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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 02/22/2002 : 08:40:42 [Permalink]
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Sorry I don't have time to read all of this, but this caught my attention. It's okay for the U.S. to murder people because Saddam Hussein wouldn't do what the U.S. told them to do. This is the logic of genocide.
quote:
Sanctions critics almost always leave out one other salient fact: The vast majority of the horror stats they quote apply to the period before March 1997, when the oil-for-food program delivered its first boatload of supplies (nearly six years after the U.N. first proposed the idea to a reluctant Iraqi government).
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 09:17:51 [Permalink]
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I could be wrong, but my memory tells me that this is one of the anti-sanctions groups which criticizes others for not being careful about the numbers they use, so I think their site might well be one of the more conservative. I don't have time to research so I may be wrong.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/guide/
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 09:33:26 [Permalink]
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Gorgo, I'm going to take a shot at the Chomsky article (speech?) you linked to and demonstrate why I don't give him much credence.
First, let me make sure that I am understanding your contention correctly: the “millions” killed or at risk in Afghanistan is based not on loss in combat but on starvation, either actual or projected. It is on this assumption that I make the following comments, because that is certainly Chomsky's contention.
I'll start with a small snipe at one of Chomsky's sources:
quote:
"US military food drops a 'catastrophe' - UN official", AFP, Oct. 15, citing Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
Mr. Ziegler is about as territorial as they come, and apparently anti-US for the sake of it. Let me quote from an article about him:
quote:
Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said the airdrops of food by the same military force dropping bombs on Afghanistan undermined the credibility of humanitarian aid.
He said aid deliveries needed to be supervised on the ground. "As special rapporteur I must condemn with the last ounce of energy this operation called snowdropping, it is totally catastrophic for humanitarian aid, for all the extraordinary work that UN agencies and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) are doing," Ziegler told journalists.
US military transport aircraft have been dropping thousands of rations over Afghanistan while separate bombing raids continue, amid warnings that millions of Afghans are short of food.
The practice is known in the humanitarian community as "snowdropping", because it scatters indvidual packages over a relatively wide area.
Ziegler, who was appointed by the UN human rights commission to examine the impact of hunger on human rights said: "If there is no one to receive it on the ground, to distribute or to do the humanitarian work, it's obvious that the man with gun picks it up. So Americans are feeding the Taliban every night," he added.
That's from this site:
First Article
Regarding the rest, I started to address point-by-point, but it was taking too long, so instead I'm just going to summarize what I see as Chomsky's main points without quotations for much of it, and address them. I'll get quotations for you later if you ask for specifics, but since you linked to the article, I'm assuming you'll know how to find them. I'll start with the side issues first and end with Chomsky's main point.
1. The US is at least as responsible as the USSR for the pre-Sept 11 devastation of Afghanistan and so should pay substantial reparations.
Silly on the face of it. Yes, the US backed some warlords against the Soviet invasion; that does not make the US responsible for the subsequent civil war. It reminds me of some of the stupid OSHA regulations that do not allow, in some areas, for an organization to improve safety a little bit; either leave the place unsafe or do everything all at once. This results in an overall lowering of safety because otherwise well-intended organizations cannot implement a considered, phased, improvement program without incurring a laughable liability. The same applies to this argument about US culpability in the Afghan civil war; because we helped them beat the Soviets we are obligated to rebuild them. Nonsense.
2. The US has committed ‘crimes' elsewhere (his exa
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 09:47:21 [Permalink]
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It must be that time of year that makes me respond. Doubt I'll keep it up, though.
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Well, I think if any reasoning person reads Horowitz's nonsense and comes away thinking they've read something worthwhile, I don't have much hope for civilization.
At least with our criticism of Chomsky, we backed it up. Beyond that, the article I linked to is Matt Welch; nothing by Horowitz.
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There has been some nonsense blown by both sides
That's the point of the article.
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One can argue about numbers, but murder is the intent, and genocide is still the charge that stands
No, murder is not the intent and never has been. Your deep-seated belief is not proof of it, nor is anything Chomsky has said. And 'arguing the numbers' is not a trivial matter. What number constitutes genocide? 1, 15, 20000? It matters. It only stops mattering when those making the charge can't back up the numbers they put forth.
quote:
Sorry I don't have time to read all of this, but this caught my attention. It's okay for the U.S. to murder people because Saddam Hussein wouldn't do what the U.S. told them to do. This is the logic of genocide.
quote:
Sanctions critics almost always leave out one other salient fact: The vast majority of the horror stats they quote apply to the period before March 1997, when the oil-for-food program delivered its first boatload of supplies (nearly six years after the U.N. first proposed the idea to a reluctant Iraqi government).
Parable alert:
A gunman takes a hundred hostages and holes up in a house with lots of guns and bullets but little food.
The police surround the house and tell the gunman to throw out his guns. He refuses.
This goes on for a day until the gunman says that some of the hostages are hungry.
The police reply that they will send in food if the gunman will send out some of the bullets. He refuses.
He refuses some more.
He refuses some more.
Some of the hostages die of starvation.
After a week, the gunman agrees to send out a few bullets for food.
He eats most of the food himself, but gives the rest to the hostages.
Some more hostages die of starvation.
CNN shows up. Their headline reads like this:
Police Department Denies Food to Starving Children.
End of Parable
You're CNN, Gorgo.
My kids still love me. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 09:54:59 [Permalink]
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Garrette, I will read this later, but I don't have a 25" screen. Why is this so hard to read?
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 09:55:57 [Permalink]
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I'm not sure. It has done this to several threads. I think it has something to do with how things are quoted, though I don't know what I did to cause it here.
My kids still love me. |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 10:00:44 [Permalink]
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It's the links. I will fix them.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 10:03:04 [Permalink]
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This is ridiculous. First of all, you are correct about the first few sentences. The U.S. did deny those "hostages" food for a time. However, Saddam did not eat all of the food. The U.S. had a millitary blockade which did not allow anything in or out. Iraq relied on international commerce to survive. The U.S. did not allow it. Then, the U.S. allowed a meager amount which was strictly governed by the U.N. Yes, there was corruption (mainly because U.S. allies complained about their loss of trade with Iraq, so the U.S. pretended not to look), and that is to be condemned, but damn little of it.
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Parable alert:
A gunman takes a hundred hostages and
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn
Edited by - gorgo on 02/22/2002 10:25:37 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 10:38:49 [Permalink]
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I'm glad that you pointed this out. This was another thing Horowitz did while calling Chomsky a liar. I'm not going back to look now, so I may have it wrong, but others linked Chomsky to the word "genocide." Chomsky did not use the word genocide to describe U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. He was quoting Ziegler's comments about world starvation.
Anyway, I fail to see your point here. The point of citing humanitarian orgs was to show that the U.S. had to know they were risking millions of lives by continuing the bombing. The airdrops were shown to be a ridiculous public relations campaign.
I'm not sure how this makes anyone "anti-U.S."
quote:
I'll start with a small snipe at one of Chomsky's sources:
[quote]"US military food drops a 'catastrophe' - UN official", AFP, Oct. 15, citing Jean Ziegler, UN Special
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn
Edited by - gorgo on 02/22/2002 10:41:01 |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 10:49:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Anyway, I fail to see your point here. The point of citing humanitarian orgs was to show that the U.S. had to know they were risking millions of lives by continuing the bombing. The airdrops were shown to be a ridiculous public relations campaign.
I'm not sure how this makes anyone "anti-U.S."
My point was that Chomsky uses Ziegler as a reliable source when he is not, especially when it comes to editorializing.
From the article about Ziegler I quoted earlier is this quotation by Ziegler:
quote:
Ziegler, who was appointed by the UN human rights commission to examine the impact of hunger on human rights said: "If there is no one to receive it on the ground, to distribute or to do the humanitarian work, it's obvious that the man with gun picks it up. So Americans are feeding the Taliban every night," he added.
Subjective interpretation on my part: this smacks of the type who gets upset when he can't take credit for any good being done. "How dare the US drop food without including the NGO's!"
The contention about the Taliban getting the food is bad because it's not demonstrated to be true, and because it can be assumed to be untrue; 'men with guns' do not cover every square foot of ground and scoop up all food falling.
And it's inconsistent. If the Taliban is getting the food and not letting it get to the people, then the US is right about the Taliban and they need to be ousted. But elsewhere Ziegler and, I think, Chomsky defend the Taliban as helping get food to the people. Which is it?
I'll tell you which it is: it's whichever interpretation is convenient at the moment to Ziegler and Chomsky.
My kids still love me. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 11:07:18 [Permalink]
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So, if they're right about the Taliban being bad, that excuses any U.S. crimes against the people of Afghanistan.
You fail to make your point. Zeigler is just one of the people he cited, and Zeigler is correct for more than one reason. Without someone on the ground, children go into minefields to get the packages, which look the same as some of the unexploded ordnance.
No, I don't know what your point is, but you're grasping at straws here to make it.
quote:
And it's inconsistent. If the Taliban is getting the food and not letting it get to the people, then the US is right about the Taliban and they need to be ousted. But elsewhere Ziegler and, I think, Chomsky defend the Taliban as helping get food to the people. Which is it?
I'll tell you which it is: it's whichever interpretation is convenient at the moment to Ziegler and Chomsky.
My kids still love me.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 11:14:28 [Permalink]
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I think it's a fairly sturdy young tree myself, but as it's not crucial to my argument, I'm willing to stop discussing it.
But surely you recognize that I know Chomsky has other sources. This one is not a credible source, IMO. You have already demonstrated that it is acceptable to dismiss an person's entire argument if they use as one of their sources someone you find objectionable--Horowitz, right?
How about the rest?
My kids still love me. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 11:24:45 [Permalink]
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What source of Chomsky's have you found that's not credible?
I think it's amazing that Chomsky is derided as a nut here by people who seem to be otherwise reasonable, but people like Horowitz who are doing little more than trying to sell their books by making things up are lauded as credible sources. Does that mean everything that you say has no merit because you buy into his nonsense? No. But I don't think I've said otherwise.
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I think it's a fairly sturdy young tree
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 11:37:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Does that mean everything that you say has no merit because you buy into his nonsense? No. But I don't think I've said otherwise.
I couldn't even tell you what Horowitz has written. I've never linked to him or quoted him knowingly. I'll admit it's possible I've quoted something from the web that was in turn attributable to him, but it was unknowing.
But I'm not joining your condemnation of him, either. In reading your exchanges, lately with @tomic, you keep harping on how Horowitz is not credible but you don't give reasons other than saying he makes things up. Maybe he does, but what things?
On the other hand, others here have told you why they don't care for Chomsky. I have in relation to the one article you linked to. You haven't yet addressed my complaints with the crux of his point regarding the projected starvation as a result of a reduced grain yield.
---
Just tried to find an earlier comment of yours contradicting yourself about discounting those who rely on Horowitz, but I can't find it. It appears my memory is at fault.
My apologies.
My kids still love me. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2002 : 11:45:22 [Permalink]
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I don't think I said that you relied on Horowitz.
I'll try to get to some of your points later, but I have other things to do and may not be able to. There is just too much to go through. For some reason, the older I get the less time I seem to have.
quote:
quote:
Does that mean everything that you say has no merit because you buy into his nonsense? No. But I don't think I've said otherwise.
I couldn't even tell you what Horowitz has written. I've never linked to him or quoted him knowingly. I'll admit it's possible I've quoted something from the web that was in turn attributable to him, but it was unknowing.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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