Read "Iraq's oil" in ECONOMIST mag.. Excellent article. I am definitely switching to British weekly, daily press. I don't know how many media outlets are in the U.S., but for whatever reason they are all the same, kind of dull without any insight. I guess it's true, propaganda works best in big nation countries. There were few members of this board quick to call Bush's Administration stupid (one specific more than others all together) I think these people are idiots themselves. I would exclude Powell and O'Neill though.
Agree, the 'mainstream' US media is extremely unbalanced, almost absurd at times. There are exceptions, but you have to work to find them.
From Babak, earlier on this thread. ....09-16-02 12:35 AM candle, I understand what you are saying and I agree with the general notion of the US throwing its weight around the world. But I want to ask you this. What do you suggest?... The final answer maybe difficult and and very involved, but we can start by educating ourselves on what is happening and has happened. If we are to depended on oil, then maybe we should spend resources and capital on alternative cleaner and efficient sources of energy. Our military budget this year is as high as the next 20 nations put together, and by 2005 it will be greater that the sum of all nations on this earth. trillions of dollars?. If we attack Iraq it will cost up to 200 Billion of taxpayer's money, and many times that if and when we try to rebuild them with a western friendly gov't. We could use all that $$$ or a great portion of it for other energy sources. But If one is having great interest in the oil/energy companies and the general war machine, of course he would do his best to minimize such a research and effort for other sources. Environment, the air our children breath, human lives, the blood of our soldiers, and collateral damage, seems of secondary priority if any. The greed for power, $$$ and control is on top of their list. Trading, requires an open mind, and ability to see what the market tells you and not what the media and analysts try to present. How many times stocks are and were strong buys, from major firms, (Blodget and his INSP, Meaker and PALM or whatever) while behind the scenes they were laughing at the public that trusts them and selling even shorting against their own recommendations. Or Ken Lay assuring his employees on the company strength and to keep the ENE stock, while he was selling and giving his exec 650 mill bonuses days before ENE filed for bankruptcy. Trading is like life in shorter time frame. gov't through the media have their agenda, and that agenda in not for the public in general but against it. It's a game of smoke and mirrors. Focus the people's attention there so you can safely operate here. Having a skeptical mind and due due diligence goes a long way to uncover the scams. both in the markets in politics and our lives in general. We can start by trying to get well informed and question the reasons, and apply common sense. We are the only superpower on this planet. Do we just destroy anyone who has a different opinion? We have a choice. Death cannot be reversed, if we make a mistake and hundreds of thousands die or even if one does, it cannot be undone. It could be you or your brother or the father of a young child, and list goes on. If we talk about democracy and ideals, we need to show the world that we do act them not, only talk about them. We can constructively persuade other nations, by showing leadership, and walking the talk. But so far we have not done a very good job at it. Still there is time. Josh
are we being led down the same path again? ...before his seizure of Kuwait, the Iraqi dictator was regarded by many politicians and journalists as merely another unpleasant Third World strongman, for whom US foreign policy establishment had a necessary affinity... ...on the heels of the Iranian kidnapping of the US embassy in Tehran, guaranteed at the very least official us neutrality in the Iran Iraq war. In this case however, neutrality rapidly metamorphosed into quiet backing for Iraq, which eventually led to military support... ... In her famous meeting with Hussein on July 25 1990, U.S. ambasdor April Glaspie tried her bestto help out with the dictator's reputation....She also noted wistfully that if George Bush "had control over the media, his job would be much easier"... the media spin and lies coming out to fool the public: ...The most notorious of these Iraqi massacres occurred at Halbja, in March 1988. There according to human rights monitors, about four thousand Kurdish civilians, including women, children and elderly. were killed in a chemical attack, allegedly ordered by Iraqi forcesto punish Kurds for helping Iran. BUT in spring 1990, Pentagon leakers appeared to convey another perspective: they said the victims were killed in crossfire of Iraqi and Iranian gas... Later in the summer, the Bush administration would cynically beat back attempts by members of Congress, disturbed by Hussein's Violent conduct... and in July 25th meeting between ambassador Glaspie and Hussein, the U.S. strongly suggested it would not intervene in a conflict between Iraq and Kuwait. But on August 2, when Hussein grabbed Kuwait he crossed the line.... Suddenly more was required than manipulationby leak. Convincing Americans to fight a war to liberate a tine Arab sheikdom ruled by a family oligarchy would require the demonization of Hussein in ways never contemplated by human rights groups... ...In August 1990, the Bush administration's task was to sell two images-an ugly one of Hussein-and a handsome one of Kuwait. For this task the Administration required the best press money can buy. So we formed the CFK Citizens for Free Kuwait. First move of CFK was to hire Hill and Knowlton (H&K), one of the largest and most politically connected public relations firms in America. ...Quality work costs money. First 90 daysH&K racked up fees of 2.9 million end expenses of 2.7 million (sounds like Arthur Anderson?) By end of war it had collected nearly 10.8 million from the Kuwaitis. ...And of all the accusations made against the dictator, none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about the Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from the incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City... ....So the initial forum for public discussion in Congress was the Human Rights Caucus... ...H&K sent a fifteen year old girl named "Nayirah" allegedly a Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of the situation in her tortured land.... parts of he testimony in Congress: While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns andgo itno the room where 15 babies were in incubators. they took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die. Congress was unaware that she was the Kuwait's ambassador's daughter and not a disinterested witness. ...Maryam Elani told me months later that Nayrah's lurid tale was the first she had heard the baby incubator story... But it was enough to tip the vote for war back then. Media spin got the numbers to the low 300.. ggg ...After the war, Middle East Watch said it was shown death certificates for 30 kuwait babies who were buried on August 24th 1990. Nineteen had died before the Iraqi invasion. 11 died during occupation. None of the 30 were shown to have been removed from the incubators. (Dr. Behbehani also backed off his story of "supervising" the burials of 120 babies) He was another "witness produced by the H&K group.... from second chapter, Selling Babies Book: Second Front by John R. Macarthur as in stocks, buyer beware do you own due diligence, we need know some of the facts before we act. War is not to be taken lightly. at least in the market we have some chance to rebuilt if we lose. But in War, the mistakes are final. Josh
I completely agree... Beware of the media and use your mind to dissect the information... I just saw on TV a complete coverage of the recent bomb attack in Israel... After showing the anger of the israeli public about this attack the journalist made a short sentence :" we have just heard that a palestinian child was killed by a bullet from a tank".... Incredible isnt'it.... As if the suicide bomber was a much more important information or more impressive than a child killed by a bullet from a tank... Please understand me. I condemn any terrorist attack but I am also strongly against the terror of Israeli tanks and soldiers... Life of journalists in the occuppied territorries is hell.. many journalists even western are shot at and many human rights organizations a I saw a soldierpalestine Peace to you all
excellent post..... glaspie went even further by stating in a face to face meeting with Saddam that we(the united states) do not involve ourselves in Arab to Arab disputes. and traderfut2000, wasn't that the same day israeli settlers planted a bomb in a palestinian school blowing up several children? i didn't see that in the War Street Journal/urinal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post!!!! reader beware.
That's because you didn't even bother to look at the aforementioned publications. Nice try though. Reader beware - of Bryan Roberts http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query="palestinian+school"&date=past30days http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/mideastpeace/ Note : One needs a subscription to gain access to the WSJ so I couldn't look there. How about a friendly $100 bet, Bryan, that the story was published there also?
Josh, Thanks for your reply to my question. But I was asking about Iraq specifically. What do those that are against a war with Iraq suggest we do exactly? Sit back? work through the UN (for another 11 futile years)? I'm all ears.
The Deaths He Cannot Sanction Ex-U.N. Worker Details Harm to Iraqi Children By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 17, 1998; Page E01 NEW YORK—There is no easy way to make this argument as bombs and missiles rain down. No fashionable way to rebut those intent on vengeance against a nation run by the likes of Saddam Hussein. So Denis Halliday offers only a quick instruction in the mathematics of death, of the pure and deadly efficiency of the United Nations sanctions he helped oversee in Iraq. Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under. That is the latest -- and most conservative -- independent estimate of the number of Iraqi children who have died of malnutrition, wasting and dysentery since sanctions were imposed at the behest of the United States and Great Britain in 1990. Halliday, a tall and proper Irishman, is by temperament uncomfortable with emotion. But the deaths and suffering -- and he'll hate this word -- haunt him. "We need to talk ugly: We are knowingly killing kids because the United States has an utterly unsophisticated foreign policy," Halliday says. "No matter how bad this bastard Saddam is, how can we justify that? "And the catastrophe of more bombing will only make matters much worse." Halliday is an outcast, as close to stateless as an international civil servant can be. He announced his resignation as the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq in August, a dramatic move that met with wide media coverage almost everywhere except in the United States. In careful, clinical language, he offered a most compelling narrative of destruction: The allied bombing in the Persian Gulf War devastated Iraq's infrastructure, systematically destroying power stations and water purification systems. Uranium-tipped armor-piercing shells further contaminated the water supply in the southern part of the country. And the American and British-led decision to clamp U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq compounded the problems. "No one wants to acknowledge the amount of nonmilitary damage, the destruction of cold food and medicine storage, the power supply," Halliday says. "I went there to administer the largest humanitarian challenge in U.N. history. I didn't realize our level of complicity in the suffering." According to preliminary numbers in a study conducted by Richard Garfield, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and a specialist on the health effects of the embargo, the death rate for Iraqi children age 5 and under has spiraled up, nearly tripling since sanctions were imposed in 1990. At that time, child deaths in Iraq were on a par with much of the Western world. "There is almost no documented case of rising mortality for children under 5 years old in the modern world," Garfield says. "When the U.S. hit a bomb shelter in the Gulf War, it admitted a grave mistake and changed its rules . . . yet these sanctions are resulting in about 150 excess child deaths per day."