Hey, this is cool. An opinion piece in the Guardian that blames America for destoring Iraq. Not because of the more recent liberation of Iraq mind you, but because of the sanctions since 1990 and especially their maintenance after the liberation of Kuwait. But what's really cool is that Alain Gresh (of Le Monde diplomatique, don't you know) manages to completely avoid mentioing why the sanctions were never lifted, especially sionce we all now know that Saddam never had WMDs. Right?
But to top it all off, the whole point of the piece is couched around a complaint that we are spending too much time focusing on the oil for blood scandal. Yes, I know that most people call it the oil for foodscandal, but the way I see it, the money allowed Saddam to keep killing for 10 years, so it is really oil for blood. No oil for blood!
I strongly suggest that our leading physicists need to begin investigating the alternate parallel unverse that seems to have sprung up beside us. The black holes of this alternate, more, ahem, progressive universe seem to be spewing nonsense into ours at an alarming rate. Fortunately, the physicists should be able to get to the bottom of this new phenomenon quickly, since the evidence of this parallel universe where up is down, freedom is fascism, red light is shifted to blue wavelengths and vice versa, is all around us. Another intersting attribute seems to be that whereas in our universe space and time are relative, in this parallel universe it is facts which are relative -- apparently relative to the "moral standing" of whomever says them, in fact.
Wierd.
I'll try no to overpost but:
As I read it he merely argues around the problemof sanctions, and that they punish the civilian population more than its leaders. I think it is difficult to argue against that.
He also brings up the point of ideology having influenced the rebuilding process more than common sense. Instead of letting the Swedish, Swiss and French firms that knew the infrastructure bid on the rebuilding contracts the contracts were handed out to American firms that so far have failed. Politics and ideology came in the way of reason.
By and large, I agree that sanctions punish the civilian population more than the leaders, but such sanctions seems to be the method preferred by the UN (and Sweded, Switzerland and France) when it comes to dealing with dictators like Saddam Hussein. Better to depose them, not that any of the usual suspects would go along with that even when given the choice and provocation.
I'm sorry, but I don't see the US as the bad guy here no matter how you want to spin it. I place the blame for any deaths caused by sanctions in Iraq on Saddam Hussein, then the UN, the EU, etc.
My heart doesn't bleed for the French, Swiss and Swedish firms that profited while Saddam was killing his people, hence my comment about no oil for blood. We are trying to help Iraq as best we can. Perhaps we might be more successful if Sweden, Switzerland and France offered help that wasn't contingent on getting more money for their help.
Posted by: charles austin at 10:06 PM"I'm sorry, but I don't see the US as the bad guy here no matter how you want to spin it"
I didn't say that.
I did,however, say that the rebuilding of Iraq so far has failed to a large part because of ideology, nationalism and europhobia having come in the way of reason, whether it concerns the dealing of rebuilding contracts or the disbanding of the Iraqi military.