SOP for the GOP and knee-knocking Dems....

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From the article:

Kelly points out that while Voices has been fined for bringing small

of humanitarian aid to innocent Iraqis, there have been no repercussions

two Texas-based oil companies--Bay Oil and Odin--accused of flouting the
sanctions. Bay Oil allegedly gave kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein

in order to secure key contracts, while Odin was--with the apparent
knowledge of the U.S. Navy--offloading oil smuggled by Jordan onto several
of its tankers. Both were direct violations of sanctions.

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Feds target Voices in the Wilderness

Punished for delivering aid to Iraqis

By Nicole Colson
August 26, 2005

A FEDERAL judge this month ordered the human rights group Voices in the
Wilderness to pay a $20,000 fine--for the "crime" of delivering

aid to the people of Iraq.

Voices openly violated the U.S.-sponsored policy of United Nations (UN)
sanctions against Iraq that was imposed prior to the 1991 Gulf War and
continued until 2003. As the group points out, the policy targeted

Iraqi civilians, particularly children, by barring everything from routine
medical equipment and drugs (like vaccines for infant hepatitis, tetanus

diptheria), to spare parts for water sanitation systems, electric plants,
buses and communications systems. The sanctions killed more than 1 million
Iraqis, according to UN estimates.

For years, Voices sent delegations to Iraq to deliver small quantities of
medicine and supplies. The U.S. government wants to punish the group for
this.

In 2002, the U.S. Treasury Department levied a $20,000 fine against
Voices--just days after it participated in actions against the looming war
on Iraq. The group refused to pay, saying at the time, "It is incumbent

each of us to challenge in every nonviolent manner possible the acts of

government."
Now, Voices has been ordered by federal judge John Bates to pay the fine.
But the group remains defiant. "Any money that was ever entrusted to us by
other people certainly wasn't sent because people wanted us to turn it

to the federal government," Voices founder Kathy Kelly told Socialist
Worker. "I could be a bit more pointed at this juncture, and say that we

turn over one dime to war criminals who are planning further attacks

Iraq and who are designing plans to seize Iraq's precious and

resources."

Kelly added, "The judge concluded his 17-page opinion by saying that the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, in his letter from a Birmingham jail, wrote
that those who break an unjust law should do so 'openly, lovingly and with

readiness to accept the penalties.' We want to say that if he chooses to

any of us in jail, we'll go openly and lovingly, but we won't pay any
penalties to this government's war-making. And we highly doubt that, had a
judge in Birmingham said to Dr. Martin Luther King, 'Okay, I'm going to
impose a fine on you" instead of put him in jail, King would have reached
for his checkbook and encouraged everybody to buckle under to those
penalties."

Kelly points out that while Voices has been fined for bringing small

of humanitarian aid to innocent Iraqis, there have been no repercussions

two Texas-based oil companies--Bay Oil and Odin--accused of flouting the
sanctions. Bay Oil allegedly gave kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein

in order to secure key contracts, while Odin was--with the apparent
knowledge of the U.S. Navy--offloading oil smuggled by Jordan onto several
of its tankers. Both were direct violations of sanctions.

"How come the Office of Foreign Assets Control didn't go after these big

companies?" said Kelly. "They said, in response to [Michigan Sen.] Carl
Levin's query, 'We didn't think that we had responsibility to police
enforcement of UN sanctions.'

"Well, we, with our little duffle bags of medicine, certainly made it

to them that we were going to violate the law. They came after us in seven
days. Seven days after the announcement, we got their letter of warning.

soon as we went over there, in relation to the Desert Fox bombing in
November of 1998, when it looked like the U.S. was going to bomb, we were

their screen, and we were given a pre-penalty notice. We announced that we
would be over there in the way of the shock-and-awe campaign, and we got
another bump up, saying 'Okay, you haven't paid this fine. You have to

into the courts and explain why you haven't paid the fine...

"If I ever did have the chance to stand in front of some justice figure

cared, I would want to say, 'Look, we're not asking to see penalties or

time for the 'big fish' that broke the sanctions--nor do we think that

kinds of penalties should be imposed on the 'little fish.' What we want

to see is the monster in the pond--and that is the callous disregard for
Iraqi children...

"You could say, 'Well, there are poor and wasting children all over the
world,' and that's certainly true, and I think we have a big

for them, too, actually. But these children are among generations now who
have been punished because the U.S. insists on weighing in with our

might and with our ability to manipulate world opinion and UN politics.

responsibility to stop that murder, I think, is on us."

http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/554/554_01_Voices.shtml


--
Virtually all of the specific economic policies advocated by the Italian

German fascists of the 1930s have also been adopted in the United States

some form, and continue to be adopted to this day. Sixty years ago, those
who adopted these interventionist policies in Italy and Germany did so
because they wanted to destroy economic liberty, free enterprise, and
individualism. Only if these institutions were abolished could they hope

achieve the kind of totalitarian state they had in mind.

http://www.banned-books.com/truth-seeker/1994archive/121_3/ts213l.html


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SOP for the GOP and knee-knocking Dems....

---...
"How come the Office of Foreign Assets Control didn't go after these big oil
companies?" said Kelly.

...

"If I ever did have the chance to stand in front of some justice figure that
cared, I would want to say, 'Look, we're not asking to see penalties or jail
time for the 'big fish' that broke the sanctions--nor do we think that these
kinds of penalties should be imposed on the 'little fish.' What we want you
to see is the monster in the pond--and that is the callous disregard for
Iraqi children...

"You could say, 'Well, there are poor and wasting children all over the
world,' and that's certainly true, and I think we have a big responsibility
for them, too, actually. But these children are among generations now who
have been punished because the U.S. insists on weighing in with our military
might and with our ability to manipulate world opinion and UN politics. The
responsibility to stop that murder, I think, is on us."