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Re: Lifting Sanctions on Iraq - dissident view PART ONE



There is a danger of getting embroiled in the minutiae and missing the big picture. I'd like to respond to a couple of things.

>... being instrumentalized by possibly the most
> despicable regime presently on earth.

Here in the West this is frequently stated as fact and Saddam Hussein is of course the ultimate super baddy (seen South Park?). To even attempt to qualify this immediately diminishes anything else one wants to say.

Our leaders (the US & UK) and their policies on Iraq have killed over 1 million civilians many of them children. The vast majority of the other 20 million or so have seen their health and quality of life plummet disastrously. SH during all his time in power - with the war with Iran (supported by our leaders), attacks on the Kurds (which our leaders tried to pretend didn't happen) and internal repression, doesn't even come close to this level of genocide perpetrated on the people of Iraq (war + sanctions).

> My main points were, lifting sanctions is not the magic solution that
> will benefit ordinary Iraqis, the solution lies in good government or
> bad government and the political will to better or abolish bad
> governance in the interest of these ordinary and outrageously
> suffering Iraqis. If one expects this from the Bath regime to happen,
> then one should say so openly.

Lifting sanctions IS the magic solution! The lot of ordinary Iraqis (under SH) was very much better before the destruction of the civilian infrastructure by our leaders and the sanctions which prevented rebuilding and led to more deterioration. I should qualify this by saying that we destroyed so much that a massive input for rebuilding is needed - a figure of 30 billion dollars was mooted just after the Gulf War.


Mark Parkinson
Bodmin
Cornwall

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