a letter worth reading for australian and american

> > Maybe its time to put down our pens and telephones, and
> > whatever else, and go out and protest this war before we all
> > regret it. Think of the good will that would come from a mass
> > protest in North America. Can we make a difference? You bet
> > we can!!! You may get this more than once as I've selected my
> > entire email list. But I think it is worth considering.
> >
> > Chris Frederick
> > Financial Management
> > www.fma-ins.com - [email protected]
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Kathy Welter [mailto:[email protected]]
> > Subject: A letter worth reading...
> >
> >
> > The person who sent me this is a highly respected, credible
> > international columnist - who rarely forwards things via e-mail.
> > This is important, and as Georgia says below - if you agree -
> > please pass it on.
> > Linda Baker
> >
> >
> >
> > Greetings - I never use my personal mailing list for anything
> > but my weekly column. However, the letter below should be read
> > by others. If you agree - please pass it on - Georgia
> >
> >
> > Letter from Iraq -an American photojournalist's letter home
> >
> >
> > Some of you have written to me with concerns for my safety in Iraq,
but
> > this was easily one of the safest assignments I have
> > taken. In all my time in Iraq, in spite of an intense awareness of the
> > threat of an impending attack by the United States, I
> > haven't met a single Iraqi who had a harsh word for me. Iraqis are
very
> > good at distinguishing between the U.S. government and
> > a U.S. citizen.
> >
> > It seems to me that as a photojournalist, Iraq is where I might best
play
> > a role in making a small difference. I've done
> > some work in Iraq for Newsweek and Time magazines but that kind of work
> > has really become secondary for me. I do what I
> > can to influence (in admittedly small ways) what kinds of stories those
> > big magazines do, but ultimately their stories
> > are nearly worthless at confronting the inhumanity of American foreign
> > policy in the Middle East. I will continue to work
> > with Time and Newsweek (and with other corporate media) on stories that
I
> > don't find offensive, but the bulk of my efforts
> > are now going into reaching alternative media and in supporting
anti-war
> > groups in the Sates. I hope I can find some time soon
> > to come to the states for a speaking tour of sorts.
> >
> > There's a lot of talk about whether or not the U.S. will go to war with
> > Iraq. What many people don't realize is that the U.S.
> > is already at war in Iraq. I made two trips last month into the
"no-fly
> > zone" created by the U.S. with Britain and France
> > in southern Iraq. Actually it would be better named the "only we fly"
> > zone or the "we bomb" zone. "We" refers to the United
> > States who does almost all of the flying and bombing (France pulled out
> > years ago, and Britain is largely a nominal
> > participant). There is another no-fly zone in the north, which the
U.S.
> > says it maintains to protect the Kurds, but
> > while the U.S. prevents Iraqi aircraft from entering the region, it
does
> > nothing to prevent or even to criticize
> > Turkey (a U.S. ally) from flying into northern Iraq on numerous
occasions
> > to bomb Kurdish communities there.
> >
> > Turkey's bombing in Iraq is dwarfed by that of the U.S. The U.S. has
> > been bombing Iraq on a weekly and sometimes daily
> > basis for the past 12 years. There were seven civilians killed in
these
> > bombings about two weeks ago, and I'm told
> > more civilians last week, but I'm sure that didn't get much or perhaps
> > any press in the U.S. It is estimated that U.S.
> > bombing has killed 500 Iraqis just since 1999.
> >
> > Actually I believe that number to be higher if you take into account
the
> > effects of the massive use of depleted uranium
> > (DU) in the bombing. The U.S. has dropped well in excess of 300 tons of
> > this radioactive material in Iraq (30 times the
> > amount dropped in Kosovo) since 1991. Some of the DU is further
> > contaminated with other radioactive particles
> > including Neptunium and Plutonium 239, perhaps the most carcinogenic of
> > all radioactive materials, and these particles
> > are now beginning to show up in ground water samples.
> >
> > I spent a lot of time in overcrowded cancer wards in Iraqi hospitals.
> > Since U.S. bombing began in Iraq, cancer rates
> > have increased nearly six fold in the south, where U.S.bombing and
> > consequent levels of DU are most severe.
> >
> > The most pronounced increases are in leukemia and lung, kidney, and
> > thyroid cancers associated with poisoning by
> > heavy metals (such as DU).
> >
> > But the most lethal weapon in Iraq is the intense sanctions regime.
The
> > toll of the sanctions is one of the most under-
> > reported stories of the past decade in the U.S. press. I have seen a
few
> > references to the sanctions recently in the U.S.
> > press, but invariably they will subtly discredit humanitarian concerns
by
> > relying on Iraqi government statements rather
> > than on the statistics of international agencies.
> >
> > My careless colleague at Time magazine, for example, recently reported
> > that "the Iraqi government blames the sanctions for
> > the deaths of thousands of children under the age of five". That's
simply
> > not true. The Iraqi government, in fact, blames
> > the sanctions for the deaths of *more than a million* children under
the
> > age of five.
> >
> > But let's put that figure aside, for there's no need to rely solely on
> > the Iraqi government, and let's refer instead to
> > UNICEF and WHO reports which blame the sanctions directly for the
excess
> > deaths of approximately 500,000 children under the
> > age of five, and nearly a million Iraqis of all ages.
> >
> > We all have an idea of the grief borne by the United States after the
> > September 11 attacks. Employing the crude mathematics
> > of casualty figures, multiply that grief by 300 and place it onthe
hearts
> > of a country with one tenth the population of the
> > United States and perhaps we can get a crude idea of what kindof
suffering
> > has already been inflicted on the Iraqi people in
> > the past decade.
> >
> > The greatest killer of young children in Iraq is dehydrationfrom
diarrhea
> > caused by water-borne illnesses which are
> > amplified by the intentional destruction of water treatmentand
sanitation
> > facilities by the United States. The U.S. plan
> > for destroying water treatment facilities and suppressing
> > theirrehabilitation was outlined just before the American entry into
> > the 1991 Gulf War. The January, 1991, Dept. of Defense document,"Iraq
> > Water Treatment Vulnerabilities", goes into great detail
> > about how the destruction of water treatment facilities andtheir
> > subsequent impairment by the sanctions regime will lead
> > to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease." I canreport
from
> > my time in Iraq that all is going to plan.
> >
> > Cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid (previously almost unheard ofin Iraq)
are
> > now quite common. Malaria and, of course,
> > dysentery are rampant, and immunities to all types of diseaseare
extremely
> > low. Even those lucky children who manage to get
> > a sufficient daily caloric intake risk losing it all todiarrhea. Around
> > 4,000 children die every month from
> > starvation and preventable disease in Iraq - a six-foldincrease since
> > pre-sanctions measurements.
> >
> > Treatment of illnesses in Iraq is complicated by the inabilityof
hospitals
> > to get the drugs they need through the wall of
> > sanctions. In a hospital in Baghdad I encountered a motherwith a very
> > sick one-year-old child. After the boy's
> > circumcision ceremony, the child was found to have a congenitaldisease
> > which inhibits his blood's ability to clot, which
> > results in excessive bleeding. The child encountered
furthercomplications
> > when he took a fall and sustained a head injury
> > which was slowly drowning his brain in his own blood. In anyother
country
> > the boy would simply take regular doses of a drug
> > called Factor 8, and he could then lead a relatively normallife. But an
> > order for Factor 8 was put on hold by the United
> > States (prohibited for import), so the doctor, the mother, andI could
only
> > watch the child die.
> >
> > Much is made of Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass
destruction,
> > but it is the sanctions, the use of depleted
> > uranium, and the destruction of Iraq's health and
sanitationinfrastructure
> > that are the weapons of greatest mass
> > destruction in Iraq.
> >
> > The situation is so bad that Dennis Halliday, the former Humanitarian
> > Coordinator for the UN in Iraq, took the dramatic
> > step of resigning his position in protest at the sanctions."We are in
the
> > process of destroying an entire society",
> > Halliday wrote. "It is as simple and terrifying as that.""It is illegal
> > and immoral." And Halliday isn't alone. His
> > successor, Hans Von Sponeck, also resigned in protest and wentso far as
to
> > describe the sanctions as genocide. These are not
> > left-wing radicals. These are career bureaucrats who chose tothrow away
> > their careers at the UN rather than give tacit
> > support to unethical policies driven by the United States.
> >
> > Being in Iraq showed me the utter devastation U.S. policy (warand
> > sanctions) has wrought there and has given me a vision of
> > what horror a new war would bring. And, of course, an attackon Iraq
would
> > be just the beginning of a terrifying chain of
> > reactions throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world.Having
> > worked in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Palestine in
> > the past year, I am intensely aware of how the fragile politics and
powers
> > outside Iraq can be dramatically unsettled by a U.S.
> > Invasion within Iraq.
> >
> > It's easy to imagine an impending tragedy of enormous proportion before
> > us, and I ask myself who must step up and take
> > responsibility for stopping it. Clearly the U.S. government isthe most
> > powerful actor, but it is equally clear that we cannot
> > turn aside and realistically expect the U.S. government tosuddenly
reverse
> > the momentum it has created for war. So I feel
> > the weight of responsibility on me, on U.S. citizens, to dowhatever we
can
> > with our individually small but collectively
> > powerful means to change the course of our government's policy.I try to
> > picture myself 10 or 20 years in the future, and I don't
> > want to be in the position where I reflect on the enormoustragedies of
the
> > beginning of the 21st century and admit that I
> > did nothing at all to recognize or prevent them.
> >
> > I don't know how this letter will sound to my friends and familywho are
> > living in the U.S., in a media environment which does
> > very little to effectively question U.S. policy and almostnothing to
> > encourage ordinary people to participate in making a
> > change. I imagine this letter may sound like the political rantof some
> > kind of extremist or anti-American dissident. But that's
> > not how it feels to me. This doesn't feel like a politicalissue to me
so
> > much as it feels like a personal issue. I am
> > appalled on a very human level at the suffering which U.S.policy is
> > already inflicting and I am terrified by the prospects
> > for an even more chaotic and violent future.
> >
> > And let's be honest about U.S. policy aims. Those in the U.S.
government
> > pushing for war say they are doing so to promote
> > democracy, to protect the rights of minorities, and to rid theregion of
> > weapons of mass destruction.
> >
> > But is the U.S. threatening to attack Saudi Arabia or a host of other
U.S.
> > allies which have similarly un-democratic regimes?
> > How many of us would advocate going to war with Turkey over thebrutal
> > repression of its Kurdish minority and of the Kurds in
> > Iraq? And do we expect the U.S. to bomb Israel or Pakistanwhich each
have
> > hundreds of nuclear weapons? Let's remember
> > that leaders in the previous weapons inspection team in Iraqhad declared
> > that 95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
> > capabilities were destroyed. And let's not forget that in the1980s,
when
> > Iraq was actually using chemical weapons against
> > the Kurds and the Iranian army, the U.S. had nothing to say about it.
On
> > the contrary, at that time President Reagan sent
> > a U.S. envoy to Iraq to normalize diplomatic relations, tosupport its
war
> > with Iran, and to offer subsidies for preferential
> > trade with Iraq. That envoy arrived in Baghdad on the very daythat the
UN
> > confirmed Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and he
> > said absolutely nothing about it. That envoy, by the way, was Donald
> > Rumsfeld.
> >
> > While Iraq probably has very little weaponry to actually threaten the
> > United States, they do have oil. According to a recent
> > survey of the West Qurna and Majnoon oil fields in southern Iraq,they
may
> > even have the world's largest oil reserves, surpassing
> > those of Saudi Arabia. Let's be honest about U.S. policy aims andask
> > ourselves if we can, in good conscience, support continued
> > destruction of Iraq in order to control its oil.
> >
> > I believe that most Americans - Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Purples
or
> > whatever - would be similarly horrified by the effects
> > of sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq if they couldsimply see
> > the place, as I have, up close in its human dimensions;
> > if they could see Iraq as a nation of 22 million mothers,
sons,daughters,
> > teachers, doctors, mechanics, and window washers, and
> > not simply as a single cartoonish villain.
> >
> > I genuinely believe that my view of Iraq is a view that would sit
> > comfortably in mainstream America if most Americans could see
> > Iraq with their own eyes and not simply through the eyes of amedia
> > establishment which has simply gotten used to ignoring the
> > death and destruction which perpetuates American foreign policyaims.
> > While the American media fixates on the evils of the
> > "repressive regime" of Saddam Hussein, both real and wildlyexaggerated,
> > how often are we reminded of the horrors of the
> > last Gulf War, when more than 150,000 were killed (former U.S.Navy
> > Secretary, John Lehman, estimated 200,000). I simply don't
> > believe that most Americans could come face-to-face with theIraqi people
> > and say from their hearts that they deserve another
> > war.
> >
> > I believe in the fundamental values of democracy - the protection of the
> > most powerless among us from the whims of the most powerful.
> > I believe in the ideals of the United Nations as a forum for solving
> > international conflicts non-violently. These are mainstream
> > values, and they are exactly the values that are most imperiled by
> > present U.S. policy. That's why, as a citizen of the United States
> > and as a member of humanity, I can't rest easily so long as I think
there
> > is something, anything, that I can do to make a difference.
> >
> > (The family asked for the author's name to be suppressed.)