The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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In a message dated 9/22/2003 8:58:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, smitra@zonnet.nl writes: > Already many countries have said No to the US. > > The US hasn't got the UN resolution on post war Iraq it > wants. > > No one is going to pay the 85 billion dollar bill on behalf > of the US. Better than nothing but not the consistently spoken NO that is necessary. Diplomacy is great, but at some point the verbal dance must end. The US can pay the 85 billion dollar bill, plus have more than enough left over to pay bribes to nations around the world for various concessions. The American people and the Congress are responsible for holding the Bush Administration accountable for that bill. However, many of the things for which the US is criticized were and are only possible with a lot of passive and/or active collaborators. The system which the US uses to cause harm across the world was in place long before the US even became a country. It is the same system that France uses to manage the Francophonie, that England uses to manage the Commonwealth. There is less battle between such Western powers about the system of exploitation itself than there is about "Old Europe" being bitter that it is being displaced at the top of the heap by its "New World" child, the US. The US is following in its parent's footsteps. There is no shortage of hypocrisy among various groups of people angry about the US, but benefiting from the same post-colonial system of their own nations in their own ways. If the US, like the European nations that as long ago as the partition of Africa learned to not to fight but to share the spoils of 'conquest', shared the benefits of its power rather than lorded them over the other Western nations, there would be far less outcry about its behavior. Both from the governments and from the people of those nations. Such nations and peoples were so used to their own dominance that they have forgotten how they got it, how they keep it and simply bask in the glow that it 'is.' The US upsets that image. And what of the "Middle East?" So many Arab nations play the game of complaining along with their populations about the US favoritism towards Israel, yet they make sure to line up for the payoffs and back-room negotiations that give wide-berth to US troops stationed through the region for not just the attack on Iraq, but for the simple display of military power. The NO must come not only to the US - but to the Western Nations in whose footsteps it follows. N _______________________________________________ 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