|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
 Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 12:13 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| ddeubel wrote: |
| Gopher, JRGR -- you both are 2 blind mice. |
Yet it's how they school them at their "truth-seeking" Freemason lodges. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 1:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Gopher, JRGR -- you both are 2 blind mice. MUCH documentation to the fact that America has and always has been an aggressive military regime, supporting its economic agenda. Forget about alll that communist/freedom crock of........ It is about companies, $$$$. I wish you could open your eyes but you can't , you are blind. |
your are a radical who can't back what he says/claims
| Quote: |
| I will post something regarding Iran shortly, when I have time. I made a loooong post to educated you guys but it disappeared when sending. Just so damn busy these days ............. |
go ahead you will get whipped again. Back up what you claim. cause there is no reason to take your word for it.
| Quote: |
| But make no mistake............besides Coca-Cola, America's biggest export has been military know how and specifically TERROR. That is why all the "war on terror" rhetoric in America is sooooo damn ironic. It should read -- "war on their terror". |
??
| Quote: |
I'll leave you with the lyrics of Dylan's Masters of War.
You might see yourselves and others described in the lyrics.
| Quote: |
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead |
DD |
that explains it you get your politics from musicians. Go to a musician next time you are sick.
I will leave you with this . The US was right to fight the cold war. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 1:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Pilger opposed the sanctions because it was the civilian population ( in particular children) that suffered and died in the 100000s, possibly up to 1000000 depending on sources like the Red Cross, Red Crescent, UN. The sanctions justified by the Western powers as necessary to weaken and destroy Saddam only strengthened his grip on Iraq. After all its a bit hard to organise a half decent resistance when you have to spend all day foraging for food and medicine for your dying children. |
Saddam was behind the starvation. Iraq produced as nearly as much oil as before the war.
He smuggled oil .
He starved his own people and he was behind Iraqs black market
| Quote: |
| John Pilger has always opposed Saddam Hussein, when he attacked Iran using chemical weapons and when he did the same against the Kurds. You can contrast this against the Western powers and media at the time who denied, cast doubt on then finally rationalised Saddam's use of chemical weapons as 'self defense'. After all Saddam was 'Ours' right? Only a decade or so later when Saddam proved to be more of a liability than an 'asset' did the crocodile tears start to flow and the public in the West needed to know what a monster he was. |
Like George Galloway.
Pliger was against Saddam when he was fighting Khomeni . After that he didn't care.
He is a defender of wars by the other side. ( I will show you this later)
Saddam was never ours. He fought against Iran for his own reasons.
Saddam was no more ours than Stalin was ours when he fought against Hitler
| Quote: |
| As for that pic of Pilger next to Saddam's portrait, another example of your cheap shot smearing tactics JooRip. |
John Pliger supports anyone who is against the US. He doesn't like superpowers so who ever the enemy of the US is his friend . He is a violent man.
| Quote: |
John Pilger is a highly regarded journalist internationally:
' John Pilger's 'Stealing a Nation' has won both the Royal Television Society's top award as Britain's best documentary in 2004-5, and a 'Chris Award' at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival. The coveted RTS award goes to a film, said the judges, 'displaying refreshingly unfashionable passion and forensic skill'. |
that doesn't change the fact that he is a radical who supports the insurgents and wanted to free up Saddam Hussein.
| Quote: |
| The RTS award was presented in London 15 March; the Chris Award considered one of the most prized documentary awards in the US, will be presented in Columbus on 12 November.' |
He Still a radical . by the way I never heard of the Chris award. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 1:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
| igotthisguitar wrote: |
| ddeubel wrote: |
| Gopher, JRGR -- you both are 2 blind mice. |
Yet it's how they school them at their "truth-seeking" Freemason lodges. |
nice to khow you are reading Jeff Rense. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cerulean808
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
JooRip
| Quote: |
Iraq produced as nearly as much oil as before the war.
[Saddam] smuggled oil. |
Which only proves the failure of the sanctions to do harm to Saddam's regime, while wiping out innocents in their 100000s if not many more.
| Quote: |
| Saddam was behind the starvation...He starved his own people and he was behind Iraqs black market |
No it was the inforcement of sanctions that degraded the countries civilian infrastructure leading to food shortages and disease outbreaks. A ruthless tyrant in that situation will see to himself and his supporters first.
Partly declassified reports from the U.S.D.I.A make it clear officials understood exactly what enforcement of the sanctions would do to the civilian population.
"Increased incidence of diseases will be attributable to degradation of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution, electricity, and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. Any urban area in Iraq that has received infrastructure damage will have similar problems."
'"[1991]Communicable diseases in Baghdad are more widespread than usually observed during this time of the year and are linked to the poor sanitary conditions (contaminated water supplies and improper sewage disposal) resulting from the war. According to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)/World Health Organization report, the quantity of potable water is less than 5 percent of the original supply, there are no operational water and sewage treatment plants, and the reported incidence of diarrhea is four times above normal levels. Additionally, respiratory infections are on the rise. Children particularly have been affected by these diseases."
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil
JooRip
| Quote: |
| [Pilger] is a violent man. |
News to me, of course you can back that up with citations right? Like a criminal or police record containing guilty verdicts on charges such as 'assault and battery', 'attempt to cause or causing grievious bodily harm', 'carrying a concealed weapon' etc. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 8:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:10 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 8:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
On Pilger
| Quote: |
| News to me, of course you can back that up with citations right? Like a criminal or police record containing guilty verdicts on charges such as 'assault and battery', 'attempt to cause or causing grievious bodily harm', 'carrying a concealed weapon' etc. |
He supports the insurgents and wants them to win. He has also supporter other wars in the mideast such as the 1973 war.
He isn't anti war he is anti US.
He is a very violent man.
See next post for answers to sanctions
Last edited by Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee on Wed May 10, 2006 9:09 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Impact of Sanctions
Sanctions are not intended to harm the people of Iraq. That is why the sanctions regime has always specifically exempted food and medicine. The Iraqi regime has always been free to import as much of these goods as possible. It refuses to do so, even though it claims it wants to relieve the suffering of the people of Iraq.
� Iraq is actually exporting food, even though it says its people are malnourished. Coalition ships enforcing the UN sanctions against Iraq recently diverted the ship M/V MINIMARE containing 2,000 metric tons of rice and other material being exported from Iraq for hard currency instead of being used to support the Iraqi people.
� Baby milk sold to Iraq through the oil-for-food program has been found in markets throughout the Gulf, demonstrating that the Iraqi regime is depriving its people of much-needed goods in order to make an illicit profit.
Photo 1: click here or on image for enlargement and caption
� Kuwaiti authorities recently seized a shipment coming out of Iraq carrying, among other items, baby powder, baby bottles, and other nursing materials for resale overseas (see photo 1).
Saddam Hussein's priorities are clear. If given control of Iraq's resources, Saddam Hussein would use them to rearm and threaten the region, not to improve the lot of the Iraqi people.
There is ample proof that lifting sanctions would offer the Iraqi people no relief from neglect at the hands of their government
� Sanctions prevent Saddam from spending money on rearmament, but do not stop him from spending money on food and medicine for Iraqis.
� Saddam's priorities are clear: palaces for himself, prisons for his people, and weapons to destroy Iraq's citizens and its neighbors. He has built 48 palaces for himself since the Gulf War. He would not use Iraq's resources to improve the lives of Iraqis. Saddam Hussein would use them to rearm and threaten the region. |
www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm
| Quote: |
| Documents show UN Security Council knew about Saddam violating ...The committee's divisions, and Saddam's sanctions violations were widely reported at the time. But the documents released Tuesday, which include US memos and reports on committee meetings, provide a more comprehensive picture of the |
...
news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/ ap/o/51/06-22-2005/f63d0028b6a2db39.html
http://www.oilforfoodfacts.org/smuggling.aspx
| Quote: |
Oil-for-Food: FactsWhile much more attention has been placed on reports of Saddam Hussein's ability to manipulate the Oil-for-Food Program ... financial resources to the Iraqi Regime resulted from sanctions violations outside the Programme's framework. ... |
www.oilforfoodfacts.org/smuggling.aspx
Pilger wanted Saddam free so Saddam could challenge the US. He supports anyone who is against the US . He has supported wars by the other side and he supports the insurgents.
http://www.looksmartindianapolis.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200306/ai_n9265264#continue
first casualty of Pilger. . ., The Spectator, The, Jun 28, 2003 by Sweeney, John
John Sweeney says that John Pilger blames the Americans alone for birth defects in Iraq, and overlooks evidence that implicates Saddam Hussein
| Quote: |
The Americans arc making a hash of rebuilding Iraq, but one of the not so bad things they have done is to give Iraqis the freedom to scribble. On the wall outside the Baathist ministry of health the other day, a graffiti artist had scrawled in perfect English, 'We need a health ministry free of corruption.'
For years John Pilger - 'one of the world's most renowned investigative journalists', it says on the back of his latest book - has been insisting that the West, not Saddam, is to blame for the crisis in Iraq's public health; that 5,200 Iraqi children were dying every month; that Western depleted-uranium weapons were to blame for an epidemic of cancers; that sanctions crippled Iraq's doctors. Funnily enough, Pilger's journalism echoed what the Baathist regime wanted people to hear.
But very recently in Baghdad what some might call the Pilger-Baathist line was put to a very public test by yet another American blunder. They handpicked a new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi, who was number three at the health ministry under Saddam. According to virtually every Iraqi doctor I spoke to, he was an unacceptable choice. The Iraqi doctors were not keen to say so to the BBC on camera. To criticise the Baath party on the record is, even now, something that no Iraqi will do lightly. Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, mulled it over and said, 'OK, we'll do it.' They damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn't toe the line were punished. |
June 26, 2003
Pilger's staggering dishonesty
| Quote: |
You know John Pilger has gone too far when his radically anti-American "journalism" is too much even for the BBC. In this week's Spectator, BBC correspondent John Sweeney takes the Pilger Man to task for his insistence that depleted uranium has caused an "epidemic" of cancer and birth defects in Iraq - while ignoring the evidence which suggests Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons is the primary culprit:
Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, �Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call �the Hiroshima effect�, especially among children.� That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West�s depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam�s central messages.
[...]
Hang on a minute. Cancers don�t happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. The Iraqis reported a rash of cancers in the south from 1992 onwards. The cancers that happened in 1992 cannot, scientifically, have been caused in 1992 � or 1991 when the depleted uranium was used � but at least four years before that. �To say any different is ridiculous; it would deny the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,� Dr Nick Plowman, the head of oncology at Barts, told me.
In the mid-1980s Iranian human-wave offensives almost took Basra, but they were stopped by Saddam�s chemical weapons. The UN found incontrovertible evidence that Saddam used mustard gas against the Iranians every year between 1984 and 1988. When the Iranians came close to Basra, the Iraqis dropped gas on their own people, too. Nearly all of the war was fought in Iraq, not Iran, so that�s where Saddam dropped his chemical weapons.
Mustard gas � sulphur mustard � is carcinogenic and mutagenic. That is, sulphur mustard causes cancers, leukaemias and birth defects. The children of Iranian soldiers who were gassed by Saddam�s men have developed terrible cancers and birth defects. No depleted-uranium weapons were used on them. The children of Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam, have developed cancers and birth defects. Again, no depleted uranium was used on them.
Pilger knows all about chemical weapons. He wrote in the Mirror in January, �I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange. This terrible chemical weapon was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam. Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia.� If chemical weapons cause cancers in Vietnam, why don�t they do the same in Iraq? The answer seems a simple one: chemical weapons cause cancer so long as they are dropped by the Americans.
"I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator," writes Sweeney. So do I. |
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/001208.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cerulean808
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 6:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Joo Rip, playing Pontius Pilate on behalf of power:
| Quote: |
Saddam was behind the starvation. Iraq produced as nearly as much oil as before the war.
He smuggled oil .
He starved his own people and he was behind Iraqs black market |
You cite a U.S. State Department aka The Ministry of Truth release to back this up.
| Quote: |
| Sanctions are not intended to harm the people of Iraq. |
Sure, at the time seemed like a good non-military option for dealing with a nasty regime.
| Quote: |
| That is why the sanctions regime has always specifically exempted food and medicine. The Iraqi regime has always been free to import as much of these goods as possible. It refuses to do so, even though it claims it wants to relieve the suffering of the people of Iraq. |
The Big Lie. Joo Rip ask your friends at the State Department why these were on the UN sanctions committee banned list:
water purification chemicals, medical journals, cobalt sources for x ray machines, disposable surgical gloves, medical swabs, gauze, medical syringes, medication for epilepsy, surgical instruments, dialysis equipment, drugs for agina, granite shipments, textile plant equipment, pencils, pencil sharpeners, shoe laces, material for shrouds, sanitary towels, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, toilet paper, tennis balls, children's clothes, nail polish.
A British example. The British Department of Trade and Industry in 1999 blocked a shipment of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Under Secretary of State for Competition and Consumer Affairs told parliament the vaccines were banned 'because they are capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction.' By the way this same department previously justified sales of two mustard gas components to Iraq prior to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait on grounds that one of them could be used to make ink for ballpoint pens.
| Quote: |
| Kuwaiti authorities recently seized a shipment coming out of Iraq carrying, among other items, baby powder, baby bottles, and other nursing materials for resale overseas |
Yeah, the baby powder. Dennis Halliday former head of U.Ns oil-for-food program in Iraq, 'The government here used to encourage the use of infant formula - and infant formula with contaminated water is a real killer.' And clean water was and remains virtually non existent in Iraq, thanks to the Gulf War bombing of water treatment and sewage plants coupled with crippling sanctions that blocked access to spare parts for repairs and maintenance.
The assertion that Iraq could feed its self on the oil revenue it was permitted to raise is wrong. 30% of that revenue was diverted to the UN compensation fund and UN Iraq expenses while oil prices declined through the 90s. It's impossible to keep a modern state functioning on humanitarian aid. Judy Morgan and Margaret Hassan of CARE Baghdad;
'If this was a 3rd World country we could bring in some water pumps at a cost of a few hundred pounds and they could save 1000s of lives. But Iraq was not a 3rd World country before the [1991] war - and you can't run a developed country on aid. What is wrong with the water system here is a result of breakdown and damage to complex and very expensive water purification plants. And this eats up 100 000s of pounds in repairs [ for one region alone ].'
Joo Rip, your Government department propaganda and corporate media hack sources are pathetic. And your calling John Pilger staggeringly dishonest?
I'll go with those remarkable individuals who dealt daily with the impact of sanctions and the twisted politics behind them. Hans von Sponeck, the second UN head of humanitarian efforts in Iraq to resign in disgust, 'In all my years at the UN I had never been exposed to the kind of political manoeuvring and pressure that I saw at work in this programme. We're treating Iraq as if it were made up of 23 million Saddam Hussiens, which is rubbish.'
Halliday again, 'The WHO confirmed [1998] to me... that the monthly rate of sanctions-related child mortality for children under 5 years of age is from 5 to 6 thousand per month... Sanctions are undermining the cultural and educational recovery of Iraq and will not change its system of governance. Sanctions encourage isolation, alienation and fanaticism...Sanctions constitute a serious breach of the UN charter on human rights and children's rights.
As for that hack John Sweeny and his laughable attempt to do a hatchet job on John Pilger over DU in Iraq, he mendaciously implies to Pilger an assertion he hasn't made:
| Quote: |
Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, �Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call �the Hiroshima effect�, especially among children.� That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West�s depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam�s central messages.
[...]
Hang on a minute. Cancers don�t happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. |
Clearly in the Sweeny quote of Pilger, it isn't the latter claiming cancer rates from 1991 onwards are a result of DU. Just that the 1991 war use of DU is the source of later cancer rate increases, amongst children in particular. The sources I've read refer to case studies from 1995 onwards which is in line with the latency period. Nowhere has it been denied by Pilger or others raising the issue of DU that there maybe other contributing factors eg carcogenics released by the burning oil fields. This doesn't detract from the concerns being raised about the military use of DU and its legacy in Iraq. The website www.cadu.org.uk has plenty more info on the DU issue.
Joo Rip
| Quote: |
| [Pilger] is a violent man. |
| Quote: |
| He is a very violent man. |
I'm begining to think you're one clown short of a circus Joo Rip. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 6:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Joo Rip, playing Pontius Pilate on behalf of power: |
so you say
| Quote: |
Sure, at the time seemed like a good non-military option for dealing with a nasty regime. |
yes
| Quote: |
The Big Lie. Joo Rip ask your friends at the State Department why these were on the UN sanctions committee banned list:
water purification chemicals, medical journals, cobalt sources for x ray machines, disposable surgical gloves, medical swabs, gauze, medical syringes, medication for epilepsy, surgical instruments, dialysis equipment, drugs for agina, granite shipments, textile plant equipment, pencils, pencil sharpeners, shoe laces, material for shrouds, sanitary towels, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, toilet paper, tennis balls, children's clothes, nail polish. |
well the US did cut it down to smart sancitons , besides there was so much sanctions busting by Saddam he could have easily got such stuff. Not that if the stuff had made its way to Iraq that Saddam would have let his citizens have it. Saddam starved them in order to get the sanctions lifted.
| Quote: |
| A British example. The British Department of Trade and Industry in 1999 blocked a shipment of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Under Secretary of State for Competition and Consumer Affairs told parliament the vaccines were banned 'because they are capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction.' By the way this same department previously justified sales of two mustard gas components to Iraq prior to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait on grounds that one of them could be used to make ink for ballpoint pens. |
IF they went to Iraq Saddam might have diverted them.
| Quote: |
| Yeah, the baby powder. Dennis Halliday former head of U.Ns oil-for-food program in Iraq, 'The government here used to encourage the use of infant formula - and infant formula with contaminated water is a real killer.' And clean water was and remains virtually non existent in Iraq, thanks to the Gulf War bombing of water treatment and sewage plants coupled with crippling sanctions that blocked access to spare parts for repairs and maintenance. |
He was duped by Saddam just like the UN was.
The assertion that Iraq could feed its self on the oil revenue it was
| Quote: |
| permitted to raise is wrong. 30% of that revenue was diverted to the UN compensation fund and UN Iraq expenses while oil prices declined through the 90s. It's impossible to keep a modern state functioning on humanitarian aid. Judy Morgan and Margaret Hassan of CARE Baghdad; |
Lots of stuff made it to Iraq.
| Quote: |
Saddam sells UN drugs on black market
By Christina Lamb
(Filed: 24/09/2000)
CHILDREN'S medicines sent to Iraq by a British pharmaceutical company under a United Nations programme are being smuggled out of the country and sold on the black market in Lebanon to fund the lavish tastes of Saddam Hussein.
Glaxo-Wellcome has made official complaints to the Foreign Office and to the UN which oversees the Oil for Food Programme. This allows Baghdad to sell limited quantities of oil to buy vital humanitarian supplies for children, the sick and elderly.
The UN Security Council set strict controls to ensure that the medicines went to civilians and not the regime. But a spokesman for Glaxo-Wellcome told The Telegraph that the company has so far traced 15,000 units of Ventolin, part of a consignment of asthma medicine shipped to Iraq, circulating on the black market in Beirut.
The medicines had been transported to Lebanon using vehicles belonging to Iraq's ministry of transport. This indicates that the smuggling is being masterminded at the highest levels and undermines Saddam's claims that people are dying in Iraq because of shortages caused by the trade embargo imposed in 1991 after the invasion of Kuwait. However, with the Iraqi dictator still firmly in power despite a decade of sanctions, Britain and America are increasingly isolated as they continue to insist on the embargo. A Foreign Office official acknowledged: "Sanctions are clearly not working but they are desperately clinging on because no one knows what else to do."
Saddam is using the supposed shortages as a propaganda tool, showing pictures of sick children and blaming the West for his people's suffering when his regime is actually smuggling out medicines that it does receive. The Ventolin is thought to be just a fraction of the UN- approved Western medicines illegally sold on by Saddam's lieutenants in a scheme run by his son Uday. The Iraqi opposition estimate that millions of pounds are being raised in this way and used to finance Saddam's regime and the activities of his intelligence services as they step up their work in London and other European capitals.
Glaxo-Wellcome has launched a campaign to warn pharmacists in Lebanon and other Arab states not to sell the smuggled goods. The company is concerned about the safety implications of prescription drugs being sold over the counter as well as being undercut in markets to which it already exports. Last week the Lebanese authorities arrested a number of those involved in selling them.
"Obviously this is a worrying development," said an official at the UN programme office for Iraq. A recent report by the office to the Security Council projected oil revenues for Iraq from December 1999 to June 2000 at �6 billion, which should be spent on health and food, and complained that medicines worth �180 million were still lying in Iraqi warehouses and had not been distributed.
However, there is now increasing pressure to end sanctions both in the Arab world and beyond. Iraqi trade with Syria, Egypt and some Gulf countries has been increasing, as has support for an end to the embargo, and there have been several reports of oil being smuggled through Turkey and the UAE.
Last week Saddam's regime celebrated the arrival of a Russian flight at the newly-reopened Baghdad international airport and Aeroflot executives are awaiting Kremlin approval for the resumption of what will be the first regular commercial flights since the Gulf war. Passengers on last week's flight included oil executives interested in making deals with Iraq.
On Friday, a French plane flew from Paris to Baghdad, carrying doctors, athletes and artists defying a request from the UN committee that upholds the sanctions regime against Iraq. The sanctions committee was informed only on Thursday night of the Friday morning flight and France refused a request to delay the flight for 12 hours so that the issue could be studied. Welcoming the flight at Baghdad, Hussein Saeed, an Iraqi Olympic committee official, said the French had taken "a big initiative in breaking the embargo".
At the same time, boosted by record oil prices and the protests in Britain and across Europe over high fuel costs, Saddam has begun an intensive lobbying campaign to weaken the sanction regime. His efforts already seem to be having some effect. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's new president, recently made a trip to Baghdad, the first elected head of state to visit since the Gulf war. Known for his anti-American rhetoric, President Chavez claimed his visit was necessary because Venezuela currently holds the presidency of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and suggested it was time to end Iraq's isolation.
23 September 2000: French jet breaks UN embargo on Baghdad
19 September 2000: Oil price new weapon for warlike Saddam
18 September 2000: Russia breaks UN sanctions
11 August 2000: Venezuela breaks Saddam ban
2 August 2000: Britain and US isolated over tottering trade embargo on Iraq
17 February 2000: Saddam to blame for sanctions, says FO
24 May 1998: Saddam tries to set up phone network with cash for sick children
21 May 1996: Iraq oil-for-food deal to benefit Gulf War victims
|
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2000/09/24/wdrug24.xml
A Baghdad bonanza for Saddam's rich friends
(Filed: 10/08/2001)
| Quote: |
Iraq's elite are thriving despite sanctions, reports Philip Smucker in Baghdad
INSIDE the Moon Restaurant, light jazz combines with the tinkle of crystal glasses meeting and silver knives clinking against plates of filet mignon. It is a relaxing air in which it is possible to forget the grim realities of Iraq.
Outside, in the baking heat, a sign painter, working for less than �1 a day, slaps the glue on the final corner of yet another signboard showing the defiant ruler blasting his favourite shotgun out over a city divided between rich and poor.
Baghdad, like the rest of Iraq, has evolved in a dozen years from an oil-rich developing city with expanding services and small business opportunities into an elitist fiefdom in which the ruler and his friends prosper while the poor live in a state of terrified subsistence.
Despite more than a decade of United Nations sanctions, the regime is in no danger of collapse, say diplomats in Baghdad. Iraq's illicit oil trade with its Arab neighbours has permitted Saddam Hussein's regime to meet the needs of the people that count the most for him - his rich internal backers.
This summer the rich can be found in swish restaurants and air-conditioned boutiques. They are riding a wave of jubilation over the six-month delay of a British and American UN Security Council proposal to tighten sanctions and limit the black-market trading.
Outside the luxurious offices of high officials, poor families pool their incomes to avoid starvation. The homeless send their children out to beg on street corners.
"We've paid with our lives for Saddam Hussein's mistakes," said a taxi driver whose father was killed in the Gulf war but avoided the draft himself. "Families that lost members have never received a dinar for their loses."
For the wealthy elite, there are no similar concerns. Despite a call by Saddam for rich women to rein in their ostentatious spending, many can be seen this summer perusing French and Italian fashions, even thumbing through racks of forbidden bikinis.
"Sanctions have been tough on us and if it weren't for the power and patience of the Iraqi people we would never have survived," said a boutique owner who gave her name as Estkal. She sells French jackets and waistcoats for �100 and Italian trouser suits for �70.
Sanctions-busting is crucial for Iraq, something underlined by the appointment of Saddam's dreaded secret police chief, his younger son Qusay, as supremo of the import-export business.
Most observers see Qusay's new role as a stepping stone to the presidency. "All you need is money and a connection to Qusay to obtain a licence," said one Iraqi official.
Saddam, using a spoils system based on al-intisaab (kinship), keeps firm control over the country's limited cash flows. This allows him to direct taxes and profits into his military machine.
"We are still creating and inventing in the military field through our own labours," boasts Oday Al-Taiy, a spokesman for Saddam. "Even the United States now admits that we pose an increasing threat through our air defences."
Senior US defence officials have admitted recently that Saddam is "still a menace". They say the Iraqi army just missed hitting an unarmed, single-seat U-2 spy plane with a missile believed to have been with extra fuel capacity and apparently fired without the use of targeting radar.
That "near miss" followed ominous Western intelligence earlier this year that Iraq had again established a chemical weapons industry.
A UN "oil for food" programme, originally intended to go hand in hand with inspections to root out weapons of mass destruction, has finally begun to provide for the most basic needs of Iraq's poorest.
For the Iraqi elite, making money is easy enough in a country where profiting from the plight of the poor is not frowned upon. They often appear to relish squeezing the downtrodden while pleading poverty for their nation.
"Many people are being forced to sell their life possessions because of these stupid sanctions," said Fadet Howli, the owner of a new antiques shop that sells everything from ancient silver swords to oriental carpets at mark-ups of 800 per cent.
It is clear, however, that Ms Howli would let the impoverished masses eat UN-baked cake - as long as her business prospers.
29 July 2001: Iraq builds 'Mother of all Battles' mosque in praise of Saddam
27 July 2001: Saddam: the bodice ripper
21 June 2001: Saddam in warning to 'wasteful' women
1 June 2001: 'Smart' Iraq sanctions plan is shelved
27 February 2001: Powell tries to halt Iraq oil flow
14 January 2001: Iraqi oil smuggled out on train via Syria
19 November 2000: Saddam stockpiling deadly chemical weapons
7 November 2000: Britain in fight to keep Iraq sanctions |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/08/10/wirq10.xml
A decade of war followed by a major air campaign against Iraq's infrastructure and eight years of severe and comprehensive sanctions have devastated the country's economy. Lost production and diversion of resources to military activities are far from being the only economic costs. Accumulated effects on society include the loss of life, physical impairment, breakdown of societal institutions, declining morale, emigration, and all the associated hemorrhage of skills and intellectual capabilities. The effects of induced technological backwardness, of destruction and accelerated degradation of the infrastructure, and of the increased environmental damage of short-term palliative solutions need also be mentioned."
| Quote: |
Still, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and the BBC have all reported recently that the streets of Baghdad are teeming with new cars and Chinese double-decker buses, its bustling markets replete with luxury products, restaurants are making a brisk business, and dozens of art galleries are prospering where two languished only 4 years ago.
The razed bridges and airport have been rebuilt. Electricity has been mostly restored. Sumptuous mosques have sprouted everywhere. Almost $2 billion were devoted to new palatial mansions for Saddam and his family, wrote the "Washington Post" on February 27, 2001. Kurdish media related how 250 kilograms of gold were applied by imported Indian and Moroccan craftsmen in two of the palaces. Iraqi state television reported in June that Saddam exhorted his ministers to avoid corruption and nepotism |
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/10-21-2002-28597.asp
| Quote: |
| 'If this was a 3rd World country we could bring in some water pumps at a cost of a few hundred pounds and they could save 1000s of lives. But Iraq was not a 3rd World country before the [1991] war - and you can't run a developed country on aid. What is wrong with the water system here is a result of breakdown and damage to complex and very expensive water purification plants. And this eats up 100 000s of pounds in repairs [ for one region alone ].' |
Like Saddam would have allowed stuff to get fixed.
| Quote: |
| Joo Rip, your Government department propaganda and corporate media hack sources are pathetic. And your calling John Pilger staggeringly dishonest? |
Cooperate hack sources. John Pilger is dishonest and worse.
| Quote: |
| I'll go with those remarkable individuals who dealt daily with the impact of sanctions and the twisted politics behind them. Hans von Sponeck, the second UN head of humanitarian efforts in Iraq to resign in disgust, 'In all my years at the UN I had never been exposed to the kind of political manoeuvring and pressure that I saw at work in this programme. We're treating Iraq as if it were made up of 23 million Saddam Hussiens, which is rubbish.' |
also duped by Saddam.
80% of the country hated Saddam . Are you going to tell you that Saddam was going to let them have supplies?
| Quote: |
| But very recently in Baghdad what some might call the Pilger-Baathist line was put to a very public test by yet another American blunder. They handpicked a new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi, who was number three at the health ministry under Saddam. According to virtually every Iraqi doctor I spoke to, he was an unacceptable choice. The Iraqi doctors were not keen to say so to the BBC on camera. To criticise the Baath party on the record is, even now, something that no Iraqi will do lightly. Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, mulled it over and said, 'OK, we'll do it.' They damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn't toe the line were punished. |
| Quote: |
| As for that hack John Sweeny and his laughable attempt to do a hatchet job on John Pilger over DU in Iraq, he mendaciously implies to Pilger an assertion he hasn't made: |
Oh he is a hack. 
That was the BBC.
| Quote: |
Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, �Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call �the Hiroshima effect�, especially among children.� That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West�s depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam�s central messages.
[...]
Hang on a minute. Cancers don�t happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. |
| Quote: |
| Clearly in the Sweeny quote of Pilger, it isn't the latter claiming cancer rates from 1991 onwards are a result of DU. Just that the 1991 war use of DU is the source of later cancer rate increases, amongst children in particular. The sources I've read refer to case studies from 1995 onwards which is in line with the latency period. Nowhere has it been denied by Pilger or others raising the issue of DU that there maybe other contributing factors eg carcogenics released by the burning oil fields. This doesn't detract from the concerns being raised about the military use of DU and its legacy in Iraq. The website www.cadu.org.uk has plenty more info on the DU issue. |
| Quote: |
| ]This is artful. If Pilger and Arbuthnot accept that DU cannot have caused cancers observed in 1992, why haven't they made this clear? None of the cancers and birth defects that Pilger's researcher dates hack to 1992 can be the fault of depleted uranium. To omit the possibility that some of the cancers were caused by Saddam's chemical weapons is to misrepresent the facts. To imply by that omission that depleted uranium is solely responsible for the cancers and birth defects in Iraq as he docs in his book, his film and in the Daily Mirror is a disgrace to journalism |
.
Go to Wikipedia
| Quote: |
Health concerns
For further details see Actinides in the environment.
Depleted uranium differs from natural uranium only in its isotopic composition, not in its chemistry. As such, its chemical hazards are those which would be expected from natural uranium in the same form. The metal is pyrophoric when finely divided: in a massive form, it will slowly corrode under the influence of air and water producing uranium(V) and uranium(VI) salts.
Soluble uranium salts are toxic, though less so than those of other heavy metals such as lead or mercury. The organ which is most affected is the kidney. Soluble uranium salts are readily excreted in the urine, although some accumulation in the kidneys does occur in the case of chronic exposure. The World Health Organization has established a daily "tolerated intake" of soluble uranium salts for the general public of 0.5 μg/kg body weight (or 35 μg for a 70 kg adult): exposure at this level is not thought to lead to any significant kidney damage.
The radiological dangers of pure depleted uranium are relatively low, lower (60%) than those of naturally-occurring uranium due to the removal of the more radioactive isotopes. The chemical toxicity of soluble uranium salts is greater than their radiological toxicity. The greatest radiological hazard is posed by inhalable dusts of insoluble uranium dioxide. However, the radiological hazards are dependant on the purity of the uranium, and there has been some concern than depleted uranium produced as a by-product of nuclear reprocessing may be contaminated with more dangerous isotopes: this should not be a concern for depleted uranium produced as tailings from initial uranium enrichment.
The possible dangers of exposure to depleted uranium have received renewed attention as a result of the use of DU munitions in the Gulf War. Some observers believe that exposure to uranium is the cause of, or a contributing factor to, Gulf War syndrome. The long-term effects on populations living in the areas in which DU munitions were used have also caused some concern.
There are still more questions than answers about the health and environmental impacts of DU munitions. Nonetheless, it appears that the effects of DU are more serious than public officials would like to admit, but less harmful than asserted by hyperbolic activists. Based on the body of publicly available scientific evidence, several tentative conclusions can be drawn that chart a middle course between the extremists� claims:
DU has caused cancer, central nervous system damage, reproductive effects, and other health problems in laboratory rats;
Evidence of human health effects caused by DU is inconclusive, due largely to the fact that the health status of only a few dozen people with verified exposures has been assessed;
After DU munitions have been used in combat, the presence of DU in soil and water, or on equipment and in buildings, may � depending on a variety of factors � present short- and long-term hazards to the health of local populations. |
| Quote: |
I'm begining to think you're one clown short of a circus Joo Rip. |
Whatever - I am not looking for your friendship or approval and I am still gonna tell the truth about a very violent and dishonest man by the name of John Pliger.
Lets see the whole article
http://www.looksmartindianapolis.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200306/ai_n9265264?pi=locind
| Quote: |
first casualty of Pilger. . ., The
Spectator, The, Jun 28, 2003 by Sweeney, John
John Sweeney says that John Pilger blames the Americans alone for birth defects in Iraq, and overlooks evidence that implicates Saddam Hussein
The Americans arc making a hash of rebuilding Iraq, but one of the not so bad things they have done is to give Iraqis the freedom to scribble. On the wall outside the Baathist ministry of health the other day, a graffiti artist had scrawled in perfect English, 'We need a health ministry free of corruption.'
For years John Pilger - 'one of the world's most renowned investigative journalists', it says on the back of his latest book - has been insisting that the West, not Saddam, is to blame for the crisis in Iraq's public health; that 5,200 Iraqi children were dying every month; that Western depleted-uranium weapons were to blame for an epidemic of cancers; that sanctions crippled Iraq's doctors. Funnily enough, Pilger's journalism echoed what the Baathist regime wanted people to hear.
But very recently in Baghdad what some might call the Pilger-Baathist line was put to a very public test by yet another American blunder. They handpicked a new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi, who was number three at the health ministry under Saddam. According to virtually every Iraqi doctor I spoke to, he was an unacceptable choice. The Iraqi doctors were not keen to say so to the BBC on camera. To criticise the Baath party on the record is, even now, something that no Iraqi will do lightly. Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, mulled it over and said, 'OK, we'll do it.' They damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn't toe the line were punished.
At a press conference to launch the new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan replied that what his critics were really complaining about were Western-led United Nations sanctions against Iraq. As the words came out of his mouth, I thought to myself, 'He's talking John Pilger.' But Dr Ali Shenan was sacked, thanks to the doctors, while John Pilger is still in business.
In Victorian London the biggest killer was not the absence of medicines. It was unclean water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish. In Saddam's Iraq dirty water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish from the Shia slums of Baghdad and Basra were state policy for a regime that earned $12 billion in oil revenue every year. Yet Pilger makes no mention of Saddam's neglect of public health. Why?
And then there's the 'Hiroshima effect' of depleted uranium. Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, 'Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call "the Hiroshima effect", especially among children.' That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West's depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam's central messages.
years ago, Pilger did the rounds of a Basra hospital. He spoke to a paediatrician, Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen. He wrote it all up in his book The New Rulers of the World: 'In the next bed, a child lay in his shrouded mother's arms. One side of his head was severely swollen. "This is neuroplastoma," said Dr Hassen. "It is a very unusual tumour. Before 1991, we saw only one case of this tumour in two years. Now we have many cases. I am a doctor; I am not supposed to cry, but I cry every day, because this is torture." ' Pilger asked her, 'What do you say to those in the West who deny the connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?' That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991, we saw nothing like this at all.'
Felicity Arbuthnot, Pilger's senior researcher for the film, wrote in a magazine article published in September 1999, 'By early 1992, doctors in Iraq were bewildered by the rise in birth deformities - some so grotesque and unusual that they expected to see them only in textbooks and perhaps once or twice in a life-time. They compared them to those recorded in the Pacific Islands after the nuclear testing in the 1950s. Cancers, too, were rising, especially among the young, the most susceptible to radiation.'
Hang on a minute. Cancers don't happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. The Iraqis reported a rash of cancers in the south from 1992 onwards. The cancers that happened in 1992 cannot, scientifically, have been caused in 1992 - or 1991 when the depleted uranium was used - but at least four years before that. 'To say any different is ridiculous; it would deny the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' Dr Nick Plowman, the head of oncology at Barts, told me.
In the mid-1980s Iranian human-wave offensives almost took Basra, but they were stopped by Saddam's chemical weapons. The UN found incontrovertible evidence that Saddam used mustard gas against the Iranians every year between 1984 and 1988. When the Iranians came close to Basra, the Iraqis dropped gas on their own people, too. Nearly all of the war was fought in Iraq, not Iran, so that's where Saddam dropped his chemical weapons.
Mustard gas - sulphur mustard - is carcinogenic and mutagenic. That is, sulphur mustard causes cancers, leukaemias and birth defects. The children of Iranian soldiers who were gassed by Saddam's men have developed terrible cancers and birth defects. No depleted-uranium weapons were used on them. The children of Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam, have developed cancers and birth defects. Again, no depleted uranium was used on them.
Pilger knows all about chemical weapons. He wrote in the Minor in January, 'I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange. This terrible chemical weapon was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam. Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia.' If chemical weapons cause cancers in Vietnam, why don't they do the same in Iraq? The answer seems a simple one: chemical weapons cause cancer so long as they are dropped by the Americans.
Shortly after Pilger's programme was broadcast in 2000, Arbuthnot phoned Gwynne Roberts, the only journalist brave enough to go to Iraq in 1988 and dig up soil contaminated by Saddam's chemical weapons. Portland Down found mustard gas in Roberts's soil samples. Arbuthnot was puz-zled: how could the cancers in Iraq have started in 1992? Roberts's view, like mine, is that - without letting the West off the hook on the question of depleted uranium - the contribution that Saddam's chemical weapons may have made to the Hiroshima Effect should be seriously investigated.
I emailed John Pilger, asking him, 'You know about Saddam's use of chemical weapons, so why didn't you raise the possibility of that being the cause of the cancers and birth defects?' He replied, 'You apparently think my film was made in 1991. It wasn't. It was made in 1999, eight years after the 1991 Gulf war, or twice the time it takes for deformities to develop, according to you. In the film I clearly put to one of the doctors the doubts that depleted uranium is the cause of the deformities. Her answer was a good one. Another specialist himself raises the doubts and addresses them. At no point in the film do I say that DU is, on its own, responsible for the extraordinary rise in cancers over, I repeat, a period of eight years up to when the film was made.'
This is artful. If Pilger and Arbuthnot accept that DU cannot have caused cancers observed in 1992, why haven't they made this clear? None of the cancers and birth defects that Pilger's researcher dates hack to 1992 can be the fault of depleted uranium. To omit the possibility that some of the cancers were caused by Saddam's chemical weapons is to misrepresent the facts. To imply by that omission that depleted uranium is solely responsible for the cancers and birth defects in Iraq as he docs in his book, his film and in the Daily Mirror is a disgrace to journalism
I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator.
John Sweeney is special correspondent for the BBC.
Copyright Spectator Jun 28, 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved |
More about that fake peace activist and violent phoney here.
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2003/10/john_pilger_def.html
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2003/09/pilger_truth_an.html
http://www.brookesnews.com/061704pilger.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| cerulean808 wrote: |
| Joo Rip, playing Pontius Pilate on behalf of power |
Touche ...
| Quote: |
| [Pilger] is a violent man. |
| Quote: |
| He is a very violent man. |
| cerulean808 wrote: |
| I'm begining to think you're one clown short of a circus Joo Rip. |
Why is it as well that, when it comes to posting, ( i.e. pro-PAGAN-dizing with choice cut & paste filler ) Joo's rule of thumb clearly reads:
"Bigger is better"?
Hmmmmmmm ... must simply be part of the spooky guy's ( if you can't dazzle em' with your brilliance ) M.O. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 12:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?
FEARS OVER SECRET U.S. ARMS SHIPMENT
10 May 2006
SOME 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.
The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia.
But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.
Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders 
And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.
It follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq's police and army instead went to al-Qaeda
Amnesty chief spokesman Mike Blakemore said: "It's unbelievable that no one can account for 200,000 assault rifles. If these weapons have gone missing it's a terrifying prospect." American defence chiefs hired a US firm to take the guns, from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq.
But air traffic controllers in Baghdad have no record of the flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005. A coalition forces spokesman confirmed they had not received "any weapons from Bosnia" and added they were "not aware of any purchases for Iraq from Bosnia". Nato and US officials have already voiced fears that Bosnian arms - sold by US, British and Swiss firms - are being passed to insurgents.
A Nato spokesman said: "There's no tracking mechanism to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off." This year a newspaper claimed two UK firms were involved in a deal in which thousands of guns for Iraqi forces were re-routed to al-Qaeda.
One arms broker's lawyer is said to have admitted that nearly all of a shipment of 1,500 AK-47s went missing. And a US official said �270million of equipment could not be traced.
Meanwhile, Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment.
Two other companies in the complicated sale claim to have papers proving the guns were delivered in Iraq but refuse to show them.
Amnesty has now called on Britain to clamp down on the arms trade.
Spokeswoman Kate Allen said: "It's out of control and costing hundreds of thousands of lives every year. The UK has a real chance to do something about it when the UN meets in June."
Voice of the Mirror: Page 6
[email protected] |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 12:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
Defense Department arms dealer with Al Qaeda ties was to ship missing AK47s
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is the man to call when you need 200,000 AK47s, even when you�re the United States government
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/03/arms_merchant_v.html
March 10, 2005
Arms Merchant Victor Bout Continues to Fly, with Help From his Friends
More than nine months ago the State Department asked the rest of the government to cut off contracts with companies associated with Viktor Bout, the world's largest arms merchant who is alleged to have supplied weapons to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
It took five months for Defense Department to begin to respond and cancel some of his contracts to fly ammuniton and contract personnel into Iraq and around the region. Bout was dubbed the "Merchant of Death" by a senior British official because, through his web of airplanes and weapons-buying contacts Bout supplied hundreds of tons of weapons to some of the most unsavory characters on the planet, many connected to terrorism. These include Charles Taylor in Liberia, who sold diamonds to al Qaeda; rebels in the Congo and Angola, the drug-trafficking FARC in Colombia, Abu Sayef in the Philippines, and others.
Juan Zarate, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, recently called Bout "arguably the largest private arms dealer in the world today," willing to supply "guns and bullets by the ton, as well as advanced equipment such as attack helicopters, to anyone willing to pay his price."
Yet, astoundingly, the Pentagon remains among those willing to pay his price. Airplanes from Bout-controlled Aerocom company, using the call sign "MCC," continue to fly for private contractors and Pentagon clients there. And he may be getting help from some others in the murky world of Private Military Companies
While there are responsible and honorable PMCs out there doing dangerous and necessary work, the one that got the biggest contract is a British mercenary and friend of Bout who is not of that character. Last year Aegis Defense Services Ltd, a British firm, signed a three-year contract is worth $293 MILLION, to coordinate security groups in Iraq and provide security to diplomats and others.
Aegis is run by Tim Spicer, a familiar name in the world of African mercenaries and illegal gun runners and an acquaintence of Bout. His long and rather checkered past seem to have been ignored by the Pentagon, including his blatant violation of international arms embargos. But the Pentagon says the Brits, to whom Spicer is very well known, raised no objections. Spicer was also a business partner with one of Bout's main business partners, Sanjivan Ruprah.
For a look at all these connections that are now having an impact on the war against terrorism in Iraq, see my blog
http://www.douglasfarah.com/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 7:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
| igotthisguitar wrote: |
| cerulean808 wrote: |
| Joo Rip, playing Pontius Pilate on behalf of power |
Touche ...
| Quote: |
| [Pilger] is a violent man. |
| Quote: |
| He is a very violent man. |
| cerulean808 wrote: |
| I'm begining to think you're one clown short of a circus Joo Rip. |
Why is it as well that, when it comes to posting, ( i.e. pro-PAGAN-dizing with choice cut & paste filler ) Joo's rule of thumb clearly reads:
"Bigger is better"?
Hmmmmmmm ... must simply be part of the spooky guy's ( if you can't dazzle em' with your brilliance ) M.O. |
go give us some stuff from Jeff Rense . You creepy fascist. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 5:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| go give us some stuff from Jeff Rense . You creepy fascist. |
Uhhh ... Joo- HOMINEM ...
How about you try to string a single sentence together sometime that doesn't contain multiple fallacies? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
