Madeleine’s ’Deadly Delusions’

I hope it is not considered rude to sneak in an action agenda, without contributing to the debate.

If you live in or near NYC, there is an organized street protest rally against the US military action.

Place = Time Square
When? A: Saturday 21st.

Let`s hope enough people voice their protest.

...SR

PS: very good artilce; enjoyed the language and the information.

Re: ``Lets bomb Iraq/Saddam`

1) the conflict is between the UN security council/UNSCOM and Iraq. The only two security council members eager to bomb -- US and UK. (Even the client Arab states are showing signs of having a spine.) ???????

2) Lets bomb suspected chemical/biological weapons producing factories/storage sites and unleash them on the civilian population of iraq. makes a lot of sense, right?

3) Lets bomb Iraq to get rid of Saddam. Yeah, right, and let Iraq, and the Gulf, become vulnerable to Iran? (Remember how much ``we`` helped the insurgencies in the South to get rid of the butcher of Baghdad, or should I say, Kerbala and Najaf?)

4) Lets bomb Iraq because Hussain is not complying with Weapons inspection teams. What incentive does he have to comply when there is no schedule and clearly articulated set of conditions for getting the sanctions lifted? After all, Madeline Albright said, sanctions would not be lifted unless Iraq is no longer a threat to regional peace. How vague is that! As long as Hussain is around (and will probably be for reasons given in (3)) and Iraq has oil and willing oil buyers and weapons sellers, it is going to be a threat to ``regional peace``. So, in effect, the ecnomic sanctions will be around indefinitely. (And who is hurting most? The Iraqi children and civilian population.) And as long as sanctions are there indefinitely, it is in Hussain`s interest to provoke crises of the latest kind and break up support for the sanctions.

So, what is the solution: lift economic sanctions and impose an arms embargo that punishes weapons sellers as much as it punishes the Iraqi government. And support a local pro-democracy oppositioin to Saddam Hussain.

There is an aspect that we should pay attention to: MONEY. Lots and lot of it.

This is as much about business interests (ie, MONEY) as anything else. Saddam Hussain is God`s gift to the US Military Industrial Complex. He came at just the right time. The ``Evil Empire`` was already a thing of the past. That cursed Gorbachev and his glastnos, wrecked that fun. Then the Berlin Wall came down and then the Iron Curtain fell.

It was hard for the military establishment to justify its existence. They looked around and what did they find? Danel Ortega? Noreiga? Pabolo Escabar? All small fish. Ortega held elections, lost, and stepped down. Noreiga came to Miami after a brief fireworks display in Panama City. Pabolo Escabar let the Columbian governement know of his wearabouts and mostly stayed put in his palacial prison, until he was caught sneeking out and shot dead.

No sir, none of this was going to be enough. We the fat ol` boys at Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed needed something bigger out there to ensure that the Pentagon keeps buying big ticket items. Sales were getting precariously low and, shezam!!! Bless the Lord, here comes mana from heaven in the form of Saddam Hussain`s invasion of Kuwait. A two bit terrorist-tyrant becomes the savior of the sacred Defence Budget.

Its more of the same thing now, in 1998. A whole new generation of smart bombs have been manufactured. Their R&D cost alone runs in the tens of Billions. Now we do need to stimulate sales, here don`t we? That`s the real power interest at work here. As they say, ``follow the money``. What is this silly talk about rights and wrongs and treaties and pacts and supports and oppositions and alliances and whatnots?

If and when The two Anglo Saxon powers decide to ``redistribute`` a chunk of wealth to their defense industries, all the snow in Russia and all the sand in Arabia will not be able to stop them from depleting their arsenal inventory over Iraq (or wherever else Ted Turner and Rupert Murdock can help focus the taxpayers` attention on).

Saddam is a Butcher. Let us not mince
words about him. Our concern here is about
the people of Iraq and especially the
children of that country. It is their suffering that should move us.

Ras

While I agree with the author`s summation about ``Washington`s spectacularly poor show of leadership``, US concerns about biologic weapons are real, and therefore the military inspections critical. This is a potential terrible disaster just waiting to happen - why? Because its the easiest thing in the world to grow up some anthrax and release it into the atmosphere. The spores are airborne and would quickly involve dissipate over vast areas. It would be the logical terrorist weapon of choice for Saddam Hussain - cheap, effective, easy to transport billions of spores in small containers. And the resultant destruction would be massive. Anthrax is the most likely scenario because it is the easiest to transmit - but other choices are small pox, and plague.

I too am against indiscriminate bombing of Iraq - and murder of civilians, as is probably most of the world - and Saddam knows this, and is playing on it. The solution is continued diplomacy while maintaining a tough stance that a military strike is inevitable if Iraq doesn`t comply with the inspections, this current waffling won`t do - and maybe a token bombing of one of the palaces, with the least likelihood of civilian casualties. At the same time supporting local covert activities to remove this despot.