Examining a Harsh Criticism

2001-10-16 04:46:00

Before we end this section we should briefly cover what seems to be the most justified criticism against the United States. It goes something like this.

Because the United States is imposing sanctions on Iraq, needed food and medicine is not arriving there and as many as 4500 children are dying every month because of it, as well as great suffering for the adults.

All we need to do is remove the sanctions and let the Iraqis have some food and medicine and everything will be OK.

But will it?

As I did some surfing on the internet I found almost universal condemnation of the United States on this issue. Everyone gives the same data, uses the same catch phrases and has the same state of indignation.

Does this make them right?

This chorus was so universal it almost got me singing with it, but then again I have to follow my own philosophy and look at what the vast majority are proclaiming and look for truth in the opposite direction.

Again, I found that the truth is not so obvious as many would have us believe.

After doing some research, here is what I discovered.

First, the sanctions imposed are not United States sanctions, but U.N. sanctions imposed by all the nations of the world against Iraq after the Gulf War. It is true, however, that after all these years that there is a split in the U.N. as whether or not to ease them. The strongest opposition comes from Russia and China who seek to sell arms to Iraq if the sanctions are lifted. The French are weakening for no good reason I can find.

A point of interest here is that the same crowd that insisted on using sanctions instead of going to war with Iraq is now insisting that there be no sanctions.

The "all we need do is ease the sanctions and then they can have food and medicine" is an outright deception.

From the beginning through UN Resolution SCR 661 Iraq has been given the freedom to import food, medicine and materials for humanitarian purposes, excluding, of course, war materials.

Contrary to popular belief, Iraq is still a major exporter of oil, the second largest in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia. In the past three years they have exported $40 billion in oil revenues under UN guidelines and an additional estimated $6 billion on the black market.

The problem with the black market oil money is that Saddam Hussein can spend it any way he wants because the UN has no control, over it. This means he can use these funds for weapons of mass destruction, terrorists programs, personal spending, the military or whatever.

He obviously gets a lot of personal money from somewhere as he has constructed or renovated some 48 palaces since the war, according to some sources.

Figuring the amount of money going into Iraq along with internal earnings the GNP per capita is at least $1000 compared with no more than $900 for Syria. Yet there are no complaints in Syria about the people starving to death. Even in Yemen where the GNP per capita is $270 the people are eating much better than they are in Iraq.

Perhaps it is also the beginning of karmic payback that even the Kurds are faring better than the people of Baghdad. The UN sees to it that they receive their share of oil money away from Saddam's control.

In addition to this the Kurds had a tremendous fiscal handicap to overcome as Saddam Hussein, with the assistance of the Iraqi people, attempted to exterminate this entire people off the face of the earth. Even though the Kurds were citizens of Iraq, just as the Jews were in Nazi Germany, soldiers blindly followed Saddam Hussein's orders and methodically rounded up and shot or gassed 100,000 Kurds in 1988 alone. In addition, the Iraqis leveled 4,000 of their villages to the ground leaving most of those left alive homeless with little or no means of support.

Perhaps one of the greatest disgraces of the United States and other nations is that we continued to support this tyrant through this genocide. It may be true that the whole story was not revealed at the time of the happening, but enough was suspected so we should have distanced ourselves from him at the very least.

Then after the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein again attempted to exterminate this people and it was only through our continued bombing of Iraq and the establishment of the No Fly Zone that this people continue to exist.

Now they have the last laugh. They are eating and the people who persecuted them are starving - and for no good reason.

If enough money is coming into Iraq to provide plenty of food, medicine and spare parts to take care of the people then what is creating the problem? Why are there so many reports of malnourishment and starvation?

The answer is quite simple, but one which many refuse to accept.

Saddam Hussein, the same man who committed genocide against the innocent Kurds, is now committing genocide against his own people.

For what reason - what is his motive?

The answer is simple. His end goal is to force the UN to completely remove the sanctions. This is the one obstacle in his way to obtaining the complete freedom to import nuclear materials and rebuild his war machine. He has openly stated that he wants complete removal of sanctions before he gives any cooperation.

To obtain his desire he needs a weapon to force the hand of the UN and unfortunately, that weapon is the suffering of his own people. He wants lots of starving children and then have them paraded all over the news and internet and then blame this problem he has created and maintains on the UN sanctions, especially targeting the United States.

Osama Bin Laden has also mentioned this situation as a source of his false indignation. Neither one of them are concerned about the children. If they were, they would do something about feeding them.

There are numerous ways that Saddam has insured that enough of his people will be starving or deprived of medicine to insure a strong sympathy factor throughout the world.

(1) He spends all the black market money and any other funds he can get his hands obtain on his own indulgences, his close associates and the military.

(2) When he committed genocide against the Kurds he also destroyed close to half the good farm ground of the country through turning them into mine fields, through fire and chemicals.

(3) The UN has caught him warehousing badly needed medicine and then exporting them to other countries for cash. It is suspected that he impounds much food that never reaches the people.

(4) He regularly confiscates produce from the farms that do exist. This discourages the Iraqi farmers from raising more than the bare essentials.

(5) There is little free market and businessmen are often executed for not obeying silly rules or raising their prices. The government controls all major industries.

The world is thus faced with a difficult problem in dealing with this thug. We have thousands of people in Iraq dying from lack of food and medicine each month, yet the cause of this lack is not a lack of food and medicine, but the leader of the country sabotaging his own people in the hope the sanctions against him will be lifted so he can take revenge out upon those who imposed the sanctions to begin with.

We thus can see that a blanket condemnation of the United States, Britain or any other UN nations supporting the status quo in limiting Iraqi oil sales may be misplaced. The U.S. support of these sanctions is not egregious enough justify an attack in the World Trade Center. This may be a drummed up excuse used by the terrorists, but it is not the cause of their wrath.

Even so it is a fact that there are many men, women and children in Iraq who are in great need of medicine and food. What can we do? It is reported that the Bush administration is looking into ways to increase the supply of goods to the common people.

The problem is that if we merely allow the sale of more oil the situation may get worse instead of better - because Saddam Hussein does not want conditions to improve.

There is, however, a strong lever we have. Saddam fears a negative world public opinion and he therefore makes an effort to cause it to appear he is concerned about his starving people, especially the children.

I would suggest we use religious and benevolent groups who have programs for feeding the poor to directly enter Iraq and distribute food (provided through the UN) directly to the public. This would be difficult for Saddam to turn down because he would look bad and the plan may just get the needed food and medicine into the right hands.

The UN could help immediately by allowing philanthropic groups easier access to Iraqis. Their rules and bureaucracy have been getting in the way more than helping in this regard.

Have patience my friends. I have just one more article in this series.

Coming next, the master stroke which will solve many of the problems of our day.