Former UK (Labour) Foreign Secretary Robin Cook died suddenly August 6. Mr. Cook had previously resigned his post in protest of the Blair government joining the US in erasing the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein and his lovely sons Uday and Attila.
For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam’s medium and long-range missiles programmes.
Equally proud of the "strategy of containment" was Cook's American counterpart, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:
Lesley Stahl, on 60 Minutes: “We have heard that half a million children have died (in Iraq). I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And you know, is the price worth it?"
Madame Albright:“I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”
Osama bin Laden, after consulting Islamic scholars, has determined that 4 million Westerners must die to square accounts with the Muslim world. About a million are attributed to the sanctions that "contained" Saddam & Family. Osama is cruel but fair.
A half-million kids? A million altogether? I don't know, but the West has never effectively denied it, and it is now taken as gospel truth in the Islamic world.
What we do know is this Iraq War cost far fewer lives than the "peaceful" sanctions, and most of those who've died were guilty-as-hell enthusiastic al-Qaeda or Ba'athist homicidal maniacs, and that any further deaths today are from Muslims killing innocent Muslims.
What we do know is that Osama's 4 million strong butcher's bill will be justified not by Bush's action against Saddam, but by Cook's and Albright's.
Rest in peace as well as you can, Mr. Cook. By your own admission, you are partly responsible for the "strategy of containment," the sanctions that killed only the innocents in Iraq, because you lacked the guts to pull the trigger on a sadistic mass-murderer and his even more psychopathic anointed successors. Starvation is eco-friendly, and seldom makes the front page.
If Osama has any justification at all, it was you, Mr. Cook, who provided it. You and Madame Albright killed more Muslims than the Crusaders ever did. You expected to wash your hands and walk away? No, moral vanity isn't absolution. You thought war was bad? Your cowardly version of peace, "containment," was far more deadly.
Now it's up to we the living to clean up your mess. I hope you wish us luck from wherever you are now, Mr. Cook. I suppose you did your best, but the price was not worth it.
(Next: Peter Jennings)
Good writing, Tom.
ReplyDeleteYour post deals with an issue which conservatives generally are wont to discuss. The fact/accusation that 1 million people died because of the sanctions is accepted in the Islamic world.
I actually believe those numbers, because as you said we have never made an effort to refute them.
However, there was plenty of money flowing through the coffers of the Iraqi government to have more than taken care of those people. We know now where the money went.
It would seem that Saddam starved his own people as a publicity stunt. Actually, it was a very effective one. He is to be congratulated ...
In hell.
That's true, T. If the CIA hadn't installed the Shah, we wouldn't be having to listen to the President make veiled threats and scare a whacky hard-right government into a nuclear arms race.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, if we hadn't been so pissed off about our "buddy" the Shah that we propped up Saddam's regime and gave him those chemical weapons we later got so mad at him for using (thank you, Donald Rumsfeld and Ronald Reagan), then maybe wouldn't have had to worry about Iraq, either.
Just sayin', TVD, how about a little bit of the ol' rhetorical vitriol for the enablers, eh? Rush Limbaugh would be so proud of you for parroting the right-wing talking points.
I see no need to insult me, James. They're my right-wing talking points.
ReplyDeleteIf we hadn't have helped overthrow the unpopular Mossadegh, then we would have had to deal with either a Soviet-controlled regime or an earlier incarnation of the Ayatollah-run theocracy. Instead we supported the lesser of the evils and had a relatively friendly regime to deal with for twenty-five years.
ReplyDeleteActually, we gave very little military support to Saddamm Hussein. In that case, what appeared at first to be the lesser of two evils was still a little too much a fan of Stalin for us to really cozy up to him. That's why the Iraqi Army carried AK-47s and drove T-72s, and didn't carry M-16s and fly F-16s.
Yeah, but giving Saddam limited financial and intelligence support in the Iran-Iraq War and sending diplomats for photo-ops is a far cry from 'propping up' his regime.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, they were probably the wrong actions, but they do not make the United States responsible for the creation or actions of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
ReplyDeleteThe contention was that "containment" had a higher political and human cost than war itself, a contention that was not addressed.
It is impolite to hijack the comments sections with lengthy tangents of your own choosing. Please desist.
Thanks for the link, which proves my point. We did not want the Iranians to wipe out Iraq, for obvious reasons, but we were never very comfortable with supporting the Iraqis because of their use of chemical weapons. We did just enough to help Iraq survive the Iran-Iraq War, supporting what we saw as the lesser of two evils.
ReplyDeleteWe never own those bugs we slip money to, we just hire them now and again.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Iraq and Iran we slipped 'em both a few bucks here and there when we needed 'em, making us the lessor of two weevils.
Amen.
ReplyDelete