America's Christian Mujahideen...,
2003-10-17 13:19:51
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"The most repulsive thing to all men is gratitude"...,
2003-10-17 17:10:06
"How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?":
A defense akin to Limbaugh's 'I'm just an entertainer'. I know academics can be dry, but at least they can stand up to their own footnotes. Moore might be the closest thing there is to a 'Limbaugh on the left', and it shows. I'm not very impressed by either.
On the other hand, the Oil for Food program "which allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil to purchase humanitarian supplies" was also used to pay reparations to the Kuwaiti dictatorship: 30% of Oil-for-Food revenue was spent on reparations, with an additional cut going to the UN. We should ask the director of the relief program where is the rest of the money?
Ten billion dollars over four years divided by 22 million people, believe me, is not adequate funding to feed and provide medical care for the Iraqi people. In addition, it falls very much short in dealing with the damage of the Gulf War bombing by the U.S. and with other sectors of Iraq which were damaged by the war, such as agriculture, health care and education.
In light of recent budget requests from the White House, that should be patently obvious.
To turn to another director of the Oil for Food mission: "US/UK concurrence to [the] illegal export of [Iraqi] oil is in exchange for Turkish government agreement to the use of Incirlik airbase in south-eastern Anatolia for allied sorties into the northern no-fly zone of Iraq" was money that did not go to the Oil for Food program, and, furthermore "the blocking of contracts by the US/UK has created immense problems in implementing the oil-for-food programme".
"One can only imagine" what Keefer "would have said if the U.S. had allowed Iraqi citizens to starve", had intentionally destroyed Iraq's water supply, had acquiesced to illegal oil exports to Turkey, Syria and Jordan that enriched Saddam - but which could have been included in the oil for food program, or had followed a policy that assured regime survival while systematically destroying a society of 25 million people.