Letters
Iraq Contradictions
It took only 100 hours of land warfare to conquer Iraq when it was at its most formidable military might. Devastated and vulnerable after enduring eight years of inspections, the U.S. contradicts this and wages an aggressive campaign to portray Saddam Hussein as a world-class threat.
The U.S. refers to Saddam’s “breathtaking array of weapons of mass destruction,” yet after eight years of inspections, no atomic devices were uncovered. They now attempt to add more years to the embargo, allegedly in pursuit of chemical and biological weapons. This is like admitting that their inspectors are grossly incapable, unable to detect these weapons in eight years, or could it be a phony excuse for continuing this farce? Apparently, they don’t choose to remember that no chemical/biological weapons were used against them in the Gulf War. Concerning their fears of Saddam, apparently they choose not to remember that Iraq could be obliterated in 30 minutes with an ICBM.
The U. S. has squandered $7 billion of tax payers’ money attacking Iraq since the Gulf War, resulting in the destruction of millions of innocent Iraqi citizens, including 6,000 children every month. U.S. allies don’t share the same loathing for Saddam and consider the U.S. an international bully. Even Kuwait, as well as many Arab countries, is opposed to U.S. force against Iraq. Kuwaitis contend that the “U.S. frightens us with Saddam to make us buy weapons and to sign contracts with American companies.”
The bottom line is that the U.S. demands sanctions against Iraq in order to keep Iraqi oil off the world market. Their enormous capacity would flood the market causing U.S. oil companies, ric to plummet. Also, substantial Kuwaiti investments in the U.S., $4 billion in 1990, would be jeopardized if Iraq took over and nationalized their resources, as was done in Iraq in 1972.
A disarmed Iraq would be vulnerable to aggression from hostile neighbors, such as Iran, who held 66 Americans captive for 444 days. If America keeps on its course this is the scenario. Seldom have Americans despised a country as they have Iran. And seldom have they cheered on a country as they did Iraq when it waged war against Iran. It is amazing how unscrupulous oil corporations can manipulate the media to promote their propaganda and turn the facts around. It is little wonder that Americans manage t find themselves pushing the bottom of international educational contests.
In 1993 UN officials announced that they had completed dismantling Iraq’s nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare capabilities. Yet, the U.S. violated the and pursued the embargo and attacks up to the present. U.S. officials now sit poised to slaughter Iraq’s innocent civilians without warning; yet Iraq presents no danger to the U.S. Under the International Law of War this could be considered a war crime and the U.S. perpetrators considered war criminals.
Howard Knutson
McAllen, T
Too Thick
Dr. Finlator thinks the CIA “must be th world’s most formidable agent of terrorism.” And I think the NovemberDecember Human Quest is laying it on too thick. Dr. Swomley finds a parallel between the evil deeds of the biblical King David and President Clinton’s international strategies plus private transgression. I don’t really know the story, since I haven’t read the Bible, the Starr report, the 1999 Appropriations Budget, etc. However, from bits and pieces in popularized anthropology book and the press, I gather David used extreme violence to take control of land claimed by other peoples, whereas, if our President is fighting a war internationally, it is to end war. He is not one to exploit whatever militarist opportunism there may be in Congress. Otherwise, (no trying to comprehend Rene-Marie Croose Parry) I see many excellent points in this issue.
Elizabeth Lansing
Sanford, NC
“The Cold Within”
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In bleak and bitter cold
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story’s told.
Their dying fire in need of logs
The first woman held hers back.
For of the faces around the fire
She noticed one was black.
The next man looking cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich.
The rich man just sat back and thought of
the wealth he had in store.
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy shiftless poor.
The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passes from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.
James Patrick Henry
New York, NY
The Wrong Policy
James K. Galbraith in his new book Created Unequal criticizes the International Monetary Fund’s policy of “tight money,” raising interest rates, and cutting government spending as bringing the world to the brink of the most threatening recession since the Great Depression. “Lack of demand, stupid” says Bruce Nussbaum, Editor of Newsweek, in his review of Galbraith’s book in the NY Times. “The tight money policy of the IMF,” states Nussbaum, “has created a credit crunch that has erased the demand of millions of middle-class buyers of goods and services on world markets, sending commodity prices plummeting. That wrong policy has squeezed Latin America’s economic progress and now the U.S. is being hit.
Galbraith calls for a loosening of credit, lowering of interest rates and the stimulation of world demand through public works spending. According to Galbraith the IMF policy of tight money has severely cut people’s purchasing power and worsened the existing recessions. What is needed is to increase people’s purchasing power, but not to add to the already commodity glutted markets. Following Galbraith’s suggestion it would be a good idea for the IMF to grant loans to those countries in trouble, with the stipulation that those funds be used to organize public works jobs programs in their own countries.
Such programs will feed the hungry, repair badly neglected infrastructures, and stimulate private industry. Jobs like repairing roads, building bridges, building public parks, and developing new sources of power, will not come into conflict with private industry. These jobs will not bring more commodities into glutted marketplaces, but their wages will bring millions of new dollars into the market, stimulating the economies and helping to bring them out of recessions.
Ed Rothberg
Staten Island, NY
It’s Impossible
It is almost impossible to express to you how much I enjoy and value The Human Quest. I am 84 years of age. Started out as a regular run-of-the-mill church member. Became more conservative in graduating from Asbury College. Tempered off by graduation from Drew Theological Seminary. In my studies for masters (which I received) and doctorate (which I did not), I majored in philosophy of religion under Dr. Richard Kroner. Subsequent readings have made me quite liberal. I enjoy John Swomley very much.
George W. Connard
Feasterville, PA
Subsidized Speech
To say that I am a Barry Lynn fan is an understatement. He is a cool dude, and can do no wrong in my eyes, I thought. But, in his article, “Book burning … or stealing,” in the Nov.-Dec. Human Quest, one sentence leapt off the page and smacked me in the face, “Good heavens! I don’t care how many sermons against homosexuality Pastor Jeffries wants to give …” Oh-oh, Barry. I do! And we’re not talking about “free speech” here, we’re talking about subsidized speech. I have long been sickened by the vileness that. spews from the tax-exempt pulpits of this country. Homophobia is fostered by preachers waving their Bibles, and hate crimes, such as the cruel murder of Matthew Shepard, are the direct result of this. Thanks to the IRS, churches pay no taxes, and when they do not, I, and other taxpayers like me, must take up the slack.
Catherine Fahringer
San Antonio, TX
Copyright The Human Quest Mar/Apr 1999
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