What Goes Around Comes Around

Sparks: well, the funding issue is not that major, as the UN can find the money somewhere. I think you confuse the "rest of the countries of the world," with the UN, however. We can deal with other countries directly, which is exactly what was done before the advent of the UN, or we can go into the UN format, with its rules and resolutions and bureaucracy. It's beginning to make more sense, at least to many in this country, that the former approach is wiser.


SG: you haven't had all those fundamentalist Algerian radicals for a century. Be careful out there...
 
I think you confuse the "rest of the countries of the world," with the UN, however. We can deal with other countries directly
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Yes, in the same way that Iraq could deal with other nations through UN sanctions. :rolleyes:

It's beginning to make more sense, at least to many in this country, that the former approach is wiser.
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I think you need to research more about that the word "wise" means...
 
What do you mean...that Iraq could get "through" the UN sanctions because they were unenforceable?


"Wise" meaning there's no real reason to subject ourselves to an unelected body largely composed of despotic regimes from around the globe.
 
The US reminds us of Germany 1937-1939.

Originally posted by EI_Sparks
Slow down there Abdullah. Just because I understand why 9/11 happened, doesn't mean that I agree with the morality of killing 3000 innocent people and wiping out the civil liberties of 250 million others, thus giving far more wide-ranging powers to the minority in control of the US military.
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Abdulla: Morality?! What does the US know about morality? After the US massacring of over 3,700,000 civilian lives in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 1970's--we pointed fingers at the Khamer Rouge 'TERRORISTS,' Hahahha.

I remember Afghanistan--and the raining down of food packets and bombs--all in the same breath. Like the BBC reported: "If you think many innocent lives were lost at WTC, you need to checkout Afghanistan in the hands of America's bombers.

I also remember northern Iraq a while back: "The US does its usual photo-op thing parachuting food down to the starving Kurds--until the cameras were pointed in another direction and then--NADA!

I remember Iraq: A handful of photos of young Iraqi's kissing US soldiers wired all the way to Mars by the Washington CHICKEN HAWKS-and the pickup truck loads of dismembered Iraqi men, women and children being hauled off to make shift morgues for identification.

Oh my, "what fools these mortals be."

AbdullaTheBomber....
 
What do you mean...that Iraq could get "through" the UN sanctions because they were unenforceable?
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No, I mean that the sanctions were effective if not completely so.

"Wise" meaning there's no real reason to subject ourselves to an unelected body largely composed of despotic regimes from around the globe.
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I agree. Good thing that that doesn't describe the UN.
 
Morality?! What does the US know about morality?
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Who's saying I am the US? Apart from the obvious nonsensicality of that, I'm not even american.
The morality of killing innocent people transcends nationality. It's wrong when anyone does it, and it should be punished in all cases.
 
It certainly describes the UN well enough!:D


The sanctions worked to a degree, except for the part where things were smuggled in and out of Iraq and Saddam skimmed much of the money earmarked for food aid.
 
No it doesn't alanH. The facts contradict your statements.

The sanctions worked to a degree, except for the part where things were smuggled in and out of Iraq and Saddam skimmed much of the money earmarked for food aid.
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Even in the US, smuggling is a problem - or do you actually have a legal means for importing narcotics?
And as to Hussein skimming the money earmarked for food aid - that'd be a neat trick, since the way the Oil for Food program worked was to take oil out of Iraq, sell it under UN supervision, buy food and medical and humanitarian supplies under UN supervision and then ship the products back to Iraq. It did not just give Hussein the right to sell oil himself.
 
Well Gosh! The UN's OFF program didn't let Saddam sell any oil! Well if the UN says no, then that means no, and no way around it either!:p

"Since the 1980s, Saddam's regime has stashed away up to $40 billion — mostly from kickbacks on oil sales and smuggled cigarettes, according to estimates from Treasury officials, money-laundering experts and human-rights groups.

"When the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq after the Gulf War, the gush of money slowed. But only a little.

From 1997 to 2002, Saddam and his sons Uday and Qusay raked in $12.5 billion in kickbacks while selling oil under a United Nations humanitarian program, according to a report last year by the Coalition for International Justice.

Another study last year, by the General Accounting Office, estimated Saddam pocketed $6.6 billion from oil smuggling and kickbacks from 1997 to 2001.

"Saddam grew bolder with every pound of loot," says Aufhauser in a recent interview.

Another possible source of profit for Saddam: cigarette smuggling. From 1996 to 2002, billions of U.S. cigarettes were shipped illegally by R.J. Reynolds into Iraq, alleges a lawsuit against the tobacco giant by European Union nations."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/iraq/2003-05-14-bloodmoney_x.htm
 
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