[SunHELP] Re: Terrorism

[Nicholas Dronen]

On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 09:58:28AM -0400, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> First - trim your reply quotes.  I realize that these are emotional times,
> but it only took me 3 seconds to trim the previous messages to acceptable
> levels.
> 
> Second - I tire of this.  Especially when someone replies with content like
> you did Faisal.  Racsist/Anti-Semetic/AntiUS views are NOT ON TOPIC FOR THIS
> LIST.  If you must discuss it - move it to Geeks.

Faisail's email contained a racist statement (the one linking U.S.
greed to Jewish ownership of corporations, an unsupported statement
that smacks of the old image of the unscrupulous, Mammon-loving Jew
[e.g., "The Merchant of Venice" (?)]), which I decry as well, but the
rest of it -- I'm inclined to think, given the interviews I've heard
of Pakistani shopkeepers  -- is fairly representative of the views of
some Pakistani Muslims.  While it *is* off-topic on this list, it's
right and proper to give his email a sympathetic reading.  Political
views -- unlike racist ones -- deserve a fair shake.

There is, after all, nothing reprehensible about expressing anti-U.S.
views, whether you're from Pakistan, Sweden, or the U.S. -- unless,
of course, you're a blindly strident nationalist.
 
> Third - check your facts before sending a message to the list.  A mistake
> about the thermal dynamics of a PPro chip are one thing - mistated figures
> about how many children died in Iraq post-desert-storm will start a flame
> war.

So how many children *have* died as a result of sanctions against
a country whose infrastructure the U.S. destroyed in the Persian
Gulf War?  Do you have numbers?  If so, please divulge them and
their source.  Or do you deny that sanctions have such a perverse
effect at all?  If so, what is the basis for your denial?  Do you
disagree with UNICEF's findings?

	http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm

The article says that the infant mortality rate has *more* than
doubled since the end of the Persian Gulf War.  (That, after making
good progress in the 1980s.) It then covers interesting statistical
ground:

	Ms. Bellamy noted that if the substantial reduction
	in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s
	had continued through the 1990s, there would have been
	half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in
	the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991
	to 1998. As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March
	statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian
	Issues which states: "Even if not all suffering in Iraq
	can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions,
	the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations
	in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the
	Security Council and the effects of war."

So, there's another figure: 500,000.  You can round down in
proportion to the degree to which you wish to delude yourself
that the U.S. is *invariably* a force for good in the world,
necessarily the "good" in the formula of "good v. evil" invoked
by Bush in a recent speech.

Skeptical?

	"We are happy with the quality of these surveys. They have been
	thoroughly reviewed by a panel of independent experts and no major
	problems were found with either the results or the way the surveys
	were conducted," Ms. Bellamy stated.

The article also states that technical support for the survey was
provided by the World Health Organization.

[ snip ]
 
> Sixth - (my only opinion on the subject) Nobody has been more critical of
> the US government's handling of mid-east relations than it's own people.  US
> Citizens have the ability to change the direction of US policy - not
> terrorists slamming planes into buildings.

[ snip ]

You state that the "Citizens" (sic) of the U.S. have been more critical
of our policies in Middle East than any other people.  In which cases
have we been so?  What were the criticisms and thir effects?  Did policies
change?  If so, how?  URLs or book citations are welcome, on- or off-list.

Regards,

Nicholas Dronen