From: briand@anasaz (Brian Douglass)
Newsgroups: alt.desert-storm,alt.activism
Subject: Re: "LIFT ECONOMIC SANCTIONS!" Canadian&Iraqi Labor Activists
Date: 19 Aug 92 06:39:57 GMT
Organization: Anasazi, Inc.  Phoenix, Az

In article <9208180015.AA05510@poly.math.cornell.edu> harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai) writes:
>[From PeaceNet's labor.newsline via misc.activism.progresive]
>[To email to "pns" (PeaceNet Sweden): akosha@pns.apc.org --Harel]
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Topic 248       LIFT THE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AGAINS 
>pns:akosha      Labor News & Notes      12:01 pm  Aug  2, 1992 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>    "it is the intransigence and political opportunism of [Washington
>    et al] which has kept Saddam and other regional rulers in power
>    over the years in a delicate, but cruelly cynical balancing act.

I suppose you would rather have seen the Soviet Union's black dog's ruling
the regions of the world rather than the West's white dog's (when a dog
bites you, what difference does it's color make?)  After all, the Soviet
are the ones that put Saddam there in the first place.  We just kept him
around for a few years to hold back the Iranians.

> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>    Continuing United Nations sanctions on Iraq, including the
>    freezing of its foreign assets so that Iraq cannot buy food and
>    medicines, has caused the deaths of an estimated 80,000 Iraqi
>    children under the age of 5.

And yet there is no sanction against food or medicine supplies going into
Iraq (forgot about that didn't you).  In addition, Iraq refuses to sell any
oil on the world market.  WHY?  Because part of the profits go to 1) pay
back Kuwait for the billions the Theif of Baghdad stole and destroyed
there; 2) food and medicine to stop the dieing in the country.

And of those 80,000 deaths, how many were due to Saddam bombing Shi'ite
civilians, women and children in the South?  How many were Kurds who died
in the cold mountains in the North after their villages were bombed from
the air and then dynamited into rubble?

> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>    "Working people and the poor have borne the brunt of economic
>    sanctions and war against Iraq, not the Iraqi elite. Demands by
>    President Bush and Prime Minister Major that Iraq must scrap its
>    nuclear, chemical and ballistic arms, and pay reparations to the
>    Kuwaiti emirate, OR ELSE, is a transparent pretext for war. It

Pretext, hell!  If war is what they really wanted, the Allies would have
kept on going straight into Baghdad when they had the forces there.  What a
STUPID statement.

>    also demonstrates an incredible double standard, given that no
>    such de-mands are made of more heavily armed, and potentially more
>    dangerous regimes, like South Africa, Pakistan and Israel, to name

Funny, I seemed to have missed it when any of these countries bombed their
own people with chemical weapons, leveled a city of 70,000 people, shipped
them all off to concentration camps, and then murdered them in clear
genocide.

The names of the towns are Qalat Dizah, and Halabjah.  Qalat Dizah had its
population of 70,000 expelled, and then was leveled.  Halabjah was gassed,
killing between 5,000 and 6,000 outright, maiming thousands of others for
life.  This led to a United Nations report concluding that the atrocities
committed by the Thief of Baghdad were "so grave and...of such a
massive nature that since the Second World War few paralles can be found."
[1]

If you think South Africa, Pakistan, or Israel have comitted atrocities
worse than this, then your smarter than all the UN inspectors around the
world.

> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>    "In the name of democracy, and the fight against the dictator 
>    Saddam Hussein, over 200,000 Iraqis were directly annihilated. 

And of course UN estimates are that Saddam has massacred between 100,000
and 300,000 Kurds[1]

>    However, tyranny and oppression continue to rule the region.
Give us time.  We'll take care of them one at a time.  We've still 8 years
before the Age of Aquarius and all wars become illegal 8-;

>    Statehood for the Palestinians is not even on the agenda in the
>    showcase peace talks [...] 
What does this ^^^^^ have to do with Iraq?  Nothing of course.  Just more
propaganda on the agenda.

>
>				   
>	      ==========================================
>	      LIFT THE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ!
>	      ==========================================
>	     Call by Canadian and Iraqi labour activists
>		     Worker Today No.26, June 92
>
>WT News Service:  In a recent report on the impact of the UN 
>sanctions against Iraq, which is claiming more and more lives each 
>day particularly of the children, the International Affairs 
>Committee of the Labour Council of Metro Toronto and York region 
>called on the Canadian trade unions to demand an immediate lifting 
>of the sanctions and a reversal of the Canadian government's 
>policy on Iraq. 

Yawn.  Why don't they call for Saddam to step down?  Why don't they call on
Saddam to just comply with UN resolutions and they will be lifted?  Why don't 
they call for a worker's revolt against the bourgois merchants gouging
people for food?  Why don't they call for a revolt against the
military-industrial complex in Iraq and create a worker's paradise for the
people of the International Affairs Committee of the Labour Council of
Metro Toronto and York Region (IACLCMTYR) (jeez, they can't even create a
good acronym).

>Also Serenji Kerikar (WorkerNotice), a worker paper published in Iraqi
>Kurdistan, in a communique called on labour organisations and
>activists worldwide to join Iraqi workers in opposing the economic
>blockade which "has driven our fellow workers in Iraq and Kurdistan to
>the brink of death and disaster".

Thanks to your buddy Saddam, who claims no such thing as Kurdistan exists,
they have death and disaster.  If just stayed home and go around invading
his neighbors, none of this would have happened. 

>Below we reprint both these statements. 
>				   

[droll deleted]

The whole article is absurd as convicted killers suing for freedom from
prison on the grounds their right to make babies has been denied.  This
after they already killed their wife and two children.  Saddam and is
crying "Woe is me" and this idiot Harel feels sorry for him, after Saddam
been convicted of killing his neighbors and own family.  Very lame
thinking.  Then again, he's probably never met a cause he didn't like.

>
>Today, the question is, will we allow history to repeat itself so
>soon? Will economic sanctions, supported by military threats - and
>resumption of war -be permitted to further punish innocent people,
>purely to advance a western military/corporate New World Order? 

Well, the Iraqi parliament voted for War, voted to annex Kuwait.  Using
this logic, should the US annex its neighbors?  Would that be okay with
you?

>Lucille Kerr, Holly Kirkconnell, Ken Luckhardt,
>Barry Weisleder, Jay Nair 
>
>##################################################################
>NOTE: The "Comrades!" rhetoric tends to strike Joe American as
>indicative of "rabid extremism" ; 

It's called rabid Communism.  For which 500 Million people escaped from in
the last 4 years.  I think those people could tell you thing or two about
Comrade rhetoric and Comrade reality.

Take a deep breath, and begin sentance, NOW:
>in fact, however, for those long
>suffering from Washignton's policies and its local "Our S.O.B."
>representatives like George's ex-pal Saddam Hussein for so long, this
>does not represent so fringe a group, but a far more common, and
>understandable reaction, and spirit of survival (and maintaining one's
>sanity in the face of brutal conditions year after year that, unlike
>us sitting in front of our neat computer screens, these workers face
>every day and are far more powerless in their ability to put an end
>to). --Harel

huuufff, huufff.  Damn, Lenin would have been proud of such overplayed
rhetoric.  Does the term "hack" mean anything?  As in hackneyed?  

>##################################################################
>
>To:  Trade unions and labour organisations!  Labour leaders and 
>activists!  Worker papers and groups!  Labour solidarity 
>committees in Europe and North America! 

In the background, I hear a song.  A strong downbeat, with bold brass
inspiring strength, as well as morose dehuminization.  YES!  It's the
International Communist!

>The economic blockade [of Iraq] is an inhuman policy of the
>imperialists, part of the assault that capitalism has today launched
>against the world working class in the name of the New World Order.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Then why didn't China or the Soviet Union Veto it?
Hmmmmmnnn?

>Having driven our fellow workers in Iraq and Kurdistan to the brink of
>death and disaster, this economic boycott has provided a pretext for
>the old and new rulers of the bourgeoisie - the Iraqi government and
>the Kurdistan Front* - through which to pursue their interests against
>us workers and working masses.
>
>Comrades!  We believe that not only will your militant support and

Militant?  By who against who?  Your militant buddies in the USSR caused 70
years of suffering and environmental destruction trying to do just such a
thing.  Look how they ended up? (quick lesson to all you would be radicals;
Democracies will NEVER be out gunned.)

>solidarity ensure that this policy is brushed aside, to our advantage,
>but that our united and organised world rank can smash the capitalist
>system and build socialism on its ruins. We therefore call for your
>solidarity and unity in struggle.

What are you 20?  Away from home for the first time and missing mommy and
daddy?  Read your frickin' history.  It don't work!  People turned into
spoiled brats living off of mommy and daddy government and never working
for themselves.  You want to make the world a better place, try for
Humanistic Capitalism.  A much more realistic and workable goal than some
utopianistic throwback theory of the 30's.

>Long live the international working-class movement against the
>economic boycott and world capitalism's anti-labour onslaught!

Heh, heh, heh.  That's funny.  Stupid, but funny.

>*The Kurdistan Front includes the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by
>Jalal Talebani, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq, led by
>Masoud Barzani
> -WT 
>##################################################################


[1] National Geographic, Vol 182, No2, August 1992.  Used without
permission.

-- 
"... For I have sworn upon the alter of god, eternal hostility against
every form of tyranny over the mind of man."  Thomas Jefferson
Brian Douglass		briand@anasazi.com 	602-870-3330 X657