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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/15/2009 12:56:41 PM | Home Page Latest News/Top Stories Most Popular Stories USA Canada Latin America & Caribbean Europe sub-Saharan Africa Russia and FSU Middle East Oceania Asia US NATO War Agenda Global Economic Crisis Crimes against Humanity Environment Oil and Energy Poverty & Social Inequality Militarization and WMD 9/11 & 'War on Terrorism' Police State Law and Justice Biotechnology and GMO Women's Rights Media Disinformation Politics and Religion United Nations Science and Medicine Culture and Society Intelligence
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Seeds of Destruction
by F.William Engdahl -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Globalization of Poverty by Michel Chossudovsky now available in pdf format
October 15, 2009 Learn the Truth: The H1N1 Flu Pandemic Biopiracy and GMOs: The Fate of Iraq's Agriculture
by Ghali Hassan . Global Research, December 12, 2005
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While the Iraqi people are struggling to end the U.S. military Occupation and its associated violence, the fate of their food sources and agricultural heritage is being looted behind closed doors. Unless the colonisation of Iraq ends, the U.S. Occupation of Iraq will continue to have lasting and disastrous effects on Iraq's economy and Iraq's ability to feed its people.
Iraq is home to the oldest agricultural traditions in the world. Historical, genetic and archaeological evidence, including radiocarbon dating of carbon-containing materials at the site, show that the Fertile Crescent, including modern Iraq, was the centre of domestication for a remarkable array of today's primary agricultural crops and livestock animals. Wheat, barley, rye, lentils, sheep, goats, and pigs were all originally brought under human control around 8000 BCE. Iraq is where wild wheat was once originated and many of its cereal varieties have been exported and adapted worldwide. [1] The beginning of agriculture led inexorably to the development of human civilization. [2]
Since then, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia have used informal seed supply systems to plant crops, suited to their particular environment. The saving and sharing of seeds in Iraq has always been a largely informal matter. Local varieties of grain and legumes have been adapted to local conditions over the millennia. While much has changed in the ensuing millennia, agriculture remains an essential part of Iraq's heritage. Despite extreme aridity, characterised by low rainfalls and soil salinity, Iraq had a world standard agricultural sector producing good quality food for generations.
According to the Rome-based UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), 97 percent of Iraqi farmers in 2002 still used saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest, or purchased from local markets. This despite the criminal sanctions -- maintained by the U.S. and Britain for dubious reasons -- which destroyed Iraq's agricultural sector. The 1997 FAO report found that "Crop yields . . . remain low due to poor land preparation as a result of lack of machinery, low use of inputs, deteriorating soil quality and irrigation facilities' and the animal population has declined steeply due to severe shortages of feed and vaccines during the embargo years."
Unlike other Middle Eastern countries, Iraq has both water and oil. In addition, Iraq has one of the most educated societies in the region. Iraq was once self-sufficient in agriculture and was also the world's number one exporter of dates. About 27 percent of Iraq's total land area is suitable for cultivation, over half of which is rain-fed while the balance is irrigable. Wheat, barley, and chickpeas are the primary staple crops, and traditionally wheat has been the most important crop in the country. Prior to the U.S. war on Iraq, average annual harvests were 1.4 million tonnes for cereals, 400,000 tonnes for roots and tubers, and 38,000 tonnes for pulses. [3] The U.S. war and the US-Britain sponsored sanctions have devastated Iraq's agricultural sector. Only half of the irrigable area is now properly utilised. Food shortages and malnutrition were less of problem before the war and the criminal sanctions.
After the 1991 U.S. war, Iraq was denied its right to rebuild its war-shattered economy and infrastructure. U.S.-Britain used the criminal sanctions to destroy what was left of Iraq and kill its children. In plain language, the sanctions were used as a vehicle to terrorise Iraqi civilians.
"I went to Iraq in September 1997 to oversee the UN 'oil for food program'. I quickly realized that this humanitarian program was a Band-Aid for a UN sanctions regime that was quite literally killing people. Feeling the moral credibility of the UN was being undermined, and not wishing to be complicit in what I felt was a criminal violation of human rights, I resigned after thirteen months," Denis Halliday, former humanitarian aid coordinator for Iraq, told an audience at Harvard University on 5 November 1998. Mr. Halliday called the sanctions "genocidal," because of the number of Iraqi children killed.
Following the illegal Occupation of Iraq, the suffering of the Iraqi people has increased. A recent report by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which monitors the distribution of rations, found the majority of the Iraqi population lack the required daily calories to survive and remain healthy. The new WFP Emergency report revealed that "there are significant country-wide shortfalls in rice, sugar and milk and infant formula." It added; "Some governorates continue to report serious shortfalls of nearly every commodity." Another report prepared by UN Human Rights rapporteur, the reputed Swiss professor of Sociology, Mr. Jean Ziegler, reveals that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and 5 years has increased from 4% before the invasion to 7.7% since the US invasion of Iraq. And more than a quarter of Iraqi children do not get enough food to eat. Indeed, Mr. Ziegler accused the U.S. and British forces of using food and water as weapons of war in besieged Iraqi cities.
Just before announcing his departure from Iraq and handing "power" to the U.S.-installed band of discredited quislings (the so-called "transfer of [fake] sovereignty"), U.S. proconsul and head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer issued "100 Orders" to transfer Iraq's economy and legal ownership of Iraqi resources into the private hands of U.S. corporations. Then, to encourage the looting of Iraq's wealth and increase the suffering of the Iraqi people, the Bush administration issued an "executive order" to indemnify not only the corporate looters from prosecution, but also provides protection to soldiers and private security guards committing crimes against Iraqis. A closer examination of these "100 Orders" and U.S. policy in Iraq shows that the war on Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, terrorism, "democracy" and "liberation," but to colonise Iraq and enrich U.S. corporations at the expense of the Iraqi people.
Order 81 deals specifically with Plant Variety Protection (PVP) because it is designed to protect the commercial interests of corporate seed companies. Its aim is to force Iraqi farmers to plant so-called "protected" crop varieties 'defined as new, distinct uniform and stable', and most likely genetically modified. This means Iraqi farmers will have one choice; to buy PVP registered seeds. Order 81 opens the way for patenting (ownership) of plant forms, and facilitates the introduction of genetically modified crops or organisms (GMOs) to Iraq. U.S. agricultural biotechnology corporations, such as Monsanto and Syngenta will be the beneficiaries. [4] Iraqi farmers will be forced to buy their seeds from these corporations. GMOs will replace the old tradition of breeding closely related plants, and replace them with organisms composed of DNA from an altogether different species, e.g., bacterium genes into corn. In the long run, there won't be a big enough gene pool for genetic viability.
Upon purchasing the patented seeds, farmers must sign the company's technology agreement (Technology User Agreements). This agreement allows the company to control farmers' practices and conduct property investigation. The farmer becomes the slave of the company. Like U.S. farmers, Iraqi farmers will be "harassed for doing what they have always done." For example, Iraqi farmers can be sued by Monsanto, if their non-GMO crops are polluted by GMO crops planted in their vicinity. [5] The health and environmental consequences of GMO crops are still unknown. GMO-based agriculture definitely encourages monoculture and genetic pollution. Moreover, this will further increase the already polluted Iraqi environment as a result of tens of thousands of tons of 'depleted' uranium dust, napalm, chemical weapons, and phosphorous bombs.
Farmers will also be required to buy fertilisers, herbicides and insecticides, against plants disease. Iraqi farmers will be required to pay royalties for the new seeds and they will be forbidden from saving seeds. In other words, Iraqi farmers will become agricultural producers for export, a recipe for the introduction of hunger in Iraq, not unknown in many developing countries. Unless an independent sovereign Iraqi government repeals these edicts, they will override Iraq's original patent law of 1970, which, in accordance with the Iraqi constitution, prohibited private ownership of biological resources.
Furthermore, Order 81 ignores Iraqi farmers' old traditions of saving seeds, and using their knowledge to breed and plant their crops. It also brutally disregards the contributions which Iraqi farmers have made over hundreds of generations to the development of important crops like wheat, barley, dates and pulses. If anybody owns those varieties and their unique virtues, it is the families who bred them, even though nobody has described or characterized them in terms of their genetic makeup. If anything, the new law -- in allowing old varieties to be genetically manipulated or otherwise modified and then "registered" -- involves the theft of inherited intellectual property, the loss of farmers' freedoms, and the destruction of food sovereignty in Iraq.
Iraqi traditional plant varieties, which were kept in Iraq's gene bank at the town of Abu Ghraib -- the town where the Bush administration used the prison to abuse, torture and murder Iraqi prisoners and detainees --may have been looted and lost during the invasion. There is hope that the Syria-based Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the affiliated International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) still holds accessions of several Iraqi varieties in the form of germplasm. Evidence shows that Western "bio-prospectors" have been using indigenous genetic material taken from their traditional owners. [6] It is this kind of looting or "biopiracy" that is contributing to the destruction of farmers in the developing world, because they have lost control of what they sow, grow, reap and eat.
The man who is in charge of dismantling Iraq's agriculture is Daniel Amstutz, formerly an executive of the Cargill Corporation. Cargill is well known for having the reputation of being one the worst violators of the rights and independence of family farmers throughout the world. Amstutz appointment is designed to undermine Iraqi farmers and destroy Iraq's ability to produce food to feed its people. His service has been to advance U.S. agribusiness corporations. [8] For his task, Amstutz will be assisted by no others than Cargill, Monsanto, Dow and Texas A & M's Agriculture Program and its subsidiary the Arizona-based agriculture research firm, World Wide Wheat Company. All are known to have innately unjust records doing business in developing countries and enslaving farmers there.
According to Focus on the Global South and GRAIN report: "Iraq has the potential to feed its people. But instead of developing this capacity, Washington is shaping the future of Iraq's food and farming to serve the interests of U.S. corporations." [7] The aim of the U.S. is to undermine Iraq's food security, and remove all the contributions Iraqi farmers have made to development of agriculture and important crops like wheat, and barley. [9] Iraq's agriculture will be re-engineered to produce high yields agricultural products for export, and force Iraq to depend on importing food, and on Western "aid."
"If Iraq's new administration truly wanted to re-establish Iraqi agriculture for the benefit of the Iraqi people it would seek out the fruits of their knowledge. It could scour the country for successful farms, and if it miraculously found none could bring over the seeds from ICARDA and use those as the basis of a programme designed to give Iraq back the agriculture it once gave [to] the world," writes Jeremy Smith. [6]
Consistent with agricultural research, what Iraqi farmers need urgently is not GMOs and chemicals, but the opposite. Iraq needs ways to better control pathogens and pests by greater use of natural enemies and crop diversity. As accurately described by Vandana Shiva, "The miracle varieties displaced the diversity of traditionally grown crops, and through the erosion of diversity the new seeds became a mechanism for introducing and fostering pests." Shiva added; "Indigenous varieties are resistant to local pests and diseases. Even if certain diseases occur, some of the strains may be susceptible, but others will have resistance to survive." [10] Diversity of seeds is the best natural defence. Without diversity, plants are very susceptible to disease.
Finally, the U.S. and its allies, including the UN are illegally transforming Iraq's law and the Iraqi economy. The US action in Iraq is in breach of The Hague Regulations of 1907, the 1949 Geneva Conventions -- both ratified by the United States -- as well as the U.S. Army's own code of war ‚ as stated in the Army field manual, The Law of Land Warfare. Article 43 of The Hague Regulations requires that an occupying power "re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Resolution 1483 of the UN Security Council issued in May 2003, specifically instructs the occupying powers to follow The Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions in Iraq. In fact, the British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was very clear about the illegality of the Iraq's invasion and rightly warned Tony Blair that "the imposition of major structural economic reforms would not be authorized by international law." [11]
Any new Iraqi government is obliged to repeal the illegally enacted Bremer's 100 Orders, including Order 81 and demand that the US pays compensation for the criminal damages that resulted from the Occupation. Iraq will never be sovereign and independent, unless its wealth and resources are protected and the sole property of the Iraqi people. The end of U.S. Occupation and colonisation of Iraq must be total and immediate.
Resources:
[1] GM Free Cymru, "Iraq's Crop Patent Law: A threat to food Security," Countercurrents.org (03 March 2005).
[2] Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," Norton, 1997.
[3] U.S. Department of Commerce, "Overview of Key Industry Sectors in Iraq" (July 2004).
[4] CPA, "Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law" Order 81 (26 April 2004).
[5] Centre for Food Safety, "Monsanto vs. U.S. farmers," percyschmeiser.com (2005).
[6] Jeremy Smith, "Order 81," The Ecologist 35(1) (2005). Article available on GlobalResearch.ca.
[7] Focus on the Global South and GRAIN, "Iraq's New Patent Law: A declaration of War against Farmers," (November 2000).
[8] Heather Gray, "Home Grown Axis of Evil," Counterpunch.org (22 July 2005).
[9] Ghali Hassan, "Undermining Iraq's food Security," Newmatilda.com, (23 February 2005).
[10] Vandana Shiva, "Biopiracy – the plunder of nature and knowledge," Between the Lines, 1997.
[11] Antonia Juhasz, "The Economic Colonization of Iraq: Illegal and Immoral," (8 May 2004); Global Policy Forum, "International Law Aspects of the Iraq War and Occupation," (2003-2005). The Forum includes several reports related to U.S. war crimes committed against the Iraqi people.
Global Research Contributing Editor Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.
Ghali Hassan is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Ghali Hassan
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/15/2009 1:02:42 PM | | I thought that copy/paste was discouraged............................. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/15/2009 1:06:02 PM | | Who cares? My point is that they are being manipulated and raped by Agri Nazi's. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/16/2009 10:14:00 AM | Yes OP.......the story regarding the rape and continued abuse by the US/UK nexus of Iraq and the Iraqi people, especially the children, is well understood. But Iraq has gone through some of the best demonising propaganda that the nexus alliance has been able manufacture in support of their continued usurpation of Iraq and her people that make reversal improbable. All those lies spewed out by our political masters have become set in stone for the average lay person who can see none else.
Unfortunately your OP will be “scoffed” at in the first instance and reported for deletion for a plethora of fallacies in the second instance. To get your message across may take a whole generational change but there may be some light in a positive outcome of the present and ongoing British Gov’t official inquiry into the war in Iraq, don’t hold your breath though as a negative finding may be over-ruled as not in the national security interests of the UK, US and Israeli Govt’s and so would be squashed.
But one day, people will be aghast at the depths of the horrors we brought down on Iraq and the continued misery we have contentedly kept her peoples in, so in answer to your question........no Iraq is not free-er now and in all probability is less so than under Saddam.
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/16/2009 10:23:52 AM | As far as deleteing this post, I would never vote to do that, as it is about as wacky as it gets.............. and as such just points out how strange some can get.
To say that it is worse now than under saddam is laughable, which is why nobody is replying. Just ask all the people whose families disappeared, were tortured, and lived in fear of going out on the street........................
'nuff said.
Paul K | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/16/2009 2:31:00 PM |
To say that it is worse now than under saddam is laughable
I strongly disagree. At least when he was around kids went to school,people had water,electricity,jobs and a low level of violence and terrorism compared to this. (don't be silly and assume this is an arguement FOR saddam)
To me its just like when russia entered germany...accept way worse cause we dont learn from history anymore........one tyrant replacing another. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/16/2009 3:54:42 PM | Equating how it is now in Iraq, to how it was under saddam because we are both "tryants" is beyond a stretch.
Lets see now, right at the end of WW2, the Soviet Union entered Germany, and was a tyrant, according to you. Does that mean the we also were tyrants, because we controlled part of Germany? Were the English tyrants as well?
New history is always so interesting.
Paul K. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/16/2009 5:36:00 PM |
Lets see now, right at the end of WW2, the Soviet Union entered Germany, and was a tyrant, according to you. Does that mean the we also were tyrants, because we controlled part of Germany? Were the English tyrants as well?
And where in the post did you read that?
The question is: Is Iraq really free now? The side issue is: Are Iraqis better off now?
The answer to both is: No.
Things were very, very bad under Saddam Hussein. Things are very,very, very bad under the occupation. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/16/2009 8:22:26 PM | Isn't it wonderful? Iraq is FREE...No more Saddam Hussein to shake hands with Rummy, or believe the US's tales of slant drilling of Iraqi oil from Kuwait, or believing the US when they said they wouldn't care if he took action against Kuwait for it.
Iraq now has "freedom and democracy", and can vote in whatever government the US will allow. Who cares that thousands of tons of depleted uranium are going to kill and disfigure people who live there for billions of years to come...it's a free country.
Here's hoping they can appreciate the favour that was done to..er..for them. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/17/2009 12:05:12 AM | | Free compared to what? Are they more free than they were under Saddam? Absolutely. Are they free to choose their own government and kick the US out? No. So they are more free, but they've really just traded one dictator for a fascist state. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/17/2009 4:19:33 AM | I thought that copy/paste was discouraged.............................
Is that all you got from that report? It's a copy/paste? Doesn't it make you just a little shamed at what the Bush administration did to those poor people? Wake up and smell the blood. You're paying for the bullets, you might just as well get the full effect.
The first time I read that article, it was simply a reminder of what I already knew and it absolutely made my blood boil that an American president could possibly do something like that simply boggles my mind. I really wish Obama well. He's got some serious mountains to climb.
why is this in the science/philosophy forum?
Because it pertains to vilest side of the human condition and the horror it wreaks upon anyone or anything in it's path. You are a part of that, no? The human condition? | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/17/2009 5:16:37 AM | This seed attrocity and corporate control has already taken place on American soil. Check into it but right now farmers have little options as to using GMO seeds. What began in the early nineties as a small portion of farms using GMO's has now blossomed into about 90%. Seed cleaners are being outlawed. They are those who would come to a farm and take the remnants after harvest and remove viable seeds to be used so the farmer did not have to purchase. At one time not too long ago there were about two to three operating in each farm county. They have been reduced because of new laws to two per state. Farms have little choice but to purchase GMO seeds. Any independant farmer can be sued if it suspected that he has GMO plants on his farm. If he is surrounded by those that already grow GMO crops a steady wind is all it takes. Monsanto owns the rights to these seeds. Corn, soy, and wheat seeds are that used to be public now are becoming a thing of the past.
It is not inconcievable that wars or small skirmishes around the world are just a means to an end to for corporations to increase market shares as we move to a full globalization. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/17/2009 8:12:08 AM | Philosophically, Americans can sit in the warmth, comfort and safety of their homes, watch filtered news and propaganda and surmise that we "liberated" Iraqis, their oil, and that our dictator is somehow better than the old one. If we looked at it more from the view of the Iraqis, however, we might see their plight from a more realistic point of view. Corporate control of food production is just an indicator of the wonderful "gifts" we have bestowed upon our conquered peoples.
One can ponder the joy expressed by the likes of Layla Anwar and come to another conclusion. http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/10/latest-from-occupied-iraq.html
The good old macho boys here seem to care little about the lives of Iraqi women under our puppet regime. http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MzkyNDU1OTY5
The International Committee of the Red Cross is less than impressed with our gift of "freedom" to the Iraqis. http://www.heraldscotland.com/red-cross-life-in-iraq-is-worse-than-ever-1.876714 "Iraq is now in a "worse shape" than it was under Saddam Hussein, with millions living without even the most basic medical care or access to clean water.
This is despite five years of military operations which have cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, 135 British personnel killed and £6.4bn of taxpayers' money.
The grim picture emerged as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) published a report warning that Iraqi hospitals were still lacking beds, drugs and medical staff, while the poor public water supply has forced some families to use at least one-third of their average monthly income buying clean drinking water.
"Five years after the outbreak of the war in Iraq, the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world," it said, describing Iraq's healthcare system as "now in worse shape than ever".
It warned that those who had fled their homes during the conflict remained extremely vulnerable.
"Better security in some parts of Iraq must not distract attention from the continuing plight of millions of people who have essentially been left to their own devices," said Beatrice Megevand Roggo, the ICRC's head of operations for the Middle East and Africa." Other voices of Iraq. http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/ http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/ http://www.equalityiniraq.com/ http://neurotic-iraqi-wife.blogspot.com/ | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/17/2009 10:44:54 AM | Paul the issue isnt so much that we were/are on their soil...its what we do and what goes on while we are there that matters.
Equating how it is now in Iraq, to how it was under saddam because we are both "tryants" is beyond a stretch.
I know you don't want to put blame to your own country but if you want to be honest with yourself and others you have to accept and acknowledge the fact that many atrocities have been committed by the Coalition Forces and that in result literally hundreds of thousands of people(mainly Iraqi civilians) have died. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/17/2009 11:09:48 AM | | Before the US invaded iraq i never even heard of an Iraqi Terrorist, now the countries riddled with them, Before US invaded Iraq was secular,Now they will hav complete religious law Saddams vice president was a catholic, thats never gonna happen again | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/19/2009 12:38:50 AM | Because it pertains to vilest side of the human condition and the horror it wreaks upon anyone or anything in it's path. You are a part of that, no? The human condition?
I'll accept that, seeing as I find no politics forum on here.
But I'm not part of the human condition. I opted out of that when I filled out the application.
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/19/2009 1:41:56 PM | Let's be honest: is this very much different than what Britain did to India, or what Europe did to most of Africa?
We've seen what happened there: poverty, war, child labour.
Can we in the West really say that we are in favour of peace, or war?
Can we in the West really say that we are protecting children from death, disease, famine, and slave labour?
What does this say about US?
Maybe if we truly believe in bringing peace and happiness to the world, it's time to turn against the tide of corporate wealth, and help, not hurt. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/21/2009 7:40:01 AM | I hate articles that just spout stats and never question any of them or their own direction of propaganda. Its bad reporting .
Is Iraq free ? .... Is any country free?
you have to truely define freedom and see if all your people have that within their hands.
Are criminals free? ... the US sure puts a lot of people in jail for having social problems like doing drugs ... so where is the freedom in that.
Should the US and Britain have invaded Iraq ? ...... Maybe. should they have stayed and occupied Iraq? ... No.
[Oh and I love how the OP ... posts and then leaves PoF] so don't expect feed back from them | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/21/2009 7:41:30 AM | | no one is really free...from a psychologist's point of view, we are a in a soft determinism state. So, we will never truely be free. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/21/2009 10:02:50 AM | Hey Emanuel
Saying that literally hundreds of thousands of mainly Iraqi citizens have died as a result of attrocities comitted by coalition forces is something that has no foundation whasoever in fact, yet is spouted and everyone seems to be just so jaded that they allow this nonsense to be said over and over again.
Anybody that equates what we do vs. what saddam did has an agenda, and is willing to say anything to forward that agenda. Equating us to saddam shows an ignorance in what is really going on over there. You need to talk to people who are actually there, otherwise all you have is a never ending circle of the same BS being spouted over and over and over.........................
I do have friends who spent years over there, and can point out the differences between now and a few years ago. To say that it is as bad or worse than it was under saddam is to show absolutely total ignorance on the subject. It may sound good while you are sitting around with like minded individuals, but if you were to put down the pipe, and talk to those who have seen things first hand, you would see a different story. BUT, you probably wouldn't believe them anyway, as it wouldn't fit into your outlook on life.
Paul K | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/21/2009 12:27:01 PM | I don't know, I don't live there.
I think it's a bit too fashionable to jump on any action anyone else does or doesn't take, especially when people have an agenda and believe every single word of 1 type of article or words from leaders. Most people are upset either for economic reasons whilst all countries are gaining in resource, life reasons where military and fighters are increasingly dying rather than civvies in a WTC OR ethical reasons where a temporary diplomatic nationbuilding occupation has replaced a stubborn dictator who punished/gassed his own people and made threats to the world.
It's all a big mix. You'd very likely do a much worse job. | |
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| Is Iraq really free now? Posted: 10/21/2009 12:47:14 PM | | Let's help the people by bombing them! Haha!!! The whole thing was a complete travesty. Let's help the people by securing their oil! Haha!!! Politiks as usual I'm afraid. | |
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