Please don't forget Nadia, Saudis and Kuwaitis needed Uncle Sam's help for protection; and above all security of 'Black Gold' from Saddam.
United States will keep on goin' with this argument. We helped you in Gulf War 91. It's time for payback.
Ahmedjee, not only United States, I'd say everyone has got 'double standards'. Thing is: United States knows, how to play that card.
From HRW](Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: Kuwait: Human Rights Developments)
Human Rights Developments
In the aftermath of the 1990-1991 Iraqi occupation, Kuwaiti officials promised major human rights improvements. Almost ten years later, enduring violations far outweighed incremental improvements. Kuwait’s ratification of five major human rights treaties had not been accompanied by significant changes in law or practice. The government had still not investigated or punished those responsible for hundreds of cases of extrajudicial execution, torture and “disappearance” in custody, which took place during the February to June 1991 post-liberation martial law period. Forty-two persons remained in prison serving sentences imposed after grossly unfair martial law court trials."
Fact is Kuwait is one of the biggest violators of Human Rights in the Middle East.. and the regime was re-installed to power courtesy of the Bush Administration.
DHP bhai,
Fair & good! And I don't doubt the HRD report. But how does that answer any of my questions?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
Depends upon the definition of liberation.
Kuwaiti women might disagree.
[/QUOTE]
oh plzzzzzzzz women in Kuwaiti are full of themselves, I just HATE feminist. What do the Kuwaiti women or any other women for that matter want? I think "feminist" have gone tooooo fare. It's either a "man's world" or a "women's world" gosh.
anyhow, sorry if I went off the topic here :)
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Pakistani Tiger: *
Please don't forget **Nadia,* Saudis and Kuwaitis needed Uncle Sam's help for protection; and above all security of 'Black Gold' from Saddam.
United States will keep on goin' with this argument. We helped you in Gulf War 91. It's time for payback.
Ahmedjee, not only United States, I'd say everyone has got 'double standards'. Thing is: United States knows, how to play that card.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with you everyone has got double standards, hell we need a war
against the whole Arab leaders, not only Saddam.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ahmadjee: *
DHP bhai,
Fair & good! And I don't doubt the HRD report. But how does that answer any of my questions?
[/QUOTE]
ahmadjee, my reply was in relation to PT's post ..
AhmadJee, First i apologize for making judgements against you. i realize that seriously takes away from any serious discussion.
Sorry.
i can't answer for why people had Saddam's posters on their prayer mats. i can say, that that is not reflective of the anti-war movement in North America - of which i have been a part for over three years and counting. Most of us are middle-class Canadians or Americans, just regular people, not extremists. In the same manner that i have met racist individuals in my personal life who take no pains to express their loathing of all Arabs, i have also met individuals who express their respect for Saddam. In both cases whether one is a racist American against all Arabs, or an Arab who has Saddam posters in her/his prayer mat, it's a result, i guess, of the particular environments and politico-cultural/media exposures we receive throughout childhood.
>>What I want to know is what do the War Protesters have in mind to do about Iraq?<<
To let the people of that country determine the future of their own country. Is that not a right we Pakistanis like to reserve for ourselves; IMHO it is a fundamental human right: no more, no less, but the right to determine your own fate. We are not Iraqis, we are not Americans, we are not Nigerians, we are just Pakistanis - let us worry about the political fate of our country just as Americans had to deal with the election miscounts in Florida, let each citizen deal with her/his own government in the absence of external political interference. To have control of your own fate is a fundamental human right.
Potentially, a counter-response might be that 'but he is a monster, we have seen him use CW against his own people'. In my city, a few years ago, a UN official came. His supervisor was Kofi Annan, he had supervised the entire 'oil-for-food' programme from Baghdad. He's a Quaker Irish, very no-nonsense type of man. He had served as a UN official for over three decades. i am certain you have heard his name here on this board - Denis Halliday, nominated a few years ago for nothing less than the Nobel Peace Prize. He was going towards a seminar, focus was what should be Canada's foreign policy vis-a-vis Iraq. On the way to the conference, he stated that if (or when) someone raised the 'but Saddam is a demon so we must do something against him' issue, he would have to bring up the fact that ** like it or not ** Saddam has killed far less of his "own" people than the US and the UK have killed Iraqis. If you want to discuss the role of sanctions, we can do that in another thread but i think it has been rehashed a 1000x on this forum, and unfortunately without much success.
Halliday decided to resign in 1998. Not because he was disgusted that Saddam was such a monster, not because Saddam wasn't complying; what forced his hand was the role of the US in sustaining a punishing trade embargo against an innocent civilian populace while doing nothing - simultaneously - to reduce Hussein's grip on power. Halliday's successor, incidentally, was the German diplomat Hans von Sponeck, whose father (also a then-diplomat) was executed by one of Hitler's firing squads for refusing to be subservient to Hitler's policies. Sponeck also followed Halliday in resigning in protest against the sanctions, arguing that they have actually entrenched Hussein's power rather than reduced it. Those who oppose Saddam do not do so out of being naive, out of wanting to love dictators. Pure and simple - the sanctions are the main problem, not Saddam. Over time, the trade embargo - sustained by the US, UK, and other administrations - have claimed far, far more innocent childrens' lives than Saddam ever did. And that is the problem.
Who is organizing these protests?
Nadia, Thank you for your views ... but as I suspected you went the traditional trail of blaming the US/Sanctions for all the evils. But that was not the question I asked.
You like most others want the sanctions lifted. Fine, good, I am all for it! But IMO this is no solution for Iraqi people who are in that "hard place" for a very long time and the international community (all of us included) haven't done jack cos we simply don't care!
Just like most "War Protesters" the protest is only against the US, not against Saddam. All these War protesters care less how brutal Saddam maybe, they only raise voice when US goes wrong. And that's where mine & their core principle on being a "War Protest" clashes.
Tomorrow if US decides to bomb Israel (and in the way may kill many innocent civilian Palestinians and Israelis), I doubt you will see any of these Iraqi war protesters taking up banners to stop that war. Just like when the US bombed Kosovo & sacked Milosevic, I hardly saw a protest by the very same people who invite me to join them today.
Also in Oxford there was one, they gave me a leaflet...I didnt attend.
Ahmadjee, almost everyone despises Sadam.. but at the end of the day why should people support a war which in reality is a personal crusade on the part of Mr.Bush to remove Sadam and take over Iraqs vast oil reserves.. thereby alleviating the Oil shortages within the US market.. Analysts have stated that there has never been such a large organised peace protest against war since the Vietnam crisis.. I find your statement that people did not protest in other conflicts as null. There are times when conflict is necessary.. incidentally during the kosovan crisis most of the world witnessed the Serbs carrying out ethnic cleansing against Albanians and also the reluctance of the serbian authorities to stop the atrocities, hence most people supported war against the serbs.
Coming back to the Iraq issue, people are very much aware of the facts, they are aware that over 1.7 Million Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions, they are aware that thousands of Iraqi children are suffering from cancer attributable to the radiation from DU shells, they are aware that during operation desert storm, thousands of Iraqis were incinerated to death on the Highway leading from Kuwait to Basra, they are aware that hundreds of Iraqi women and children were burnt to death in a missile attack on the Al-Amarya shelter, they are aware that 100's of thousands of Iraqis, Iranians & Kurds have died in previous wars partially as a result of a certain Super Powers foreign policies ... thats the big difference between the Iraq crisis and others in the past.
AhmadJee,
Do you believe that the civilians of every country should possess the inalienable right to determine their own fate?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Imdad Ali: *
Who is organizing these protests?
[/QUOTE]
Expecting a name like Muhammad Khan?
Just two of the dozens of orgs. involved; the rest are also easily located on the internet:
imdad, What you should be asking is who is taking part in these Anti-war demonstrations..
Ex-Military personnel
Ex-UN officials
Politicians
Doctors
Nurses
Lawyers
Teachers
Civil Servants
IT Professionals
Office Workers
Housewives
Mothers
Students
Pacifists
Religious Clergy
Catholics
Protestants
Muslims
Hindus
Bhuddists
In fact much of middle America is against the war.
**BHP **bhai, the evidence against Molosevic is as concrete & have the same sources (western intelligence) as the evidence against Saddam having WMD. It's one's own biasness that sways the vote on what he or she will consider believable and what not.
Dear Nadia, citizens of all nations have the right to do what they want to do with their government but who says Iraqis chose Saddam? If you are referring to the last referendum he did where he got 100% of the vote then you probably think that Mushraff is in office with the will of 98% of Pakistanis and that Saudis love the Royals & Egypians would give their life for Mubarak.
The whole essence of this thread is that these War Protests are mostly focus groups with different agendas trying to get the voice out together under a banner which the world is interested to listen to & will make big news. The idealistic view of War being barbaric & the fact that with everyone having weapons that can kill millions in an instance, therefore war should be outlawed, is a view held by very few out in the streets. It's mostly either the Anti-American, pro-Saddam, Anti-Western & Anti-Oil-Hungry-Republicans sentiment is what's driving the Anti-War movement! If you are mistaken by the view that they care a bit about the Iraqi people then all these demonstrators would come out in the streets to protest against Saddam as well! If you believe that the good of the Iraqi people is in their hearts, you should go ask them where they were during the bloody Iran-Iraq war?
This coming war that day by day seems to be inevitable will only hurt the Iraqi civilians directly under attack & the common Americans who will sacrifice for their smoking gun government, if not immediately then maybe after a few years down the road.
If sanctions is the only battle that you wish to fight than you should all be for this war. No matter how corrupt, how cruel the new regime in post-war-Iraq maybe, it will bound to have all the recourses & help from the UN and within a few days all the sanctions will be reverted. This is the quickest way for your salvation.
Here is a suggestion, why not come on the streets & voice the opinion of "Down with Saddam". How about pressuring it's neighbors like Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia to put pressure on Saddam to step down & get a UN resolution to have free and fare elections in Iraq under UN peace keeping forces? Surely when Saddam will see the whole world after him, he will eventually lose his hope. With Saddam gone along with the sanctions, the Iraqi people will not be in such a hard place & their won't be a rock. Haa, a far fetch laughable dream!!!
Maybe I have talked to too many of these protesters & heard the wrong people voice the Anti-War speeches that I am totally disheartened by the whole issue. At times these new kind of hippies seem to have as many double standards as the people they are protesting aganist.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Dil he Pakistani: *
imdad, What you should be asking is who is taking part in these Anti-war demonstrations..
Ex-Military personnel
Ex-UN officials
Politicians
Doctors
Nurses
Lawyers
Teachers
Civil Servants
IT Professionals
Office Workers
Housewives
Mothers
Students
Pacifists
Religious Clergy
Catholics
Protestants
Muslims
Hindus
Bhuddists
In fact much of middle America is against the war.
[/QUOTE]
If dubya wins the next elections, that would mean much of the middle america was infact in favor of war...
Theres a long way to go until the next election.. history shows Bush senior was riding sky high in the polls but after the war with Iraq, he lost the election to Clinton because middle America had rejected his policies.. so one can compare the two situations and come to the conclusion that time is against Bush Junior..
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Spock: *
If dubya wins the next elections, that would mean much of the middle america was infact in favor of war...
[/QUOTE]
u think polling isn't rigged?? u think Bush actually could have won his way into the White House fair and square??
No, I want to know which organization came up with the idea and well orgainzed and funded everything. I think this information should be public by now, right?
Thank you.