Just to complement to the last posting with a few facts:
In 1982 Iraq was removed from the list of countries that supported terrorism.
In 19 december 1983 Ronald Reagan wrote to Saddam to upgrade relation with Iraq, establishing a US embassy in Bagdad. Reagan's emissary was none other then Donald Rumnsfeld.
US sold to Saddam chemical war weapons to be used against Iran. Iraq therefore was a precious ally in the war against Iran and Khomeini's revolution in the same way the northern alliance was used against the Taliban! Who knows if in the next decade we won't have a northern alliance terrorist abroad?
Saddam used mustard gas in Halabja in 1988, a city in northern Iraq inhabited mostly by Kurds. Nonetheless Bush senior didn't deny a payment of 500 million dollars to agricultural products. What is really going on is that Iraq then was central to the US international interests in the middle east, and for that was being manipulated for their interests. This just goes to prove my point that the US policy is not really all the stuff about defending democratic values and, their moral clarity, there in it just for a new kind of neocolonialism, a "neoneocolonialism", so to speak, where dominance over other countries is exerced not primarily by weapons but by culture and economicy through international institutions such the IMF and international banks.
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Axis of Evil...
My first topic is prompted by the coverage of US vs. axis of evil. The US is leading a world cause against these nations for their inherent evil. These nations are run by totalitarian regimes that take way the freedom of speech and many other liberties we who live in the west take for granted. So in this manner you don't have any free press, to write something like I am doing right now, as well as, women who are submitted to discrimination, no fair trials and torture for people who go against the state. Do not mistake me, I find this terrible as well.
I also find terrible that in other countries, in the so called third world, there exists a condition of absolute poverty, famine and lack of health services and education in significant portions of the population. Many of these countries are even democratic states. And yet hasn't the liberties of people who live in this condition been taken away as well? What is the distance of somebody who has no food to a full fledged citizen with rights and responsabilities. In other countries this generates the very high crime rates, where you have individuals with no education who aren't qualified for any jobs but those that have unliveable wages, turn to the only option they have left. To take from others, and they aren't worried about getting caught or even if they'll be killed, they have absolutely nothing to lose!By this reasoning wouldn't the US have to intervene on such states as well to defend the democratic values, to uphold liberty and justice for all? No, of course not, this is not their problem. Each nation must deal with it on their own. And besides I don't think the US even cares. By US here, I'm implying not the american people, but the government and the media that intensifies this opinion. The hipocrisy of it all to me is, is that while saying they are fighting for these values guided by their moral clarity they are in fact upholding their own wallets by giving rise to budgets to spent on war industries, they are upholding their access to economic interests (in the case of the middle-east it's of course, the oil). Who says anyway that the US government has been bestowed with the moral clarity over which to guide the world? I guess there are even people who believe all this uphold democracy thing and actually work for it. But this is a naïve posture. The truth of it can be no other.
I also find terrible that in other countries, in the so called third world, there exists a condition of absolute poverty, famine and lack of health services and education in significant portions of the population. Many of these countries are even democratic states. And yet hasn't the liberties of people who live in this condition been taken away as well? What is the distance of somebody who has no food to a full fledged citizen with rights and responsabilities. In other countries this generates the very high crime rates, where you have individuals with no education who aren't qualified for any jobs but those that have unliveable wages, turn to the only option they have left. To take from others, and they aren't worried about getting caught or even if they'll be killed, they have absolutely nothing to lose!By this reasoning wouldn't the US have to intervene on such states as well to defend the democratic values, to uphold liberty and justice for all? No, of course not, this is not their problem. Each nation must deal with it on their own. And besides I don't think the US even cares. By US here, I'm implying not the american people, but the government and the media that intensifies this opinion. The hipocrisy of it all to me is, is that while saying they are fighting for these values guided by their moral clarity they are in fact upholding their own wallets by giving rise to budgets to spent on war industries, they are upholding their access to economic interests (in the case of the middle-east it's of course, the oil). Who says anyway that the US government has been bestowed with the moral clarity over which to guide the world? I guess there are even people who believe all this uphold democracy thing and actually work for it. But this is a naïve posture. The truth of it can be no other.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
