The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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Dear Zaid and list members, I must commend Zaid on his perseverance and consistent pursue of the truth. John Sweeney is not the exception; rather the norm. In over 20 years living in the west, I have come across the same problem, of dealing with imbeciles and ignoramuses. The westerner, on average, is ignorant of issues of Middle East and Arab politics. I say on average, even though sometimes this ignorance is expressed by politicians in the highest positions. The Iraq case is a good example. Sweeney’s lies are not the first, nor will they be the last. The incubator case was orchestrated by the world’s leading “democracy”, and believed by the other western “democracies” who advocate truth and accuse Iraq of lying. Sweeney only continues the trend. In 1991, one editor of a British daily said in a TV interview. “Western civilization is superior. We are always right!....”. That seems to be the starting point for Sweeney and the rest of the gang. It is quite clear that Sweeney has no idea, at all, about sanctions or the subject he is tackling. He is paid to do a job, and he does it to the best of his ability. When he says:” A pipe carries liquid. If Iraq can move oil, it can move clean water”, I don’t honestly know whether to laugh or cry. To start with, oil pipelines have been there for decades. They were not laid down now. In addition to that, a drinking water system needs pipes, purification stations, pumps stations, and tremendous work inside cities. It also needs the chemicals needed for the sterilization process, something the sanctions committee refuses to allow Iraq to buy. In order to 2move clean water”, you must first “clean the water”, then move it… For example, Risafa in Baghdad suffers from huge shortages of water. Unless the UN allows Iraq to build a new water network and locates money for it, Iraq can not buy the pipes and equipment needed for this project. And that project would take some 10 years to finish. On medicine, Sweeney shows worse ignorance. The UN sanctions committee has to approve every single purchase, be that medicines or food. At the beginning of the work of the committee in 1991, its chairman (Finland’s Ambassador) publicly announced that Iraq should not be allowed even to buy medicines, because it can make chemical weapons from it. She later apologized, blaming “experts” at the UN for giving her such an advice. It seems natural to assume that those “experts” are some of Scott Ritter’s former colleagues… And so Iraq was prevented from importing anaesthetics, because according to the Sanctions Committee, they are not medicines. So some Iraqis underwent operations without anaesthesia. My nephew is an eye surgeon, who told me stories of operations he had performed without anaesthesia. Would Sweeney accept it if his child would have tonsillectomy, or his wife would have a C-sections without anaesthesia? Then when calculating Iraq’s income, a major factor is forgotten. Of the whole sum, 30% goes to reparations, and 13% go to the Northern area (with a cash factor involved). That leaves Iraq only 57% of the income, under the control of the UN Sanctions Committee. So of course, officials at the Un and the Iraq program would love the sanctions to continue. They will continue to enjoy the good life in New York, the status, and the travels and money. Yuri Vorontsov would otherwise be unemployed, having been retired by Russia…. Sweeney advises Zaid to go to Iraq. Has Sweeney himself gone to Iraq, walked the streets, seen what his criminal government has done to the people, before he made his miserable program? Or has he just relied on a word from some mysterious perosn, who had heard it from some taxi driver, who has heard it.... Is that the investigative journalism we hear so much about? Does Sweeney even read European papers to see what they say about the US and the UK?? And if we accept Sweeney’s conviction that the Iraqi propaganda is not to be believed, why would we believe his BBC or the CNN or any Western media outlet? Have we forgotten the incubators case, the Anthrax case, the terrorism link (Atta and Iraqi agents), the discovery of Atta’s passport in the middle of the debris at the WTC site, that Iraq threw UNSCOM out in 1998, and the long list of lies and fabrications propagated by the BBC and the likes of Sweeney? If this shows anything, it shows how miserable the British media must feel to revert to open lies and fabrications. They know the moral war is lost, so there is nothing more to loose. After all, Blair can not leave Uncle Dubya alone, can he?? Greetings HZ _________________________________________________________ Share your artistic, creative and literary work on My Corner with many, many others! http://www.maktoob.com/ _______________________________________________ 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