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| quote: | OK we (the U.S.) went to war with Iraq in the early 1990's and sadley all those innocent Iraq civilians died due to the war....but for arguements sake....if the U.S. overthrew Hussein at that point would alot of those deaths, post war, been avoided?...
What i am asking is....did Hussein not help his people after the war with aid... |
The US government is keen on arguing that it is Saddam's fault that the people are starving in Iraq at the moment, yet that just isn't true. While I'm sure that he take more than his fair share (if he dispersed his wealth to his citizens I'm sure the situation would improve slightly) you have to understand that even if he were the most philanthropic person in the world, Iraq just does not have the means to feed its own people. I'm not sure if you clicked on all the links I posted the other day, but this is the state of the Iraqi "economy" at the moment:
http://i-cias.com/e.o/iraq_2.htm
With 60% unemployment, how can the Iraqi people possibly hope to feed themselves, or provide themselves with medicine and other essential things? More people than not are dependant on aid from the United Nations for food and medicine. It would be easy to blame Saddam Hussein for these travesties, but it must be remembered that prior to sanctions, Iraq was - by Arabic standards - quite a well off country. It was secular and relatively westernised, with a solid economy (largely dependant on oil of course). The Iraqi people were well fed before sanctions, remember, so the argument "Saddam likes to deliberately starve his own people" doesn't have a lot of merit. Take a look at some of the comments from this site:
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pag...lity_print.html
| quote: | | The US State Department frequently alleges that Iraq appears to be warehousing and stockpiling medicines, with malicious intent. Yet United Nations which heavily monitors the warehousing of medicines contradicts this view. Tun Myat, the humanitarian coordinator and head of the UN’s "oil-for-food" program in Baghdad from 2000—2002, praised Iraqi distribution of essential goods. He told the New York Times, "I think the Iraqi food-distribution system is probably second to none that you’ll find anywhere in the world. It gets to everybody whom it’s supposed to get to in the country." |
| quote: | After allocations are taken out of Iraq’s oil revenues to finance Gulf War reparations, UN administrative costs, and other mandated expenses, the amount of money from the oil-for-food program that trickles down to the average person in Iraq is completely insufficient. Prior to May 2002, "[T]he total value of all food, medicines, education, sanitation, agricultural and infrastructure supplies that have arrived in Iraq has amounted to $175 per person a year, or less than 49 cents a day," according to von Sponeck.
Iraq cannot afford to rebuild its infrastructure under the oil-for-food program or under the new provisions of so-called smart sanctions. Water sanitation facilities, electrical grids, communication lines, and educational resources will remain permanently degraded until the sanctions are lifted. |
| quote: | In the years before the oil-for-food program began, it is important to recall that the Iraqi government was distributing food to its civilian population. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in 1995 of the Iraqi rationing system that began in September 1990: "The food basket supplied through the rationing system is a life-saving nutritional benefit which also represents a very substantial income subsidy to Iraqi households."
Iraq is pumping almost as much oil today as it did before the Gulf War, but is making less money because of the change in oil prices and the dramatic rise of inflation since 1990. When one considers that three Iraqi dinars could buy $1 in 1990, and today it takes more than 2,000 dinars, the difference in purchasing power between 1990 and today is significant. While Iraq is permitted to sell as much oil as it can pump, these funds are not at the discretion of Saddam Hussein, but are kept in a UN escrow account with the Bank of Paris in New York City. |
I think it's quite clear that it is wrong for the US and the UK to blame the current state of Iraq on Saddam Hussein.
But would the situation be any better if Saddam Hussein had been toppled? Almost impossible to say. It depends on the nature of the person who would have replaced him (may have been more humanitarian, may have been less) and on whether the sanctions would have still been placed on Iraq. As I have addressed earlier on the comment "did Hussein not help his people after the war with aid", there really has been very little that Saddam Hussein could do to help the plight of the Iraqi people short of abdicating, going into exile and eventually being murdered. Whether his successor would have been better for the Iraqi people depends entirely on whether the UN would have still placed sanctions on Iraq.
| quote: | | and the burning of the oil feilds that he is suspected of doing caused manymore deaths...but that can not be the fault of the U.S. can it?...since Hussein started those fires which caused major agricultural problems..... |
I'm not sure about the agricultural fires (I don't think even Saddam Hussein would be stupid enough to set fire to his own crops) but the oil-field fires were in Kuwait, not Iraq. Just out of interest there is a chance that, in the case of a US-led invasion, Hussein will burn down his own oil-fields to prevent immediate US access to them (the US are dependant on the oil-fields to fund the invasion - see Vesa's topic) but, like I said, the fires were in Kuwait not Iraq (which doesn't excuse him, I'm merely saying).
http://www.msnbc.com/news/866069.asp
| quote: | | If the U.S. took over Iraq and had established a better government in the early 90's and Hussein was gone...would many of those civilian deaths ended...what do you think? |
Once again, it's impossible to say. We don't know whether the replacement would have been any better than Saddam, whether the UN would still inflict sanctions or not, or whether there would have been international aid in rebuilding the infrastructure destroyed in the Gulf War. These are all factors in determining just how well off the average Iraqi would be, and it's difficult to accurately answer any of them.
| quote: | | i am still reading though...and if you could post some links (if you have them) to places where i can read more about reasons why the U.S. should NOT go to war and why Hussein should REMAIN in power..i would really be interested in reading them.....i mean you do agree Hussein needs to be removed...maybe not with a war but in some way or another..or do you disagree..?? |
I can't be bothered trawling through all the sites I've linked to over the past couple of months, nor can I be bothered searching for them again in Google, but this is a pretty good place to start:
http://www.moveon.org/infoiraq.html
Lots of links.
| quote: | | I mean I think we all agree that the Iraq people are being oppressed….why are you against the U.S. freeing them?… |
For two main reasons:
1) I do not believe that the US government will have the interests of the Iraqi people at heart when it chooses Iraqs next government (again, see Vesa's thread).
2) The huge amount of civilian deaths that will result from the war directly, and then also from the aftermath of war (due to further destruction of infrastructure, crops, oil-fields etc.).
I believe that the plight of the Iraqi people is desperate, but that this war will only compound their problems. If the US had any interest in helping the Iraqi people, they need only press for the lifting (or loosening) of UN sanctions, and you'd be saving the lives of thousands of Iraqis every week.
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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Iraq questions regrading Gulf War 1 (attn Renegade)
