[casi] Fw: In reply to John Sweeney

["Diarmuid" <diarmuidfogarty@DELETETHISonetel.net.uk>]

***COPY OF LETTER SENT TO OBSERVER***

with thanks to Milan for drawing my attention to the article.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Diarmuid" <diarmuidfogarty@onetel.net.uk>
To: <letters@observer.co.uk>
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 1:32 PM
Subject: In reply to John Sweeney


> John Sweeney's article in today's Observer (How Saddam 'staged' fake baby
> funerals', 23 June 2002) is another broadside against those who believe
that
> the United States and the United Kingdom should desist from persecuting
the
> Iraqi people for the crimes of their dictator.
>
> Sweeney was quick to highlight the shameful abuse of children by the Iraqi
> regime, using them as an instrument of torture to force their parents to
> confess and, most horrifically, stockpiling their corpses in order to
stage
> more effective political protests. It should be noted, however, that all
of
> Sweeney's sources in the article (and in a similar piece on the BBC
website)
> were all secondhand or third hand sources.
>
> However, what Sweeney surprisingly failed to address was the cause of so
> many infant deaths in Iraq. He touched on the matter when he dismissed out
> of hand the findings of UNICEF, implying that these were mere propaganda
of
> the Iraqi government. This neglects the rigid monitoring process that
UNICEF
> applied whilst researching its statistics; it ignores the resignation of
two
> UN Assistant High Commissioners in protest at the genocide being carried
out
> against the Iraqi people by our country and the US and it rubbishes the
> independent conclusions reached by other independent sources such as Save
> the Children, Human Rights Watch, Voices in the Wilderness.  Sweeney's
> decision to shrug off the evidence stacked up against the UK and the US
> smacks of the same sort of denial employed by those who would have us
> believe the Holocaust never took place.
>
> The fact remains that infant mortality has increased at a terrifying rate
> since the start of the US/UK war against the Iraqi people. Despite
Sweeney's
> wrongful assertions that these deaths are blamed on the vast amount of
> depleted uranium dumped on Iraq, it is a widely known fact that most of
the
> hundreds of thousands of infant dead were killed by water-borne diseases
> such as diarrhoea and cholera. It is also a widely accepted fact that such
> preventable diseases has almost disappeared from Iraq pre-war. They have
> since been allowed to ravage the Iraqi population due to the Embargo game
> played by the UK and the US.
>
> If Saddam Hussein is to be charged with the cynical manipulation of the
> deaths of innocents for political purposes, then he should not be the only
> person in the dock. Sweeney would do well to reflect on the old adage
> regarding people who live in glass houses and the throwing of stones.
>



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