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Re: [casi] BBC article on OFF



Dear Peter

The way you are using the word 'historical' here implies 'merely'.
History and its uses are not trivial, even in minor bits of BBC
journalism. What the article does is reconstruct the truth about the
sanctions in a way that whitewashes the sanctions. If this happens,
then the story about the benign motives for the war and the occupation
becomes more plausible. And challenging untruths about the nature of
the UN sanctions is not the same them as 'defending the virtues of the
Iraqi government'! That is a piece of rhetoric which was used against
anti-sanctions campaigners and I am surprised to see you using it now.

I also don't know who the 'we' is in your point about concentrating
attention on immediate humanitarian issues.

Best wishes

Eric


On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 09:26:26 +0000 Peter Brooke <pbrooke@ukonline.co.uk>
wrote:
> Well, I suppose there is quite a lot to complain about but most of the
> points are historical - a matter of defending the virtues of the Iraqi
> government against the depredations of the UN - and we are always being told
> that we should concentrate our attention on immediate humanitarian issues.
> The humanitarian issue here is whether or not the Coalition Provisional
> Authority will continue the scheme unchanged. So far as I can see CASI has
> already supported the principle of the changeover (by welcoming the end to
> sanctions) and doesn't yet have a clear picture of what the practical
> consequences of the changeover are likely to be.
>
> Peter
>

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