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hello roger and all, i think you've misunderstood completely what ahmed (that's his name, he has posted it several times at the end of his emails) was intending to point out. if you refer to the email he was replying to (hoggard's email), hoggard brushed off the suffering, murder, torture and deaths of millions of iraqis under the iraqi regime saying 'it simply is not right to focus on the bad points of the Iraqi government, terrible though they are'! ahmed was, as were i and no doubt many others on this group, incensed by hoggard's rediculous claims that the iraqi dictatorship 'had invested heavily in social programmes' or that it was 'doing a quite remarkable job both of managing under the sanctions, and supporting the pride and integrity of nationhood' for the iraqi people. when the truth is the dictatorship has always only looked out for itself. for example, when saddam hussein claimed to stop oil for a month for the palestinian people, what he actually did was stop oil that could be used for the inadequate oil-for-food programme - thus allowing the iraqi people to starve even more (costing no doubt more innocent lives), yet he increased the amount of oil flowing through syria (syria's output miraculously increased by 14% over that month!) and through jordan (ironically going to israel from there!) - the revenue of which only goes to him and his regime. hoggard attempted to give the impression of being some sort of authority on the suffering of the iraqi people due to the regime, or the brutality of the regime, by simply being there a little while ago and having the sense that 'I could, and did, speak to anyone I wanted to'. ahmed's reply was a tongue-in-cheek reply to show simply how rediculous hoggard's statements were, applying what he said about saddam's regime to sanctions - that's why it was all in quotes! :) with regards to the points you brought up about 'Desert Slaughter', the uprising, sanctions and the suffering of the shias and kurds - i agree totally. with regards to the uprising - don't forget who did the actual killing. perhaps ahmed has the most authority to speak about all of this because he lived in iraq during the 80s while the dictatorship, according to hoggard, 'invested heavily in social programmes', and he lived through the slaughter of 1991, and the uprising in the south, and the impact of sanctions, and the early part of the oil-for-food programme. he certainly has more authority to comment on the suffering of the nation than a visitor who is only allowed to see what the dictatorship wish him to see. anyway, why is it that analysing emails takes a lot more space than writing them?!! :) regards, yasser ----Original Message Follows---- From: VnStroope@aol.com To: baghdad@easy.com, casi-discuss@lists.casi.org.uk Subject: Re: [casi] Full Amnesty Report on Iraq 2002 Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:42:02 EDT [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] In a message dated 05/29/2002 9:54:50 PM Central Daylight Time, baghdad@easy.com writes: > I would be interested to know what did he do > trying to stop these violations when he was in > Iraq "speaking to anyone he wanted to" over > there. Or was he concentrating on "bad points" > of the sanctions system, "terrible though they > I would call you by name, but as you don't give one I guess I will call you George, could be right no? Immediately following Desert Slaughter the Shi'is of the South and the Kurds of the North rose up against SH in an effort to "stop the violations." Of course General Norm S was sitting around in the South watching all of this happen. Also, Of Course, the world did nothing to support either of these uprisings or stop the slaughter by SH of these peoples. So, with this picture in the forefront of you mind, George, I would ask you the following question: What exactly did you want Hoggard to do whilst he was in Iraq to topple the regime or end the violations? I question whether a military campaign by Hoggard would have garnered the results you are interested in, all of us are interested in; an end to the suffering of humans everywhere. Perhaps if he had carried a soap box on which to stand (would have had to take with as they are probably forbidden by the sanctions committee as a dual use, unless of course the right persons used them, i.e. non Kurds or non shi'is) and spoken loudly against human rights violations that would have gained him a one way trip out of the country and hindered any further contribution he could have made by limiting his first hand experiences. The West clearly did not want the violations to stop or they would have long since. What they want of course is another military leader that will keep the people in 'their place' and not a new regime that will threaten Western interests by inciting anti-Kurd Turkey or uniting a new Iraq philosophically with Iran (Shi'is). As to your query relating to Hoggards "concentration on bad points of the sanctions system".. I remind you only of this CASI- Campaign Against Sanctions in Iraq. Roger Stroope Peace is a Human Right 903-870-9888 h 903-436-8366 m _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk