| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Jez" |
| Date: |
01 Oct 2004 10:38:03 AM |
| Object: |
OT: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
John Pilger
10/04/04 "New Statesman" -- In October 1999, I stood in a ward of dying
children in Baghdad with Denis Halliday, who the previous year had
resigned as assistant secretary general of the United Nations. He said:
"We are waging a war through the United Nations on the people of Iraq.
We're targeting civilians. Worse, we're targeting children . . . What is
this all about?"
Halliday had been 34 years with the UN. As an international civil
servant much respected in the field of "helping people, not harming
them", as he put it, he had been sent to Iraq to implement the
oil-for-food programme, which he subsequently denounced as a sham. "I am
resigning," he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is . . .
destroying an entire society. Five thousand children are dying every
month. I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the
definition of genocide."
Halliday's successor, Hans von Sponeck, another assistant secretary
general with more than 30 years' service, also resigned in protest.
Jutta Burghardt, the head of the World Food Programme in Iraq, followed
them, saying she could no longer tolerate what was being done to the
Iraqi people. Their collective action was unprecedented; yet it received
only passing media attention. There was no serious inquiry by
journalists into their grave charges against the British and American
governments, which in effect ran the embargo. Von Sponeck's disclosure
that the sanctions restricted Iraqis to living on little more than $100
a year was not reported. "Deliberate strangulation", he called it.
Neither was the fact that, up to July 2002, more than $5bn worth of
humanitarian supplies, which had been approved by the UN sanctions
committee and paid for by Iraq, were blocked by George W Bush, with Tony
Blair's backing. They included food products, medicines and medical
equipment, as well as items vital for water and sanitation, agriculture
and education.
The cost in lives was staggering. Between 1991 and 1998, reported
Unicef, 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died. "If you
include adults," said Halliday, "the figure is now almost certainly well
over a million." In 1996, in an interview on the American current
affairs programme 60 Minutes, Madeleine Albright, then US ambassador to
the UN, was asked: "We have heard that half a million children have died
.. . . is the price worth it?" Albright replied, "We think the price is
worth it." The television network CBS has since refused to allow the
videotape of that interview to be shown again, and the reporter will not
discuss it.
Halliday and von Sponeck have long been personae non gratae in most of
the US and British media. What these whistle-blowers have revealed is
far too unpalatable: not only was the embargo a great crime against
humanity, it actually reinforced Saddam Hussein's control. The reason
why so many Iraqis feel bitter about the invasion and occupation is that
they remember the Anglo-American embargo as a crippling, medieval siege
that prevented them from overthrowing their dictatorship. This is almost
never reported in Britain.
Halliday appeared on BBC2's Newsnight soon after he resigned. I watched
the presenter Jeremy Paxman allow Peter Hain, then a Foreign Office
minister, to abuse him as an "apologist for Saddam". Hain's shameful
performance was not surprising. On the eve of this year's Labour party
conference, he dismissed Iraq as a "fringe issue".
Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, wrote in the New Statesman
recently that some journalists "consider it bad form to engage in public
debate about anything to do with ethics or standards, never mind the
fundamental purpose of journalism". It was a welcome departure from the
usual clubbable stuff that passes for media comment but which rarely
addresses "the fundamental purpose of journalism" - and especially not
its collusive, lethal silences.
"When truth is replaced by silence," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny
Yevtushenko said, "the silence is a lie." He might have been referring
to the silence over the devastating effects of the embargo. It is a
silence that casts journalists as accessories, just as their silence
contributed to an illegal and unprovoked invasion of a defenceless
country. Yes, there was plenty of media noise prior to the invasion, but
Blair's spun version dominated, and truth-tellers were sidelined. Scott
Ritter was the UN's senior weapons inspector in Iraq. Ritter began his
whistle-blowing more than five years ago when he said: "By 1998,
[Iraq's] chemical weapons infrastructure had been completely dismantled
or destroyed by Unscom . . . The biological weapons programme was gone,
the major facilities eliminated . . . The long-range ballistic missile
programme was completely eliminated. If I had to quantify Iraq's threat,
I would say [it is] zero."
Ritter's truth was barely acknowledged. Like Halliday and von Sponeck,
he was almost never mentioned on the television news, the principal
source of most people's information. The studied obfuscation of Hans
Blix was far more acceptable as the "balancing voice". That Blix, like
Kofi Annan, was playing his own political games with Washington was
never questioned.
Up to the fall of Baghdad, the misinformation and lies of Bush and Blair
were channelled, amplified and legitimised by journalists, notably by
the BBC, which defines its political coverage by the pronouncements,
events and personalities of the "village" of Whitehall and Westminster.
Andrew Gilligan broke this rule in his outstanding reporting from
Baghdad and later his disclosure of Blair's most important deception. It
is instructive that the most sustained attacks on him came from his
fellow journalists.
In the crucial 18 months before Iraq was attacked, when Bush and Blair
were secretly planning the invasion, famous, well-paid journalists
became little more than channels, debriefers of the debriefers - what
the French call fonctionnaires. The paramount role of real journalists
is not to channel, but to challenge, not to fall silent, but to expose.
There were honourable exceptions, notably Richard Norton-Taylor in the
Guardian and the irrepressible Robert Fisk in the Independent. Two
newspapers, the Mirror and the Independent, broke ranks. Apart from
Gilligan and one or two others, broadcasters failed to reflect the
public's own rising awareness of the truth. In commercial radio, a
leading journalist who raised too many questions was instructed to "tone
down the anti-war stuff because the advertisers won't like it".
In the United States, in the so-called mainstream of what is
constitutionally the freest press in the world, the line held, with the
result that Bush's lies were believed by the majority of the population.
American journalists are now apologising, but it is too late. The US
military is out of control in Iraq, bombarding densely populated areas
with impunity. How many Iraqi families like Kenneth Bigley's are
grieving? We do not experience their anguish, or hear their appeals for
mercy. According to a recent estimate, roughly 37,000 Iraqis have died
in this grotesque folly.
Charles Lewis, the former star CBS reporter who now runs the Centre for
Public Integrity in Washington, DC, told me he was in no doubt that, had
his colleagues done their job rather than acted as ciphers, the invasion
would not have taken place. Such is the power of the modern media; it is
a power we should reclaim from those subverting it.
John Pilger's documentary Stealing a Nation will be shown on ITV1 on
Wednesday 6 October at 11pm
--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
Skype callto://hellward
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| User: "Hagar" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 02:17:42 PM |
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"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ?? Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
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| User: "Philippic" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 08:08:42 PM |
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"Hagar" <hagen@sahm.name> wrote in message
news:q3i7d.5542$3T5.572@news01.roc.ny...
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ??
Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
S'cuse me, Gomer, but isn't that 'illustrious Saddam' the same
mass-murdering ***** who was a CIA asset for 40 years? Who was armed by
Washington, aided by Washington, financed by Washington, whitewashed by
Washington, and who was only able to gas his own people because Ronald
fucking Reagan gave him the helicopters to do it with? Why don't you
American fucks ever get enough of an education that would enable you to
'point a finger' at your own scrofulous, amoral, tyranny-aiding, memory-less
selves??
Philippic
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 08:42:09 PM |
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On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 01:08:42 GMT, "Philippic"
<slxeeoxgxr@slxoxgxr.com> wrote:
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ??
Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
S'cuse me, Gomer, but isn't that 'illustrious Saddam' the same
mass-murdering ***** who was a CIA asset for 40 years?
The same CIA that was producing world-class joke - exploding
cigars?
I'm unsurprised they supported Hussein. Who else could
be that stupid?
---
The comical value of sheer, pure absurdity of Mr. Chomsky
describing himself as "The American Didssident" can be
fully appreciated only by a person who lived under under
the Soviet system. It is the claim that is almost as
tragi-farcical as life under the Soviet system itself was.
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| User: "John Popelish" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 08:34:40 PM |
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Philippic wrote:
S'cuse me, Gomer, but isn't that 'illustrious Saddam' the same
mass-murdering ***** who was a CIA asset for 40 years? Who was armed by
Washington, aided by Washington, financed by Washington, whitewashed by
Washington, and who was only able to gas his own people because Ronald
fucking Reagan gave him the helicopters to do it with? Why don't you
American fucks ever get enough of an education that would enable you to
'point a finger' at your own scrofulous, amoral, tyranny-aiding, memory-less
selves??
Most Americans can't handle the truth. They have been groomed since
childhood
to follow authority, blindly. They appear to like it that way. Sigh.
--
John Popelish
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 08:44:34 PM |
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On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 21:34:40 -0400, John Popelish <jpopelish@rica.net>
wrote:
S'cuse me, Gomer, but isn't that 'illustrious Saddam' the same
mass-murdering ***** who was a CIA asset for 40 years? Who was armed by
Washington, aided by Washington, financed by Washington, whitewashed by
Washington, and who was only able to gas his own people because Ronald
fucking Reagan gave him the helicopters to do it with? Why don't you
American fucks ever get enough of an education that would enable you to
'point a finger' at your own scrofulous, amoral, tyranny-aiding, memory-less
selves??
Most Americans can't handle the truth. They have been groomed since
childhood
to follow authority, blindly. They appear to like it that way. Sigh.
Are you sure you're not imagining things? Americans seem a little
quick to me in their diagnoses (jumping to conclusions), plus
sometimes lazy in their thinking. But they rather do not seem to
me as blindingly following authority.
Germans do seem to be this way, however. No *****.
---
The comical value of sheer, pure absurdity of Mr. Chomsky
describing himself as "The American Didssident" can be
fully appreciated only by a person who lived under under
the Soviet system. It is the claim that is almost as
tragi-farcical as life under the Soviet system itself was.
.
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| User: "John Popelish" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
02 Oct 2004 10:58:59 AM |
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wrote:
On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 21:34:40 -0400, John Popelish <jpopelish@rica.net>
wrote:
Most Americans can't handle the truth. They have been groomed since
childhood
to follow authority, blindly. They appear to like it that way. Sigh.
Are you sure you're not imagining things? Americans seem a little
quick to me in their diagnoses (jumping to conclusions), plus
sometimes lazy in their thinking. But they rather do not seem to
me as blindingly following authority.
Germans do seem to be this way, however. No *****.
You may be right. Perhaps Germans respect authority, itself, as
something valuable. Americans only follow authority lazily and
blindly if it is wrapped in *****. And there always seem to be
politicians, religious leaders and industry lobbyists who are ready to
dish it out.
--
John Popelish
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| User: "Gabrielle Rapagnetta" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 03:12:37 PM |
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"Jez":
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
Hagar wrote:
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ?? Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
1) Liberals have been pointing the finger at Saddam for far longer than
you.
2) "Building palaces for himself right and left", otherwise known as
publics works projects, is the same strategy that the US adopted to lift
itself out of a depression. In Iraq, where the majority of the
population is unemployed, building palaces is not an egregious crime.
(Consider that the palaces of Egypt, built perhaps by slaves, are now
the country's second largest source of revenue.)
3) What is an egregious crime is the lack of labor rights and the ban
on trade unions. The new Iraqi "liberation" government continues to
enforce Saddam's ban.
4) Demonizing Saddam utterly fails to address Jez's point that the
Western sanctions intentionally harmed Iraqi civilians.
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| User: "wbarwell" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 08:09:27 PM |
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Hagar wrote:
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ??
Why don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !
When ***** Bush presided over Desert Storm, our military bombed Iraq's
water and sewer systems. A war crime. Our government then instituted
sanctions. Part of these sanctions purposefully prevent repairs and
supplies for Iraq's sewer and water systems from reaching them.
Thomas Nagy, a teacher managed to use the FOIA statutes to get documentation
on this matter and it was publised in the September 2001 issue of The
Progressive Magazine. See www.progressivemagazine.org for the September
2001 edition.
The US knew the particular sanctions here would result in mass deaths of
innocents.
And did it anyway. These continued through the Clinton years, which is why
I voted for Nader.
Hundreds of thousands died because we committed these genocidal war crimes
*****. And you are an *****.
Follow up the URL above to the incrimintating documents.
*****.
Your government committed war crimes and mass murder and thus
is in no way any different from Saddam Hussein.
Not one bit different.
Bush, Clinton, Saddam Hussein, ouir military leaders, leaders of Senate and
House, who did not object, even after people like Nagy complained and
documented the charges.
Mass murderers one and all.
Despite documents from outr own government that showed they knew
this policy would create mass deths, all the ***** religious laeders of
the US turned their backs on this and not one major denomination protested.
Not one.
A nation of right winger murdering assholes.
*****.
--
Kerry - two medals a silver and bronze star.
Bush? Well they don't give medals
for going AWOL, missing your medical and
getting grounded or falling off of a bar stool.
Kerry - a hero, Bush - a zero
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Jez" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 02:33:05 PM |
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Hagar wrote:
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ?? Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
Neither was the fact that, up to July 2002, more than $5bn worth of
humanitarian supplies, which had been approved by the UN sanctions
committee and paid for by Iraq, were blocked by George W Bush, with Tony
Blair's backing. They included food products, medicines and medical
equipment, as well as items vital for water and sanitation, agriculture
and education.
Why don't you fucking retards learn to read ?
--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
Skype callto://hellward
.
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| User: "wbarwell" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 08:19:07 PM |
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Jez wrote:
Hagar wrote:
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't
their illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and
left ?? Why don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
Neither was the fact that, up to July 2002, more than $5bn worth of
humanitarian supplies, which had been approved by the UN sanctions
committee and paid for by Iraq, were blocked by George W Bush, with Tony
Blair's backing. They included food products, medicines and medical
equipment, as well as items vital for water and sanitation, agriculture
and education.
Why don't you fucking retards learn to read ?
Because they are ignorant assholes the entire lot of 'em.
Not a man amongst them.
***** monkies one and all.
--
Kerry - two medals a silver and bronze star.
Bush? Well they don't give medals
for going AWOL, missing your medical and
getting grounded or falling off of a bar stool.
Kerry - a hero, Bush - a zero
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Steve" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 06:20:42 PM |
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Hagar" <hagen@sahm.name> wrote in message
news:q3i7d.5542$3T5.572@news01.roc.ny...
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ??
Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
When we see a westerner with a gun to their head in Iraq - or even worse -
being decapitated - there is a huge outcry...and rightfully so.
What would you say if a westerner was locked in a cage and slowly starved
to death with inadequate rations or provided little or no medical attention
? - you would be outraged...right ?
This is what happened in Iraq....but without the benefit of a video to show
you the slow decline and eventual death of an individual . Anyone who thinks
Sadam would be swayed by starving his population was pretty naive. If they
thought this would trigger a revolt they were pretty stupid. Its a bit like
Stalin said " a single death is a tragedy..a million deaths is a statistic"
And Duke...just goes to show how close allah is to your buddy..neither does
***** all for anybody.
Steve
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
01 Oct 2004 05:32:14 PM |
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On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 19:17:42 GMT, "Hagar" <hagen@sahm.name> wrote:
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ?? Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
They don't care about the truth.
duke
*****
Matthew 22
14"For many are invited, but few are chosen."
*****
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| User: "Jez" |
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| Title: Re: John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s |
02 Oct 2004 08:05:10 AM |
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duke wrote:
On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 19:17:42 GMT, "Hagar" <hagen@sahm.name> wrote:
"Jez" <iced_spear@NOSPAMdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:E8ednWb1HqaO58DcRVnyvw@pipex.net...
John Pilger on why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6986.htm
Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our
inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against
this injustice?
S'cuse me, but while all those little children were starving, wasn't their
illustrious leader Saddam building palaces for himself right and left ?? Why
don't you liberal fucks point a finger at him !!
They don't care about the truth.
*****.......there goes another irony meter !
--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
Skype callto://hellward
.
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