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Dear Bert The piece of text of mine stated 'the human cost of the sanctions has been instrumental in the pursuit of policy objectives, anticipated, known, a product of actions rather than omissions, avoidable, subject only to limited remedial action and that remedial action has not clearly been motivated primarily by a desire to avoid that human cost.' Straightforwardly accurate and hardly naive. It would be simply stupid to label a document about human costs of a policy as lacking attention to human costs. I did not do this. You plucked that out from a large piece of text written for more general purposes. The quote about degradation expected in six months fits neatly with my point that this was a document specifically about sanctions not about bombing. And as I pointed out before, bombing effects do not prove targeting. That requires additional evidence. Eric On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 14:12:33 +0000 Bert Gedin <gedinbert@hotmail.com> wrote: > > Dear Eric & List, > > Firstly, thanks for directing us to the site of the original document, > 'Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities'. However, had I not known that you > were a respected academic, I would have considered your opinions, on this > issue, somewhat naive. It certainly seems you are, so to speak, > barking up the wrong tree, on this one. No, as you say, there is no mention > of "bombing". The document was published, as I understand it, in > the first days of the Gulf War. You know, of course, that "collateral > damage" means killing civilians. Military language, if anyone needs > reminding, is often coded, using clandestine expressions, or even slang. > We, surely, must try to understand the words, yes, but also the spirit > of any message. Here are a few examples from the military document: "Iraq's > overall water treatment will suffer a slow decline...it probably will take > at least six months (to June 1991) before the system is fully degraded" > "Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable." > Very crucially, the last sentence, in this, very lengthy, document, > re-iterates: "Full degradation of the water treatment system probably will > take at least another six months." If you really believe there is "a sheer > lack of attention to that human cost" etc. then, sorry, but we will have to > differ. My own belief is that this was part of a callously pre-concieved > plan. Within the context, let's direct ourselves to whom the File was from: > "DIA WASHINGTON DC"=US Defense Intelligence Agency. > Via "NMIST NET"=National Military Support Team. To: "CENTCOM"= US Central > Command. There are, but that may be another topic, further military acronyms > in the document. Perhaps, in Dylan's words, "The answer, my friend, is > blowin' in the wind", in asking this: Should we, > in considering whether, or not, destruction of Iraq's water systems > was deliberate policy give US/UK military establishments the benefit of > the doubt? No prizes for guessing my answer! > > Greetings, > Bert G. > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Worried what your kids see online? Protect them better with MSN 8 > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/parental&pgmarket=en-gb&XAPID=186&DI=1059 > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > ---------------------- Dr. Eric Herring Department of Politics University of Bristol 10 Priory Road Bristol BS8 1TU England, UK Office tel. +44-(0)117-928-8582 Mobile tel. +44-(0)7771-966608 Fax +44-(0)117-973-2133 eric.herring@bristol.ac.uk http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Politics http://www.ericherring.com/ Join the Network of Activist Scholars of Politics and International Relations (NASPIR)! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naspir/ _______________________________________________ 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