posted on October 16, 2001 02:28:43 PM new
Let me begin by saying that I don’t consider myself to be a Pat Buchanan fan.
Within the past couple of days however, I have gone back and reviewed the positions of the candidates for President and Vice President in the 2000 election. In particular, I wanted to see what the various candidates had to say on the topics of Foreign Relations, Immigrations, Crime, Military and Terrorism – all subjects that have taken on so much of our nation’s focus since the dreadful events of September 11.
The subject of terrorism was largely off the radar screen of all the major candidates. The subject seemed to be mentioned only in the most general of terms.
Iraq: end sanctions that kill kids, or pay price later
For ten years, we’ve maintained rigid sanctions on Iraq, resulting in the premature deaths of 500,000 children. Will the parents of those children ever forgive us? Even our European Allies recoil. By keeping these sanctions fastened on Iraq, we flout every tenet of Christianity’s Just War doctrine, and build up deposits of hatred across the Arab world that will take decades to draw down. One day our children shall pay the price of our callous indifference to what is happening to the children of Iraq.
Source: Speech at AntiWar.com conference, San Mateo, CA Mar 24, 2000
You can use the link to check out other candidates views on the various issues as well. Nadar, Ventura and Perot come across as the buffoons that they are, but it is interesting to review what was consuming the country a year ago and how the candidates were positioning themselves.
posted on October 16, 2001 02:34:49 PM new
The "500,000 kids" canard is a lie that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Pat Buchanan's agenda is simply that he doesn't like it if the U.S. and Israel happen to have a common enemy. In this case, Iraq.
Read this:
In his videotape broadcast, Osama Bin Laden said, "A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt." What's he talking about? Are 1 million Iraqi children dying?
The origin of the oft-cited numbers on Iraqi child mortality is an August 1999 United Nations Children Emergency Fund survey, which showed that Iraqi children under the age of 5 were dying at more than twice the rate they had been 10 years before. In a press release, UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said that if the reductions in child mortality in Iraq in the 1980s had continued into the 1990s, a half million fewer children would have died from 1991 to 1998.
UNICEF's data on Iraqi child mortality rates haven't been disputed. The numbers: From 1984 to 1989, 56 children under the age of 5 died for every 1,000 live births. From 1994 to 1999, there were 131 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Why did more children die? Specifically, mostly malnutrition, the lack of clean water, and a shortage of medicine. More generally, UNICEF says, war, U.N. sanctions, economic collapse, and the Iraqi government share blame. Epidemiologists agree that per-capita income is the single most important factor affecting child mortality rates. (A World Bank study released in the wake of the terrorist attacks estimated that the reduction in economic growth--and the concomitant increase in poverty, childhood disease, and malnutrition--after Sept. 11 could cause 20,000 to 40,000 children to die worldwide next year.) But other factors are nearly as important, particularly education, especially among women. Poor countries with high education levels often have lower child mortality rates because their citizens know, for example, when to boil water, or when to go to the hospital, or when to use medicine. UNICEF also believes that an Iraqi government-sponsored campaign to encourage breastfeeding would save many children's lives.
More controversial than the increase in the child mortality rate is how many children actually died as result of the increase. (That's because the child mortality rate is discovered by surveying a random sample of households. An actual census of how many Iraqi children there are is more difficult to undertake.) UNICEF says the number is 500,000. But even using conservative estimates, Iraq has had about 350,000 excess deaths among children under the age of five since 1991.
Whose fault is it? Iraq has long blamed the U.N. sanctions regime, and the U.S. State Department has long blamed Saddam Hussein. In a 1996 interview with 60 Minutes, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted there was a "human tragedy" occurring in Iraq. But Albright accused Hussein of building 48 presidential palaces since the Gulf War, at a cost of $1.5 billion. Albright also said that Iraq wanted to import goods such as "Italian marble, videos, perfume, leather jackets," and not food and medicine.
"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it," Albright said. "It is a moral question, but the moral question is even a larger one. Don't we owe to the American people and to the American military and to the other countries in the region that this man not be a threat?" Albright added that her "first responsibility is to make sure that United States forces do not have to go and refight the Gulf War."
I realize that perception can be considered 9/10 of reality and the perception is already there, but it's hardly the truth. Certainly not the whole truth.
By keeping these sanctions fastened on Iraq, we flout every tenet of Christianity’s Just War doctrine -- Pat
Since when is U.S. foreign policy supposed to be dictated by subjective interpretation of Christian doctrine?
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Oct 16, 2001 02:42 PM ]
posted on October 16, 2001 02:37:19 PM new
I agree with his goal, but don't agree with his arguement that sanctions kill the children of Iraq. It's their own government that kill their own people by putting much needed money into the military. Trade/help from the U.S. isn't something that comes freely. Once it is expected by a nation, it puts the U.S. in a hostage position making it look like the country's poverty is all the U.S.'s fault.
It's backwards politics IMO.
(edited for clarity)
[ edited by kraftdinner on Oct 16, 2001 02:40 PM ]
posted on October 16, 2001 03:16:32 PM new
It is like a drunk not using his pay check to take care of his family and then blaming you for not doing it for him so he can booze and gamble.
posted on October 16, 2001 11:27:15 PM new
you mean that guy that dropped the poison gas on Kurd villages might be buying weapons again instead of baby food with the limited oil trade he's allowed???? Gee they're oughta be a law.
posted on October 17, 2001 12:00:03 AM new
Did Pat Buchanan have it right?
Don't even have to read what it is he said. My answer would have to be NO !
Some people are just so far off the planet that any thing they say is suspect.
posted on October 17, 2001 02:37:00 AM new
Well what if he was right on something? Someone can be so dumb they need instructions printed on toilet paper and still get an occasional issue correct. It does not mean that the rest of their thinking is now correct or suddenly due to shrewd thinking.
