Rob's Ramblings

You may have heard that the U.S. government deleted thousands of pages from the weapons-program dossier that the Iraq released. According to the Independent of London the missing pages contained a list of European and American companies that supplied Iraq with materials for weapons. The list of companies is available online . One of the most disturbing things about the Independent piece is the statement that these companies’ support for Iraq’s conventional weapons program “had continued until last year.” So while children were dying because of economic sanctions and the inability to import sufficient humanitarian aid, weapons companies were continuing to do business with Saddam! What we need instead of war is an end to economic sanctions and stepped up enforcement of military sanctions against Iraq. And while we are at it why not increased military sanctions for other nations in the Middle East as well.

I am reading the book “A Language Older Than Words” by Derrick Jensen. He has one section where he describes some of the atrocities of the first Gulf War. It might be helpful to review these as we prepare for the second. - 250,000 – 500,000 Iraqis died during the war. - American troops used plows mounted on tanks to bury Iraqis alive in their trenches, after one wave of bulldozers incapacitated the defenders, another filled the trenches with sand. - in at least one verified incident American soldiers slaughtered thousands of unarmed Iraqi soldiers walking toward Americans positions, hands raised in an attempt to surrender - two days after the ceasefire, Schwarzkopf approved the combined arms slaughter of Iraq’s Republican Guard Hammurabi Division as it retreated. - in clear violation of international law, the American forces used napalm fuel-air explosives, and cluster bombs - less than 10% of destroyed vehicles on the “Highway of Death” were associated with the military. One...

When I posted my comments below to an alumni board a friend responded with a tirade against about my response to terrorism. Here is how I responded: Thank you for responding to my post. What would I do? Back in a previous message I posted a long list of resources that offer analysis of why war with Iraq is unnecessary. Some of these articles also list alternatives to a war. Please take the time to read these. Here are a few that offer specific alternatives to the war: http://www.fourthfreedom.org/php/t-si-index.php?hinc=www_report.hinc http://www.thestranger.com/2002-10-17/feature.html http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/iraq3.html http://members.tripod.com/~lutheran_peace/LJEIraqarticle10a.html (you skip over the religious stuff in the first paragraph) "Disarming Iraq: Nonmilitary Strategies" David Cortright and George Lopez, 9-02, www.armscontrol.org "With weapons of the will: How to topple Saddam Hussein, nonviolently," Peter Ackerman...

Someone offered the "hunch" that Bush is just bluffing and that their won't be a war with Iraq anytime soon. Here are my hunches: 1) The Bush administration will find some excuse to attack Iraq. Perhaps they will say that all the "i"s are not dotted in the report due this weekend. Or, maybe that the weapons inspectors are incompetent. Or, maybe they will invent a lie like the incubator baby story from the first Gulf war. (See recent articles in British newspapers here , and here ) 2) The attack will take place between Dec. 16 and the end of January – this is the ideal weather window for battle in the dessert (see: this source ). 3) This war has nothing to do with “weapons of mass destruction” which is why we are not attacking N. Korea. It has to do with the fact that Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves and the Bush administration considers it strategic for their world domination objectives. (See London Review of Books article by Anatol...