BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

[SezMe]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

The invasion and conquest of Iraq has caused, and will continue to cause, a huge but finite amount of death and suffering to innocent people. So did the sanctions before it.

My italicized emphasis.

I gotta disagree with you here, Kevin. The sanctions themselves did not cause death and destruction. That Hussain was able to misuse the oil-for-food funds, was able to bribe and cheat other nations and other players, and was allowed to do this by the UN, the USA, and European nations all lead to the mayhem.

Let's be absolutely clear here. Hussain was the bad guy. But he had helpers in high places. Theoretically, the sanctions could have worked. In the real world, they didn't achieve their goals. Thought I would NEVER quote Falwell, but, to paraphrase, "blame the players, love the sanctions."

ETA: The quote from Kevin is a snippet from a larger post but I do not think my "snipping" caused any mischaracterization of his post.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

My italicized emphasis.

I gotta disagree with you here, Kevin. The sanctions themselves did not cause death and destruction. That Hussain was able to misuse the oil-for-food funds, was able to bribe and cheat other nations and other players, and was allowed to do this by the UN, the USA, and European nations all lead to the mayhem.

Well, that and the USA specifically stopping Iraq from importing life-saving medical equipment, materials necessary to repair the water purification plants that were bombed by the USA during the war (a bit of a Geneva Convention no-no, destroying civilian water supplies) and so forth.

Apologists for the sanctions programme like to put it about that Hussein was at liberty to spend the oil money on whatever his little heart desired, and only the fact that he was a villain stopped him rebuilding his nation's civilian infrastructure. Nope. Items were permitted or forbidden on a case by case basis, and the products necessary to keep the children of Iraq from dying at a monstrous rate were denied to Iraq despite requests for them.

The USA destroyed the basic means of supporting civilised life in Iraq, which was a war crime in the first place, and then prevented Hussein from rebuilding them. That makes them directly culpable for the staggering death rate amonst innocent Iraqis during the decade or so of sanctions.

That's okay though: Albright, if I recall correctly, is on record as saying that the deaths of a million or so innocents, mostly children, were worth it.

(Homework for BPSCG: Write a post explaining the problems raised by asking Albright, "Worth it for who?").

 

[RandFan]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

Suppose an American woman is forced to watch their husband being executed by the federal government, despite the fact that he is innocent. (In our hypothetical the US federal government is really evil). If that woman had to put a finger on how many deaths of innocent US civilians would be "worth it" to overthrow the US government and turn the USA into an economic colony of an overseas power, what number do you think she would come up with?

Good hypothetical until you throw in the assumption that Iraq is being turned into an "economic colony" which in turn would mean that America must also be such. I think you could argue that the Iraqis certainly want the Americans gone and that they are concerned that we are in fact turning that country into our colony but you are assuming that this person who is witnessing her husband’s torture buys into that propaganda.

It is not proven that Iraq will be an American "economic colony". Whatever the hell that means. This is conspiracy theory with dots to connect. There are just as many dots that can be connected to show that America is run by a conspiracy of Jewish bankers.

It's funny that you point out the propaganda of the shredder but don't see your own acceptance of propaganda.

Do you have any evidence that Iraq is or will be an economic colony? And I mean something more that conspiracy-connect the dot stuff.

I don't know the answer, but I don't think you can assume that such a person would say "That sounds good, I'd certainly be happy if such a thing occurred and only one hundred thousand people were killed as a result". She might well even say, without being insane, "Are you kidding? My government is evil, but I don't want my country turned into a war-torn hellhole thank you very much, especially if you're going to loot the place afterwards".

Again, it could be a good hypothetical but you throw in an unwarranted assumption. We have dumped billions into Iraq and there is no proof that we are going to "loot" the place.

The invasion and conquest of Iraq has caused, and will continue to cause, a huge but finite amount of death and suffering to innocent people. So did the sanctions before it. However, the Hussein regime also caused a huge but finite amount of death and suffering.

Good, thank you.

If the new regime is more enlightened and also manages to keep the new nation of Iraq stable and peaceful (cynics may insert laughing dog smileys here if they wish) then the amount of death and suffering prevented could in theory end up being greater than the amount caused.

And if the Saddam regime had continued then the deaths, tortures, false imprisonment, etc. would have been greater. Correct?

That's the only sense of "worth it" that I can see as being objective enough to be useful.

The people of Iraq lived in a "fear society" where by they could not speak out or seek redress or control there own destiny. They could only suffer and wonder if there was an end to their misery.

If young men in America were disappearing into the night never to be seen again and If there were tortures, false imprisonments, maiming, mass murder by my leaders and I could not speak out for fear of death I would hope that there would be something to end the suffering. I would expect that such a change would require sacrifice of lives.

Watching the elections in Iraq I have little doubt that they believe it is worth it.

Freedom is not free but it is almost always worth the cost.

 

[RandFan]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

Apologists for the sanctions programme like to put it about that Hussein was at liberty to spend the oil money on whatever his little heart desired, and only the fact that he was a villain stopped him rebuilding his nation's civilian infrastructure. Nope. Items were permitted or forbidden on a case by case basis, and the products necessary to keep the children of Iraq from dying at a monstrous rate were denied to Iraq despite requests for them.

Citation please that products necassary to keep the childrend from dying were being denied.

By far and away more importantly.

Saddam sold oil on the black market. He built palaces. He had no problem acquiring the materials necessary to build them. He certainly could have fed his people and provided them medicine.

 

[crimresearch]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

Citation please that products necassary to keep the childrend from dying were being denied.

Might be talking about the water purifiers.

"Chanting "stop the sanctions now!" and carrying a water purifier that U.S. policy forbids being sent to Iraq, a few hundred people demonstrated outside the White House on Monday, and 104 were arrested after they sat on the sidewalk and refused to move."

http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/000807-whitehousedemo.htm

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq

Citation please that products necassary to keep the childrend from dying were being denied.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Human_Rights/KillingIraq.html

Among many others.

By far and away more importantly.

Saddam sold oil on the black market. He built palaces. He had no problem acquiring the materials necessary to build them. He certainly could have fed his people and provided them medicine.

You seem to be arguing that it is morally legitimate to use force to keep antibiotics from a dying child, because if the local dictator really wanted to he could get around the US sanctions to save that child. Isn't that a bit like Superman putting a gun to an innocent child's head and threatening to shoot the child unless Lex Luthor surrenders?

It would be a bit of a leap of logic even if the USA hadn't destroyed the water purification plants and power plants that would have kept the child healthy in the first place. Which, as I keep saying, is a war crime and one that (combined with sanctions) killed a million or more people.

I suppose if you really try you can point at Saddam Hussein and say "Look what he made me do!" for every instance of suffering in Iraq. Hussein made the US ambassador greenlight the invasion of Kuwait, Hussein made the USAF bomb civilian targets in Iraq into rubble, Hussein made the USA specifically prevent medical supplies getting to sick Iraqis, Hussein didn't do enough to subvert the sanctions, and so on. It wears thin, though. At some stage you have to start thinking that just maybe the US government might bear some moral responsibility for its actions.

[Edited to add: For justification for the "economic colony" remark, just scroll up to Demon's post about the little riders tacked on to the "handover" of power to the Iraqis. Imagine if you can your response to a foreign nation using force of arms to write such terms into the US constitution].

 

[crimresearch]

You seem to be arguing that it is morally legitimate to use force to keep antibiotics from a dying child, because if the local dictator really wanted to he could get around the US sanctions to save that child. Isn't that a bit like Superman putting a gun to an innocent child's head and threatening to shoot the child unless Lex Luthor surrenders?

Mmmmmm..more like using innocent human shields in front of tanks.

Saddam Hussein didn't invent the dodge of guilting outsiders because his children were starving in order to get humanitarian money and materials that could be used for other than their intended purposes.

So which is the 'morally superior' choice...to be an enabler of despots, and their misuse of such things, or to cut them off?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You seem to be arguing that it is morally legitimate to use force to keep antibiotics from a dying child, because if the local dictator really wanted to he could get around the US sanctions to save that child. Isn't that a bit like Superman putting a gun to an innocent child's head and threatening to shoot the child unless Lex Luthor surrenders?

Mmmmmm..more like using innocent human shields in front of tanks.

An equally acceptable analogy.

Saddam Hussein didn't invent the dodge of guilting outsiders because his children were starving in order to get humanitarian money and materials that could be used for other than their intended purposes.

A comfortingly unfalsifiable hypothesis, to be sure. I take it Saddam Hussein had an evil plan to make WMD-dispensing vans out of ambulances, stethoscopes and antibiotics?

A point of comparison, however: before the first Gulf War, Iraq was a relatively advanced nation with a relatively high standard of living for the region. With the same guy in charge, amazingly enough. Call it a controlled experiment, if you will. When we changed the "USAF bombing civilian targets and the USA embargoing medicine" variable, the experimental result was an extra million innocent deaths.

So which is the 'morally superior' choice...to be an enabler of despots, and their misuse of such things, or to cut them off?

Precisely what the Fanny Hill do you think Hussein would have been "enabled" to do with ambulances and antibiotics, crim? I shudder to think what it might have been, since it was worth the lives of half a million children. Was he going to build a fleet of nuclear missiles, perhaps?

 

[LW]

Abu Grhaib was wrong. It always amazed me though that some actually equate those actions with Saddam's.

Given a choice between suffering the same fate of those at Abu Grhaib and those under Saddam I would have gladly taken Abu Grahib.

First, I want to start by saying that I don't equate those actions with Saddam's.

However, I'm amazed when someone claims that what happened there was not torture. A rather large number of people have expressed the opinion that, for example, keeping someone awake for days is not torture.

In this specific case it might be interesting to note that the most famous witch-hunter of all times, Matthew Hopkins, obtained a large number of confessions from witches by just preventing them from sleeping. Ditto for NKVD (and later KGB). I don't know about the average American but if someone told me that people acting in the name of my country are using the same methods as witch-hunters and KGB, I would be quite a bit worried.

[Edited to add: I just found out that Hopkin's The Discovery of Witches is online at Project Gutenberg, so you can check it yourself for the sleeplessness bits.]

And when given your choice, would you choose the same way even if you ended with the few who were actually killed there?

 

[RandFan]

However, I'm amazed when someone claims that what happened there was not torture. A rather large number of people have expressed the opinion that, for example, keeping someone awake for days is not torture.

Keeping someone awake for days is torture. I'm not certain that is what happened at Abu Ghraib and is not a method employed by the US to obtain information. I can find lots of allegations but no hard evidence that your claim is correct. Do you have a citation?

The US does interfere with sleep, eating and bathroom schedules to make individuals uncomfortable and disoriented.

Interrogation is tough but not torture

For moral, legal and practical reasons, torture is wrong, government interrogation specialists say.

A tortured captive is "not only going to tell you he's al-Qaeda, he's going to tell you he was the other guy on the grassy knoll" in Dallas when John F. Kennedy was killed, says one intelligence source. "When you start using torture, it redefines who you are."

I don't know about the average American but if someone told me that people acting in the name of my country are using the same methods as witch-hunters and KGB, I would be quite a bit worried.

Assuming that is true I would agree with you.

FWIW: Such methods are almost useless. witch hunters and the KGB used such methods not to get the truth but to get false confessions.

Interrogation is tough but not torture

"If you violate the process by jumping in and rubber-hosing some SOB, you're going to get bad information 100% of the time," an intelligence official says.

That doesn't mean Mohammed will mistake his cell for a room at the Hilton. Intelligence officials say he may be given large quantities of water to help the sweat measurements work and possibly to cause a need to use a bathroom, a request that can be delayed.

Sleep deprivation is another key technique. Though doctrine for humane treatment specifies a prisoner be given eight hours of sleep, it does not have to be eight consecutive hours.

A captive in such a situation will most likely be placed in a windowless cell to eliminate any sense of day or night. A night-vision camera will be trained on the prisoner in his cell. Captors will wait until the prisoner has fallen into deep sleep, then wake him up. The goal is to create fatigue and a sense of disorientation that may help promote the flow of information.

It's also possible, sources say, that intelligence officials have scripted an interrogation protocol for Mohammed that relies on building rapport rather than causing him discomfort. Such a procedure, says Michael Nardotti, the Army's former judge advocate general, would take advantage of lessons learned by interrogating other captured al-Qaeda and Taliban members, including 650 held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And when given your choice, would you choose the same way even if you ended with the few who were actually killed there?

Given what I understand about Abu Ghraib or Saddam's methods I would gladly choose Abu Grhaib.

 

[LW]

Keeping someone awake for days is torture. I'm not certain that is what happened at Abu Ghraib and is not a method employed by the US to obtain information. I can find lots of allegations but no hard evidence that your claim is correct. Do you have a citation?

No, I don't, but luckily you gave one:

Sleep deprivation is another key technique.

So, now they don't keep the subject awake all the time, they only prevent him from actually getting any rest by waking him up as soon as he hits deep sleep. Big difference, indeed.

This is the same technique that got confessions from witches. It got confessions from "saboteurs and people's enemies". Those confessions were rubbish. Now you believe that the same method provides valuable intelligence because it is your guys who are doing it.

The US does interfere with sleep, eating and bathroom schedules to make individuals uncomfortable and disoriented.

And witch-hunters interfered with sleep schedules to make the witches confess.

FWIW: Such methods are almost useless. witch hunters and the KGB used such methods not to get the truth but to get false confessions.

Witch-hunters didn't try to get false confessions. They tended to believe in witches and though that they were getting real confessions. How sure are you that your guys will get good information from their subjects, and not false leads that they throw in hope of stopping the treatment?

Given what I understand about Abu Ghraib or Saddam's methods I would gladly choose Abu Grhaib.

I would far rather choose neither.

 

[RandFan]

No, I don't, but luckily you gave one:

Glad to be of service.

So, now they don't keep the subject awake all the time, they only prevent him from actually getting any rest by waking him up as soon as he hits deep sleep. Big difference, indeed.

All subjects are required to get 8 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period of time. Big difference.

This is the same technique that got confessions from witches. It got confessions from "saboteurs and people's enemies". Those confessions were rubbish. Now you believe that the same method provides valuable intelligence because it is your guys who are doing it.

First, It is demonstrably not the same technique. As I understand the techniques outlined in my link are very effective.

And witch-hunters interfered with sleep schedules to make the witches confess.

If what you said is true they kept them awake for days. This is not the same thing.

Witch-hunters didn't try to get false confessions. They tended to believe in witches and though that they were getting real confessions. How sure are you that your guys will get good information from their subjects, and not false leads that they throw in hope of stopping the treatment?

As I understand the information is checked and rated for effectiveness. For example, intelligence was gathered to help capture Al-Qaeda leaders and find documents through these techniques. The leaders and the documents were where those interrogated said they were.

Also, there is a technique. I realize that you are quite emotional about this and unlikely to look at the methods in a rational way but it is something that has been studied and there are measures in place to avoid false confessions.

The interrogation is likely to include questions on:

• Known details to try to determine whether Mohammed is telling the truth.
  
• Subjects that can be confirmed through technical means.

I would far rather choose neither.

Sure, who wouldn't. But if you had no choice what would you choose?

Look, if the methods are truly ineffective then I will gladly join you in speaking out against them. However, if the methods don't violate international law and if they are effective then I say we should use them.

Question: If the methods are effective would you support them?

FWIW Abu Ghraib did violate the law and the Army's rules. It still was no where near the sadistic methods of Saddam.

 

[crimresearch]

I take it Saddam Hussein had an evil plan to make WMD-dispensing vans out of ambulances, stethoscopes and antibiotics?

...Precisely what the Fanny Hill do you think Hussein would have been "enabled" to do with ambulances and antibiotics, crim? I shudder to think what it might have been, since it was worth the lives of half a million children. Was he going to build a fleet of nuclear missiles, perhaps?


It is always tempting in the face of such extreme naivete to assume that the person expressing it is to blame for not knowing better, particularly for those of us who have actually been out in the real world, and seen that it doesn't function like a TV show.

Lately I've taken the attitude that it is a sickness, and try not to blame the individual.

In Kevin's case, I know from past experience that attempting to show him factually how reality works ( i.e. that despots like Hussein, or Amin, et al., sell the ambulances and medicine on the black market to warlords and others, for money to further oppress their own people) is only going to trigger the usual name calling antics, so I won't bother.

Go back to suckling on the glass teats Kevin, let the rest of us worry about the real world.

 

[LW]

All subjects are required to get 8 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period of time. Big difference.

I don't know exactly what the "doctrine for humane treatment" is. But I'm pretty certain that sleep deprivation is against the spirit of, even if your guys found a loophole in the text. Sleep deprivation is not humane treatment. I've never been impressed either in people violating the text of law while claiming that they are following its spirit, or in people who violate the spirit of law while claiming to follow its text.

I'm not sure which document is the "doctrine for humane treatment" but if it has something to do with Geneva convention (and I suspect that two or three posters will very quickly point out to me several reasons why it doesn't), then it contains lines like:

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.

Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour.

Prisoners of war shall be quartered under conditions as favourable as those for the forces of the Detaining Power who are billeted in the same area.

Prisoners of war shall have for their use, day and night, conveniences which conform to the rules of hygiene and are maintained in a constant state of cleanliness.

Prisoners of war shall enjoy complete latitude in the exercise of their religious duties, including attendance at the service of their faith, on condition that they comply with the disciplinary routine prescribed by the military authorities.

They shall be allowed in addition a rest of twenty-four consecutive hours every week, preferably on Sunday or the day of rest in their country of origin.

First, It is demonstrably not the same technique. As I understand the techniques outlined in my link are very effective.

It is the same technique. It has been used for ages. Prevent the subject from sleeping to get something out from him. If he happens to have real knowledge, he may tell it (or not, even KGB failed to crack some prisoners). If he doesn't have, he will lie and tell what the interrogators want to hear.

I realize that you are quite emotional about this and unlikely to look at the methods in a rational way but it is something that has been studied and there are measures in place to avoid false confessions.

Actually, I am surprisingly unemotial about this. I have read very much history and know that no matter what the good intentions are, wars are nasty business and bad stuff happen in them. However, I do get annoyed when someone tries to justify the bad stuff claiming that it is actually good stuff.

However, if the methods don't violate international law and if they are effective then I say we should use them.

They do violate. See the above quotes from Geneva convention.

Question: If the methods are effective would you support them?

I don't support them. The methods get people to talk and you get both good and bad information that way. It depends on the actual implementation if you get more good than bad. I'm not convinced that you are succeeding. (You may be or may not, I don't have enough information to know and thinking of the track record of sleep deprivation and friends I'm not too optimistic about that).

Now, I understand that you folks want to skip over niceties like humane treatment in an effort get your enemies. However, don't be surprised if you one day find out that other people don't anymore think that it is a battle between good and bad but instead think it as of bad and worse.

If you want to be the Good Guy, you have to behave as one. If you don't, you don't have to expect that others treat you so. I'm perfectly aware that in real world politics there have been very few genuinely good sides even though most folks like to believe that their side is one of those.

 

[crimresearch]

Actually, I am surprisingly unemotial about this. I have read very much history and know that no matter what the good intentions are, wars are nasty business and bad stuff happen in them. However, I do get annoyed when someone tries to justify the bad stuff claiming that it is actually good stuff.

Amen...

However, there always seems to be a new low that is so horrific that it is tempting to draw a line between it and other bad things.

And IMHO, the label of 'Torture' should be reserved for things that are on the the mutilation, maiming, and beheading side of the line, not on the sleep deprivation, wearing thongs side.

 

[LW]

And IMHO, the label of 'Torture' should be reserved for things that are on the the mutilation, maiming, and beheading side of the line, not on the sleep deprivation, wearing thongs side.

After reading some memoirs of people who went through NKVD interrogation (for example, Lauri Pekuri and Unto Parvilahti), I've come to the conclusion that sleep deprivation is on the 'torture' side.

 

[crimresearch]

Sleep deprivation, like many things, can be extended to the level of torture, but that doesn't make *every* case of it torture...and the cases under discussion were not the extreme ones.

 

[SezMe]

I take it Saddam Hussein had an evil plan to make WMD-dispensing vans out of ambulances, stethoscopes and antibiotics?

...

In Kevin's case, I know from past experience that attempting to show him factually how reality works ( i.e. that despots like Hussein, or Amin, et al., sell the ambulances and medicine on the black market to warlords and others, for money to further oppress their own people) is only going to trigger the usual name calling antics, so I won't bother.

There is a black market for ambulances, antibiotics, etc.? Really? And the buyers are "warlords" who, of course, are widely known for their care and treatment of the indigent under their rule? And this would have been a significant source of income for Hussein?

crimresearch, this assertion leaves me in a huge state of doubt. Got evidence?

 

[crimresearch]

Yes, I do have evidence that medicine and medical supplies can be converted to cash.

And if you *wanted* to investigate the real world instead of indulging your fantasies, you could have it too.

But since what you want is for reality to conform to your glass teat induced fantasies, I doubt if the facts are going to impress you at all.


"The emergency that Iraq's hospitals face is partly due to years of sanctions. War exacerbated the effects. Mismanagement played its part too.
Doctors say senior managers stole drugs to sell on the black market. They intimidated staff, forcing them to administer out-of-date medicine.
When looters raided the Ministry of Health after Baghdad fell, they found essential drugs that had never been passed onto the doctors. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3014871.stm

Monday, Sept. 25, 2000
"Medicine meant for children, shipped to Iraq as part of a United Nations humanitarian aid program, are being smuggled out of the country and sold on Lebanon’s black market to fatten Saddam Hussein’s purse.
The British drug company Glaxo-Wellcome has filed complaints with both the British Foreign Office and the U.N. A company spokesman told London’s Telegraph newspaper that Glaxo-Wellcome has traced 15,000 units of the anti-asthma drug Ventolin, sent to Iraq under the U.N.’s food program, to the Lebanon black market."
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/24/170437

11-02-1997
"SADDAM HUSSEIN is flouting UN sanctions by selling millions of pounds worth of medical supplies on the black market.
Profits from the sale of the medicines, which are being sold in Jordan and other neighbouring countries, are used by Saddam to finance Iraq's infamous security forces and pay for his family's lavish way of life. "
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1P1:4582373&refid=ink_puballtnews&skeyword=&teaser=

[TamilNet, February 11, 1998 23:59 GMT]
"Delays in supply from Colombo have caused an acute shortage of vitally needed drugs in hospitals in the Jaffna Peninsula, said sources in Jaffna. This has led to these drugs to be sold at exorbitant prices in the black-market."
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&rid=98021102

May 8, 2003 [AllAfrica]
"The tobacco selling season has failed to improve foreign currency supplies. It is currently physically impossible for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to allocate enough foreign currency for fuel, electricity, grain, and pharmaceutical imports..."
http://www.zaimoni.com/crash_Zimbabwe.htm

"I found out that the rebels actually never reached Phebe - the looting appears to have been done by the government troops and maybe some of the surrounding community. All the staff houses had been broken into and everything taken. It was not surprising that food had been stolen and fuel - but what use could civilians have for medical supplies ? or medicines ? Probably to sell on the Black Market, I was told."
http://www.stmarypalms.org/liberia.html

"We work diligently with third party certification and oversight organizations such as the United Nations Department of Programmes, governments and customs officials to make sure our valuable medical supplies do not end up on the black market."
http://www.medisend.org/medisend2/default.asp



"...He adds that the black-market is rampant especially for medical supplies.
The crew at the St. Luke SurgiCenter is now taking such items as surgical gowns and drapes, sponges, suction tubing, unused dressing, obsolete sutures and outdated IV's, making sure they are clean and then sealing them in bags to be boxed for shipment to Jocum. Liza Ash, a surg-tech in the OR who prepares the bags, says "around 10 or so boxes with $2,500 in items and supplies have been put together so far."
"What we need is a 40-foot metal container that we can store the boxes in until we're ready to ship," according to Tatukivei. He explains that the supplies need to arrive in West Africa after he does or they may never be seen again. He adds that the metal container would then have to be locked while being used as a storage place for the supplies because of the threat of theft. "
http://www.stlukehealthnet.org/hdln73.htm

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

It is always tempting in the face of such extreme naivete to assume that the person expressing it is to blame for not knowing better, particularly for those of us who have actually been out in the real world, and seen that it doesn't function like a TV show.

Lately I've taken the attitude that it is a sickness, and try not to blame the individual.

In Kevin's case, I know from past experience that attempting to show him factually how reality works ( i.e. that despots like Hussein, or Amin, et al., sell the ambulances and medicine on the black market to warlords and others, for money to further oppress their own people) is only going to trigger the usual name calling antics, so I won't bother.

Go back to suckling on the glass teats Kevin, let the rest of us worry about the real world.

When you don't have much of a case, logically or morally, it's always worth a shot to pretend that your case is so obviously the correct one that anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. It might fool people who read for style rather than content, at least.

For that matter it's worth a shot to link to twenty or so articles, even if many of them are largely irrelevant, and one of the most relevant looking ones turns out to be an article stub from a subscription service. If you only skim them, it looks like there is lots of evidence there that Hussein was personally selling all the medical supplies that came to Iraq on the black market to raise money. You can count on some readers assuming that the facts in the articles are as they are implied to be.

The problem is, the only truly serious incident in the lot is that government trucks were said to be involved in a black market Ventolin deal. There are more links between Bush and Abu Ghraib than there are between Hussein and that incident.

The other articles deal only with mismanagement, and with people selling drugs on the black market within Iraq. Which is precisely what you would expect to happen if the US government was creating a vicious artificial scarcity of lifesaving drugs. That's the basic economics of survival. If antibiotics were in terribly short supply here in Australia I bet plenty of them would find their way into the black market too.

What crim needs to prove, and can't, is that permitting Iraq to import basic medical equipment would have been completely pointless and actually saved no lives at all. That all or nearly all of these lifesaving imports would have been diverted from the people of Iraq. But crim sure tries to give the impression that he has made such a case, and that the case is so obviously clear it cannot be questioned.

He also doesn't mention possibilities other than open slather or embargo. If the USA actually cared about civilian lives, and mismanagement and diversion of supplies were really the hold-ups, it would not have taken much effort at all to install obervers with clipboards in Iraq to make sure everything got to where it was supposed to. Journalists had no trouble getting into Iraqi hospitals, so there can be no excuses about it being too dangerous or Hussein not allowing such things.

We keep coming back to the same excuse. "Saddam Hussein was a really bad man! Look what he made me do!".