, Clinton had directed UNSCOM chief Richard Butler
to write a report that Iraq was not cooperating. Even Scott Ritter, the
former chief UNSCOM weapons inspector who quit because he thought the
weapons inspectors were not tough enough, said that the White House had
been on the phone with UNSCOM "shaping" the report to make sure it would
justify bombing Iraq during the impeachment trial.
Clinton actually used the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as an excuse for
the timing of the bombing. This may have fooled the American media, but
didn't fool Muslims, as Clinton continued the bombing even after Ramadan
had started (but halted the bombing as soon as the impeachment vote
ended).
Sure, Clinton said he had unanimous agreement from his national security
advisers to bomb Iraq. So what? No matter what day he asked his national
security advisers, they would always agree to bomb Iraq, so why ask on
that particular day, a day before the impeachment vote?
Fact: the UNSCOM inspectors were not kicked out of Iraq in December 1998
by Saddam -- President Clinton had UNSCOM chief Richard Butler pull out
the UN inspectors so he could bomb. United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan was understandably angry that Clinton ordered out not just
the U.S. inspectors, but all United Nations inspectors (which he had no
authority to do).
Fact: ever since Bill Clinton ordered the UNSCOM inspectors out of Iraq
so he could bomb (the day before the impeachment vote), there have been
no UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. So when Clinton said (as soon as the
impeachment vote ended), "We have achieved our objectives," was one of
those objectives to permanently remove weapons inspectors from Iraq?
Fact: days before the UNSCOM report came out, Clinton was in Israel,
already telling Prime Minister Netanyahu that he was expecting a
negative UNSCOM report, and that he would soon be bombing Iraq. Clinton
knew the contents ahead of time because he was "shaping" that report.
Fact: because of Clinton's December 1998 bombing, Iraq began challenging
the U.S. and British "no-fly zones," which they had not been doing
before. The risk to U.S. pilots is negligible (no U.S. plane has ever
been hit), but it has given the U.S. and Britain an excuse for nearly
daily bombing of Iraq (not just radar sites, but cities, towns,
shepherd's camps, etc.). Since December 1998, this illegal bombing has
killed about two hundred Iraqis, including shepherds with their flocks,
families in their houses, and small children, and injured many more. It
helps to put faces on the victims. I saw a photo of a cute, smiling
little girl named Isra, from the Abu-Khasib neighborhood of Basra, who
lost her right arm when a U.S. IGM-130 missile hit her neighborhood at
10:10 AM, January 25, 1999 (for a picture of her, see
http://www.vitw.org/airwar.html). This ongoing bombing would not be
happening except for Clinton’s attempt to distract from the impeachment
vote.
Maybe Americans don't care about the hundreds of Iraqis Clinton killed
during the impeachment trial bombings of Iraq, and the scores of Iraqi
civilians (and sheep) killed during the almost daily bombings of Iraq in
the two years since then. Most Americans, incredibly enough, don't even
know we're still at war, that we've been bombing Iraq every other day
for the last two years!
Okay, for the sake of argument, say we can forgive Clinton for killing a
few hundred or thousand Iraqis with bombs.
Bombs are merciful compared to what Clinton has done to the innocent
children of Iraq, the most vulnerable of all, by maintaining ten years
of the harshest sanctions in the history of mankind, begun on August 6,
1990, and kept in place at the insistence of the United States. On May
12, 1996, television’s "Sixty Minutes" interviewed Madeleine Albright
(then U.S. ambassador to the UN, now Secretary of State). Leslie Stahl
asked Albright, "We have heard half a million children have died [from
economic sanctions in Iraq]. That's more children than died in
Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?"
Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice. But the price, we
think, is worth it."
I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for Madeleine
Albright.
Yes, even four and a half years ago, 500,000 Iraqi children had already
died as a direct result of economic sanctions. Over one million Iraqi
civilians have died from the sanctions, mostly children under age five.
Those are not Iraqi figures -- those figures come from Unicef, the World
Health Organization, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
the UN’s Department of Humanitarian Affairs, and other international
sources. The "oil-for-food" program is so ineffectual that two
consecutive UN directors of that program (Denis Haliday and Hans Von
Sponeck) resigned, out of protest that they were presiding over a
humanitarian disaster which can only be called genocide. They were UN
Assistant Secretaries General, the highest ranking UN personnel ever to
resign for reasons of conscience. Now Denis Haliday and Hans Von Sponeck
are touring America and other countries, pleading for an end to the
sanctions on Iraq.
Embargoes during peacetime are tough enough, but after a devastating
war, they are disastrous. During the Gulf War, U.S. forces deliberately
targeted Iraqi water treatment plants, dams, and electric generating
facilities (in violation of the Geneva Convention), later admitting they
did it in order to cause disease (which was biological warfare by the
United States). Iraq has not been allowed to rebuild its water treatment
plants since then. Chlorine, and water chlorinators, are prohibited
under sanctions. Disease is at epidemic levels, especially among babies
and children under five. Nobel Peace prize winners have visited Iraq and
described the sanctions as genocide. Iraqi children are dying from
starvation, malnutrition, tainted water, lack of basic medicines, and
diseases that were once rare but now epidemic.
Iraqis are also suffering horrible birth defects and cancers caused by
the 350 tons of depleted uranium (DU) fired into Iraq by U.S. forces
during the 1991 Gulf War. DU, used for armor-piercing shells, becomes on
impact an dust that drifts on the desert winds until inhaled. DU is not
only toxic, but has a radioactive half-life in the billions of years.
U.S. sanctions law is so tough that even shipping food or medicine to
Iraq is punishable by a one million dollar fine and 12 years in prison.
I have personally tried to send baby formula, but the U.S. post office
refuses, due to sanctions. Many items are specifically banned (pencils,
books including medical textbooks, chlorine, etc.), while all other
items are prohibited without a U.S. Treasury Department license that is
almost impossible to obtain.
Fifty-five years ago, people asked, "Where were the good Germans? Why
didn't they act to prevent the Holocaust?" History will judge America
the same way over the current genocide against Iraqi civilians, the
genocide by sanctions. My conscience cannot let me keep silent about
this. People are people, and children are children. Even if one hates
Muslims (which is hardly a Christian attitude), one million Christians
also live in Iraq.
Most major religious groups have condemned the sanctions, including
Baptists, Catholics, Churches of Christ, Episcopalians, Lutherans,
Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Unitarians, the National
Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, etc. Leaders of 24
Christian denominations, including those mentioned above, signed a
September 27, 1999 letter to President Clinton urging him to end the
economic sanctions on Iraq.* Conspicuously absent from the list,
unfortunately, is the church that OSC and I belong to, the Mormons (my
branch president told me the issue is too political -- as if genocide
isn't always political).
Contrary to Clinton Administration propaganda, the small amount of food
and medicines that are allowed into Iraq under the "oil-for-food"
program (UN Res. 986) are distributed extremely efficiently by the Iraqi
government. The U.S. constantly places long holds on shipments of food
and medicine, or refusing to allow shipment of essential items
altogether. Food and medicines spoil because of lack of refrigeration,
or rot in warehouses because the forklifts and trucks to transport them
are banned by sanctions. An American who visited an Iraqi hospital that
lacked basic medicines and equipment due to sanctions said, "I know what
this place is now. It's a death row for children." The doctors try their
best, but there is little they can do without medicine, equipment,
electricity, or even medical textbooks.
Those who agree with sanctions on Iraq act as if only one person lives
there, Saddam Hussein. Yes, Saddam is a cruel dictator who does not
allow freedom of speech and has executed hundreds of his political
opponents, but that number pales compared to the million or more the
Clinton administration has killed through sanctions. Admittedly, Saddam
is a brutal and cruel dictator (although he was just as brutal and cruel
when the U.S. was arming him and supporting him, under Reagan and Bush,
while he gassed his people with U.S. support). But if he is as brutal a
dictator as everyone agrees, does it make any sense to starve his people
to try to influence him? If (as the Clinton Administration says) Saddam
does not care about his people, how will our starving them influence
him?
When I spoke about Iraq in my church, tears came to my eyes telling of
the father who had to hold his young daughter while her leg was sawed
off without anesthesia, because of sanctions. Thinking of my own young
son, I also cried describing the mother who, unable to sufficiently
breastfeed her baby due to her own malnourishment (the meager food
ration under sanctions has no fruits, vegetables, meat, or dairy), gave
him sugar water, but the water was polluted. The baby developed
diarrhea, and for lack of a five dollar medicine, he died. I know my own
young son and unborn baby could never survive in Iraq under UN
sanctions, which have been kept in place for over ten years at the
insistence of the U.S. We are killing an entire generation, body and
soul, destroying a civilization.
Saddam is not the only person who lives in Iraq, any more than Clinton
is the only person in America! Over one million innocent Iraqis, mostly
children under five, have died miserable deaths simply because Clinton
and Albright refuse to admit that sanctions are a mistake, especially
sanctions applied after a country's infrastructure has been destroyed
through the most destructive bombing in history.
"What about weapons of mass destruction?" some may ask. Ex-weapons
inspector Scott Ritter wrote in the Boston Globe (3/9/00) that, "...from
a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed... The
chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs
that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered
harmless." The true weapons of mass destruction are the sanctions
themselves. It is ironic that sanctions began on August 6, 1990, the
45th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, because it would be
more humane for the U.S. to drop a Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb on Iraq
every year than to continue the sanctions. In fact, as an article in the
May/June 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs shows, the sanctions against Iraq
have killed more people than all "weapons of mass destruction" in
history, combined! The same UN resolution used to justify sanctions on
Iraq also declared the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. Israel is in
blatant violation of that same resolution, yet we do not starve the
Israeli people to coerce their leader (nor should we).
There is no doubt that sanctions actually strengthen Saddam Hussein
politically. Sanctions strengthen Saddam's grip on Iraq and weaken all
opposition, as the struggle to survive, to keep one's children alive,
supercedes all thought of rebellion. Sanctions also cause
anti-Americanism, as the Arab world knows what we are doing to Iraq,
killing over a million innocent people to get revenge on their leader.
The United States used international law to justify the 1991 Gulf War.
However, the U.S. and British "no-fly zones" and the continuing bombing
of Iraq violate international law. The sanctions themselves violate
international law as enshrined in the Genocide Convention (Article II,
"…deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring its physical destruction, in whole or in part"😉, the Geneva
Conventions (Geneva Protocol 1, Article 54 outlaws "starvation of
civilians as a method of warfare"😉, the World Declaration on Nutrition
("food must not be used as a tool for political pressure"😉, and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Unfortunately, the incoming Bush administration plans to continue the
Clinton administration’s genocidal Iraq policy. Both George W. Bush and
his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, have said they think the sanctions
should actually be tightened.
I knew I had to speak out against sanctions when I read about Bert
Sacks, an American Jew. Sacks was returning from a trip to deliver
medicine to Iraqis (in violation of U.S. law), when he took a side trip
to visit Auschwitz, a place of special importance to him as a Jew. More
than one million Jews died at Auschwitz, comparable to the number of
Iraqi civilians killed by sanctions. Sacks calls the sanctions an
Auschwitz in progress. Like Sacks, I do not want to emulate the "good
Germans," who stayed silent during the Holocaust.
In the name of Jesus Christ, who died for all of us, we must not keep
silent about the innocent children suffering in Iraq. Use your voices to
save some of the children; become "voices in the wilderness," as the
Chicago-based anti-sanctions group is named. In the name of God, speak
out, everyone who reads these words. To remain silent in the face of
genocide committed by one's own government is tantamount to being
complicit, a collaborator. In the U.S., unlike Nazi Germany, we can
speak out against our government without fear of death. It is our duty
to due so, for if we don't, God have mercy on our souls. We cannot wait,
for every day, 150 to 200 more children die from sanctions in Iraq.
Some web sites to visit for more information:
http://saveageneration.org/thecrisis/
http://www.afsc.org/conscience/Default.htm
http://www.vitw.org
*The September 27, 1999 letter to President Clinton urging an end to the
Iraqi embargo was signed by the following religious leaders:
The Right Reverend Craig B. Anderson, President, NCCCUSA
The Reverend George H. Anderson, Presiding Bishop, The Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America
Mathews Mar Barnabas, Metropolitan of the American Diocese of the
Malankara Orthodox Church (India)
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Primate, Diocese of the Armenian Church of
America
John A. Buehrens, President, Unitarian Universalist Association
The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary, The National Council of
the Churches of Christ in the USA
Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, President, National Conference of Catholic
Bishops
Brother Stephen Glodek, SM, President, Catholic Conference of Major
Superiors of Men's Institutes
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary, Reformed Church of
America
The Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop and Primate,
Episcopal Church, USA
William Boyd Grove, Ecumenical Officer, United Methodist Council of
Bishops
Richard L. Hamm, General Minister and President, The Christian Church
Disciples of Christ in the U.S. and Canada
Archbishop Cyril Aphrem Karim, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.)
Dr. Ronald J.R. Mathies, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee
Johan Maurer, General Secretary, Friends United Meeting
Kara Newell, Executive Director, American Friends Service Committee
Metropolitan Philip Saliba, Primate, Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Archdiocese of North America
Paul H. Sherry, President United Church of Christ
Metropolitan Theodosius, Primate, Orthodox Church in America
The Right Reverend Dr. Zacharias Mar Theophilus, Bishop, Mar Thomas
Church
Joe Volk, Executive Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation
Bishop Vsevolod, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of USA
The Rev. Dr. Daniel Weiss, General Secretary, American Baptist Church
Footnote: In answer to a request from Ornery, the author has provided
the following additional information:
You said you wanted proof of the ongoing bombing, so that’s what I’ve
concentrated on here, even though the bombing of Iraq since 1998 has
only killed a few hundred people (Iraq claims 311 civilians killed and
927 wounded by these air attacks, according to Reuters 12/26/00), while
sanctions have killed over a million since 1990, mostly children under
age five. I already had mentioned some sources on sanctions in my
essay, such as the 60 Minutes interview with Madeleine Albright on
5/12/96, the Foreign Affairs article May/June 1999 "Sanctions of Mass
Destruction," and a 3/9/00 Boston Globe article.
As for depleted uranium (DU), I said its half life is in the billions of
years, but to be more exact, it has a half-life of 4.5 billion years
(see Christian Science Monitor 1/11/01 "Bullet Debate: Answers in Iraq?"
and Christian Science Monitor 4/29/99 special report, "The Trail of a
Bullet"😉. When I was a US Army Armor officer, I had a classified
briefing in 1985 on tank munitions including DU, but today’s
unclassified reports have disclosed DU’s dangers, so there is no need to
reveal my classified briefing.
I felt like I was being asked to prove that cigarette smoking causes
cancer, because if the media did their job, what the US is doing to Iraq
should be common knowledge. I’ve been involved with Iraq issues since
the mid 1990s, so it always amazes me how little other Americans know
about Iraq. I have hundreds of pages of material, and there is more in
the news every week (but not on the front page). To quote Tom Jackson
of Voices in the Wilderness, "Anyone who has been watching can tell you
that the bombings happen at least a couple of times per week."
Unfortunately, TV news only seems to cover one international story a
year. Last year if it didn’t involve Elian Gonzalez, it didn’t make the
news, and in 1999, the story was Kosovo. "Perhaps there will also be a
day when journalists realize their deafening silence was a form of
complicity" . Most US newspapers feel that if they do one Iraq story a
year, they’ve covered the issue (an exception is the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, which last week, January 17, 2001, ran seven
articles about Iraq, ).
You wrote, "The main [claim] that I think will concern a lot of people
is the claim that we are bombing Iraq every other day. That seems very
impossible not to be reported in any media." Well, it is reported, but
not prominently. Newspaper articles frequently call the ongoing bombing
of Iraq "The forgotten war."
As of this Tuesday 1/23/01, the US has already bombed Iraq at least
twice in the last four days (Saturday 1/20/01 in the South, killing six
civilians, and Monday 1/22/01 in both the North and South). Both
attacks were reported by the AP and Reuters. Saturday’s was also
reported by the BBC, and by the New York Times on 1/22/01. Unfortunately
smaller papers don’t report these "routine" bombings.
This week’s January 21, 2001 BBC News online article, "It was the
highest death toll in several months of raids," reads in part: "People
in southern Iraq lashed out against the United States and Britain as
they buried six people killed in an Allied air strike the day before.
It is the highest death toll in several months of patrols through air
exclusion zones set up by the US and Britain to protect Iraqi opposition
groups from possible government attacks… Iraq does not recognize the
exclusion zones and says Western air strikes have killed more than 300
civilians in two years… Witnesses said the raids struck a cattle-feed
depot run by the agriculture ministry 120 km south of Samawa, near the
Iraqi-Saudi border. They said six of the employees at the warehouse
were killed and three slightly injured… A US statement said Allied
planes had attacked Iraq's radar systems and anti-aircraft artillery but
made no mention of civilian casualties…The air exclusion zones were set
up to protect Shi'a in the south and Kurds in the north from possible
government attacks, but they are not backed by a UN resolution or
recognized by Iraq. Western warplanes have frequently bombed targets
since Baghdad started resisting the patrols two years ago. Recently a
British newspaper reported that London was rethinking its policy because
of the high number of civilian casualties -- a claim the Foreign Office
denied. The US and Britain accuse Iraq of using civilian areas as a
cover for its anti-aircraft guns. Reports from the area 24 hours after
the attack said no military units were visible."
This week’s January 22, 2001 New York Times article, "Iraq Rebuilt
Weapons Factories, Officials Say" reads in part: "WASHINGTON, Jan. 21
....American and British planes continue to patrol the ‘no-flight’ zones
over northern and southern Iraq. Such patrols are routinely fired upon;
indeed, Iraq launched a surface-to-air missile at one only hours before
Mr. Bush took office on Saturday, prompting American jets to respond by
striking antiaircraft batteries and a radar site. Such strikes help
ratchet up Iraqi anger at the United States; today, the Iraqis said the
American strikes killed six civilians in Samawa, an assertion that
American military officials did not immediately dispute, while noting
that they had not intended to strike civilian targets..." NY Times.
Since December 1998, US and British jets have flown more than as many
combat missions as NATO pilots did during the 78 days of bombing
Yugoslavia, flying 280,000 sorties (Pentagon sources cited in the
Washington Post, June 16, 2000) and dropping over 1,650 bombs on Iraq
(New York Times, Oct. 7, 1999). Without US casualties, news media don’t
think it worth reporting, and over ten years of enforcing the "no-fly
zones," no US or UK plane has ever been hit (yet, hundreds of times
they’ve felt it necessary to drop bombs). The air attacks have killed
300 Iraqis including over 200 civilians. Hundreds of livestock have
also died from the attacks, such as the May 17, 2000 attack on a
shepherd’s camp that killed several hundred sheep as well as 14
civilians including Omran Harbi Jawair, 13. In memory of this boy, the
Remembering Omran Bus Tour has been crossing the United States and
Canada over the last couple months (see FOR’s weekly Iraq Action
Digest).
Bombings of Iraq make wire service reports and some newspapers, but
buried near the last page, as they’ve become routine, and as an NY Times
editor told me about the bombing of Iraq in 1999, once it’s routine,
it’s no longer news. To explain why, here’s a quote from last week’s
1/17/01 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article titled "U.S. planes still
patrol and bullets still fly. It seldom makes the news, but U.S. isn't
done keeping watch in the Gulf," which says, "For three months last
summer, while Tack's squadron VAQ-134 flew missions over northern Iraq
from an Air Force base in Turkey, shooting incidents erupted virtually
every day. Tack's own father was unaware of the active shooting. After
a decade, if no [American] one's hit, it's not news."
The New York Times, 8/13/99 article "U.S. Planes Have Been Striking Iraq
All Year" said, "While the nation's attention has focused on Kosovo,
American warplanes have quietly, methodically and with virtually no
public discussion been attacking Iraq. Over the past eight months,
American and British pilots have fired more than 1,100 missiles against
359 targets. That is more than triple the targets attacked in four
furious days of strikes in December that followed Iraq's expulsion of UN
weapons inspectors, an assault that provoked an international outrage…
By another measure, the pilots have flown some two-thirds as many
missions as NATO pilots flew over Yugoslavia in 78 days of
around-the-clock war there… And there appears to be no end in sight to
the war... Every few days, in almost numbing routine, they have struck
missile sites, radar stations and radio towers across both the northern
and southern zones. Since late July [1999], there has been a new flurry
of strikes in response to newly vigorous Iraqi challenges."
That 8/13/99 New York Times article also supports my statement that all
this violence was caused by Clinton’s December 1998 impeachment trial
bombing of Iraq: "Iraq has never recognized the zones, but rarely
challenged allied patrols of them. After December's raids, however,
Saddam declared the zones a violation of Iraq's sovereignty, and his
troops have made good on threats to challenge them… American and British
warplanes respond when challenged… The Pentagon says the air strikes are
merely defensive responses to the provocations, meant to protect the
pilots. But the targets American and British pilots strike are often not
the ones that directly threaten them…" NY Times.
On June 16, 2000, the Washington Post ran an excellent and unprecedented
front-page story, "Under Iraq Skies, a Canvas of Death."
"TOQ AL-GHAZALAT, Iraq --Suddenly out of a clear blue sky, the forgotten
war being waged by the United States and Britain over Iraq visited its
lethal routine on the shepherds and farmers of Toq al-Ghazalat about
10:30 a.m. on May 17. Omran Harbi Jawair, 13, was squatting on his
haunches at the time, watching the family sheep as they nosed the hard,
flat ground in search of grass.... Omran, who liked to kick a soccer
ball around this dusty village, had just finished fifth grade at the
little school a 15-minute walk from his mud-brick home. A shepherd boy's
summer vacation lay ahead.
"That is when the missile landed.
"Without warning, according to several youths standing nearby, the
device came crashing down in an open field 200 yards from the dozen
houses of Toq al-Ghazalat. A deafening explosion cracked across the
silent land. Shrapnel flew in every direction. Four shepherds were
wounded. And Omran, the others recalled, lay dead in the dirt, most of
his head torn off, the white of his robe stained red.
"’He was only 13 years old, but he was a good boy,’" sobbed Omran's
father, Harbi Jawair, 61.
"What happened four weeks ago at Toq al-Ghazalat, 35 miles southwest of
Najaf in southern Iraq, has become a recurring event in the Iraqi
countryside. A week of conversations with wounded Iraqis and the
families of those killed, around Najaf and in northern Iraq around
Mosul, showed that civilian deaths and injuries are a regular part of
the little-discussed U.S. and British air operation over Iraq.
"Lt. Gen. Yassin Jassem, spokesman for Iraq's air defense command, said
about 300 Iraqis have been killed and more than 800 wounded by U.S. and
British retaliatory attacks in the 18 months since President Saddam
Hussein ordered his antiaircraft batteries to fire on allied warplanes
enforcing ‘no-fly’ zones in northern and southern Iraq. Of those killed,
Jassem said in an interview, ‘well more" than 200 were civilians like
Omran Harbi Juwair, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. "The
Iraqi death toll has been substantiated in part by a UN survey that
examined some incidents independently and accepted Iraqi reports on
others. While not conclusive on the overall toll, interviews and
observations during lengthy drives through the regions where airstrikes
have often been reported backed up the government's contention that
civilian casualties have become routine.
"…The Pentagon says more than 280,000 sorties have been flown in the
near decade since the no-fly zones were imposed, without a single loss
of aircraft to hostile fire…"
"…air attacks have occurred as well in vast, open fields or grazing
grounds--such as in the strike at Toq al-Ghazalat--with no signs of any
military target present or having been present near the sheep and the
boys who tend them in scenes reminiscent of the Bible.
"The mounting toll--averaging one civilian death every other day by
Iraq's count--has prompted France to freeze participation in enforcing
the no-fly zones… civilian casualties began to mount after Operation
Desert Fox in December 1998--a 70-hour U.S. bombing campaign against
targets across Iraq… Iraqi air defenses received orders after that
campaign to fire on U.S. and British patrols, drawing retaliatory
airstrikes… After Iraq's decision to challenge patrols regularly, U.S.
forces were authorized to attack any Iraqi air defense target--even
unconnected to a specific attack, or at a time well after any
challenge--in retaliation for antiaircraft fire, radar illumination or
missile launch…
"’I was thrown to the ground and covered with dirt,’ recalled Ziad
Ibrahim Taha, a 50-year-old shepherd. "Then another blast. It lifted me
right up into the air.’
"Taha was with scores of people on a broad, flat expanse of open land 45
miles west of Mosul just before 10 a.m. on May 12 of last year. As he
and others in the nearby village of Abu Auani recalled it, two, perhaps
three warplanes made repeated passes over the congregated villagers,
firing missiles and raking the area with machine guns.
"According to Iraqi authorities, 14 people were killed on the spot and
five more died later from their injuries. Forty-six people were wounded
and several hundred sheep were killed. Taha's right leg was injured… Two
of his sons, Mohammed, 24, and Ahmed, 20, were killed, leaving him with
one remaining son…
"Taha and others in Abu Auani said a group of youths were tending 400
head of sheep that morning and had taken refuge from the searing sun in
a goatskin tent pitched on the grazing range less than a mile from the
village of 500 residents. Older people remained at home, tending to
their affairs. Then, Taha said, he heard the tremendous crash of an
exploding missile coming from the direction of the grazing range.
Alarmed, he and many others from the village ran to the site.
Inhabitants of several other nearby villages also ran to look.
"What they found, Taha said, was carnage. Many sheep lay dead or dying.
Several of the young shepherds were killed or wounded. As the wounded
boys were carried away and owners began to slaughter their injured sheep
and round up those that had fled, the number of rescuers and onlookers
grew.
"When all the people were there together, another plane came, and
another missile came down," he recalled.
"Nine missiles were fired in all, as best as he can remember, over an
area of about 200 square yards. He said aircraft firing machine guns
crossed the zone twice.
"Hama Mahmoud Ahmed, 20…’I was running away carrying a wounded boy on my
shoulder,’ he said. ‘But the boy got cut through his stomach. Another
boy I saw nearby got his head cut off.’…
"The attack at Abu Auani was one of the few in which the U.S. military
has acknowledged an error. A communique from Incirlik Air Base that day
said… ‘One of the targets, believed to have been a surface-to-air
missile site, now appears to have been a nomadic camp with a number of
livestock in the area.’…
"The airstrikes leave behind a lethal litter that could claim civilian
casualties for years… Saoud Nouri Jassem, 12, Khalis Abdullah Jassem,
15, and Ahmed Omar Abdullah, 15, were killed. Fadhli Abdullah Jassem,
10, and Muzhir Abdullah Jassem, 9, were hospitalized and still carry
their wounds. At the edge of the village, they picked up an unexploded
piece of munition."
--Washington Post, June 16, 2000
On February 3, 1999, the New York Times ran a story, "U.S. Presses Air
Attacks on Iraq in a Low-Level War of Attrition" which said, "The almost
daily American air strikes on Iraq have turned into the equivalent of a
low-level war, hitting a wide range of military targets, some of which
pose little immediate threat to American or British pilots patrolling
much of Iraq's territory… Last week, National Security Adviser Sandy
Berger disclosed that President Clinton had given American pilots wider
authority to retaliate when threatened by Iraqi forces, allowing them to
strike at any defense system, not just those that actually target the
American aircraft… So far, neither the United States nor Britain has
lost any pilots or aircraft in the skirmishes. Their tactics are
designed, in part, to limit the possibility as much as possible, by
attacking with long-range missiles… Last week, at least one American
missile missed its intended target and struck a residential area in
southern Iraq, the Pentagon acknowledged. Iraq claimed that 11 civilians
died in the strike.
Mainstream media information may be hard to find in the U.S. However,
there is loads of information from religious groups, the human rights
community, and the peace community, e.g. Amnesty International, the
Fellowship Of Reconciliation (FOR, America’s largest and oldest
interfaith peace group), the American Friends Service Committee, the
Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends Journal, Veterans for
Peace, the International Action Center, Voices in the Wilderness, Peace
Action, just to name a few. European and other international media
regularly cover Iraq (World Press Review carries some of them), but
American journalists only cover Elian.
Every week there are rallies against the sanctions going on across the
U.S. (as reported in FOR’s weekly Iraq Action Digest), and several
cities have WEEKLY vigils on Iraq sanctions/bombing. In the past two
months there have been scores of vigils and rallies around the 10th
anniversary of the Gulf War, as well as the Remembering Omran bus tour
stopping at cities throughout the U.S. and Canada.
In addition to the attached, I have hundreds of pages of information on
Iraq sanctions on paper, as well as videos and books. I also have
hundreds of pages of Iraq sanctions information in electronic formats,
because since 1998 I have been getting a weekly "Iraq Action Digest"
email (often 10 pages long) from the Fellowship Of Reconciliation (FOR),
America’s largest and oldest interfaith peace group. I lost all but the
past year’s worth of FOR’s emails when I changed jobs, but that’s still
hundreds of pages.
The U.S. Pentagon regularly lists attacks on their web sites. I found
some web sites from the U.S. European Command, which haven’t been
updated recently, but still list 67 different bombings of Iraq within 13
months.
My personal experience includes:
The Gulf War started 1/16/91 on my birthday, and my wedding date August
6, besides being my brother’s birthday, is unfortunately the
anniversaries of Iraq sanctions in 1990 and the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.
So on our wedding anniversary, I brought my family to Washington DC in
pouring rain for the August 6, 2000 march and rally to protest ten years
of sanctions. Earlier, I had helped the Voices in the Wilderness "peace
walkers" cross the Staten Island bridges. I’ve gone to symposiums at
Princeton and biweekly meetings of an Iraq sanctions group in Princeton.
At the symposiums, I heard speeches by Denis Haliday and Hans Von
Sponeck (two consecutive UN assistant secretaries general in charge of
the "oil-for-food" program who resigned in protest over the sanctions),
as well as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others. I’ve
talked with Americans, British, Canadians, and others who have visited
Iraq and seen the wholesale destruction from sanctions. It has been my
sad experience to watch videos of Iraq sanction victims and bombing
victims. I have tried to ship baby formula to Iraq in violation of U.S.
law, and know the prison term I could face for doing so. I gave a
speech in sacrament meeting on Iraq sanctions, and was invited to speak
about sanctions to the Vietnam Veterans of America as well.
"Abortion is self defense"
Bob Kolker
