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RE: [casi-analysis] US plans to attack water installations



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Dear Philippa and List,

> I really can't understand why this is in an issue
and why you are critiquing Tom Nagy's research at this
stage, please explain <

I am also surprised as to why this criticism of Tom
Nagy’s research, and why now. Claims about the
hundreds of thousands in mass graves and about WMDs
and about Halabja (to name a few) were accepted
without question..

Gabriel may have his personal reasons for
criticizing Tom’s work. As regards myself, I always
endeavor to back up my views with evidence. A small
search would show the amount of evidence available to
prove that the US did intentionally target Iraq’s
water installation.

The following are examples:

http://www.scn.org/ccpi/infrastructure.html

Tom Nagy’s
http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2001/msg00706.html

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/459/459p19.htm

In addition, there is the following article from
Common Dreams. I am posting it here specifically
because the author, Douglas Johnson, spent nearly 6
weeks in February and March of 2003 in Iraq with
VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS!

Best
HZ
-------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0913-10.htm

Published on Monday, September 13, 2004 by
CommonDreams.org

The Case of Rafil Dahfir: A Criminal Double Standard
by Douglas Johnson

On September 27, Dr. Rafil Dahfir, an oncologist and
naturalized US citizen of Iraqi decent living in
Syracuse NY goes on trial in federal court. As founder
of the organization Help the Needy which violated UN
sanctions by sending humanitarian aid to Iraq to help
sick children, Dr. Dahfir now faces 265 years in
prison if convicted. He's been held since February 26,
2003 and denied bail four times. You can learn more
about his case online at
www.jubileeinitiative.org/FreeDhafir.htm. The
following is a letter I sent to Judge Mordue who will
preside in the trial:

Dear Judge Mordue,

From February to April, 2003 I traveled to Iraq to
join Voices in the Wilderness, an organization founded
by three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly.
Like Dr. Dhafir's organization, Voices has sent over
70 delegations to Iraq since 1996, each delivering
medicine to sick Iraqi children - in open violation of
the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (US/UN
sanctions). I personally delivered as much medicine
across the Iraqi border as I could carry - about 10
large duffle bags, fully aware that I was breaking the
law.

I have never met Dr. Dhafir and I cannot read his
mind. But I suspect his reasons for civil disobedience
were similar to mine. During the 90's the United
States waged an intentional, genocidal assault against
the 25 million innocent Iraqi civilians, especially
targeting the most vulnerable of their society - the
infants and the elderly.

In 1990, prior to the sanctions, the Defense
Intelligence Agency did a study (DIA filename:
511rept.91), declassified in 1995, in which they
determined that within six months of imposing
sanctions, Iraq's water-treatment facilities would be
degraded to the point where there would be outbreaks,
"if not epidemics," of waterborne diseases such as
cholera, typhus, and dysentery.

Instead of waiting six months however for the
sanctions to take hold, the US military waited only
two and then hastened the process by bombing nearly
every water-treatment facility in Iraq.

The US military views targets such as water systems,
roads, or hospitals, as "COG's" - Centers of Gravity
(Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.2). By striking the
most crucial civilian infrastructure, they reason, you
quickly destroy civil society. (Never mind that the
civilians targeted in Iraq had no say in their
government, or that when the Iraqi people revolted
against Saddam Hussein in 1991 we turned the other
way.)

The intentional poisoning of Iraq's drinking water
followed by 13 years of sanctions, which prohibited
the importation of even simple diarrhea medicines,
fulfilled the DIA's prediction. According to Unicef,
more than 500,000 children under the age of 5 - (over
1,000,000 Iraqis total) died as a direct result of the
sanctions, as planned.

The sanctions have been called a WMD by some, germ
warfare by others. As a judge you must know that to
militarily target civilian infrastructure violates
Geneva Convention Article 54 and is therefore a war
crime. To pass laws that prohibit sick children from
receiving medicine is likewise unconscionable. I can
only assume that as a doctor who's taken the
Hippocratic Oath and a man of Iraqi decent, Dr.
Dhafir, when confronted with the agonizing deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies, obeyed a higher
law than that of the US'.

Given that at least thirteen humanitarian
organizations openly violated the sanctions in Iraq,
and given that 57 corporations, including Halliburton
and Exxonmobil, violated sanctions in other countries
- for profit rather than humanitarian reasons, why is
Dr. Rafil Dhafir the only person ever to be criminally
charged? Is it because he's Arab and Muslim?

Why aren't we trying the real criminals in this case?
Why are so many others, myself included, allowed to
walk free while Dr. Dhafir faces over 250 years in
prison? Please, Judge Mordue, throw this case out.
Respectfully,

Douglas Johnson

*The author is a copywriter living in Louisville
Kentucky who spent nearly 6 weeks in Iraq with Voices
in the Wilderness before and during the bombing - in
February and March of 2003






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