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Iraqi Standard of Living.

GarzaUK

British, Irish and everything in-between.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4414291.stm

Quite shocking after two years after the fall of Saddam. Is Iraqi or the world a safer place now, I think not. It is only matter of time before the Iraqis start to get really pissed off.
Oh wait that's right, tens of thousands held an anti-american protest today. If the new Iraqi Government isn't efficient or capable of running Iraq, I guess all our soldiers are royally screwed.
 
GarzaUK said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4414291.stm

Quite shocking after two years after the fall of Saddam. Is Iraqi or the world a safer place now, I think not. It is only matter of time before the Iraqis start to get really pissed off.
Oh wait that's right, tens of thousands held an anti-american protest today. If the new Iraqi Government isn't efficient or capable of running Iraq, I guess all our soldiers are royally screwed.

and the companion piece from a few days earlier.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true
 
Would you post some of the key points in the article, Myshkin? This is a site people have to register for. The thing I noticed in the BBC article was the garbage in the street. What are the people doing to clean the mess up themselves? My other question would be how the current situation compares to the pre war conditions. What are the Iraqi's doing to help our troops locate and capture terrorists? Do they expect the troops to do everything for them?
 
Squawker said:
Would you post some of the key points in the article, Myshkin? This is a site people have to register for. The thing I noticed in the BBC article was the garbage in the street. What are the people doing to clean the mess up themselves? My other question would be how the current situation compares to the pre war conditions. What are the Iraqi's doing to help our troops locate and capture terrorists? Do they expect the troops to do everything for them?
By Jonathan Fowler
Associated Press
Published March 31, 2005
GENEVA -- Malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis has almost doubled since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a hunger specialist told the UN human-rights body Wednesday in a summary of previously reported studies on health in Iraq.

By last fall, 7.7 percent of Iraqi children under 5 suffered acute malnutrition, up from 4 percent after Hussein's ouster in April 2003, said Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food.

Malnutrition, which is exacerbated by a lack of clean water and adequate sanitation, is a major killer of children in poor countries. Children who survive are usually physically and mentally impaired for life and are more vulnerable to disease.

The situation facing Iraqi youngsters is "a result of the war led by coalition forces," said Ziegler, a Swiss sociology professor and former lawmaker whose previous targets have included Swiss banks, China, Brazil and Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Overall, more than a quarter of Iraqi children don't get enough to eat, Ziegler told the 53-nation commission, which is halfway through its annual six-week session.

The U.S. delegation and other coalition countries declined to respond to his presentation, which compiled the findings of studies conducted by other specialists.

In reporting the 7.7 percent malnutrition rate for Iraqi youngsters, the Norwegian-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science said in November that the figure was similar to the levels in some African countries.

Iraq was generally regarded as having good nutrition rates in the 1970s and 1980s, but problems emerged when the UN Security Council imposed sanctions after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The UN later began an oil-for-food program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy food and medicine. That was credited with nearly doubling the Iraqi population's annual food intake and halving malnutrition among children, although the program itself was manipulated and abused by Hussein.

Ziegler did not mention the role of Iraq's insurgency in the nutrition problem, something often cited by aid groups.

Late last year, Carol Bellamy, head of UNICEF, said the violence hampers the delivery of adequate supplies of food.

Ziegler also cited an October 2004 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet that estimated as many as 100,000 more Iraqis--many of them women and children--had died since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq than would normally have died, based on the death rate before the war.




Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
 
Squawker said:
Would you post some of the key points in the article, Myshkin? This is a site people have to register for. The thing I noticed in the BBC article was the garbage in the street. What are the people doing to clean the mess up themselves? My other question would be how the current situation compares to the pre war conditions. What are the Iraqi's doing to help our troops locate and capture terrorists? Do they expect the troops to do everything for them?

a couple of other references same date:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1335595.htm

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=342672005
 
A United Nations (UN) food expert has attacked the American-led occupation of Iraq, saying that since Saddam Hussein was ousted the number of Iraqi children suffering from malnutrition has almost doubled.
Really? I guess if the UN gave a damn, they would have made sure the oil for food program worked like it should have instead of stuffing their pockets.
Growing numbers do not have enough food to eat and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished, according to the report. The worst cases, where children under five are suffering acute malnutrition, rose late last year to 7.7 per cent from four per cent immediately after Saddam Hussein was ousted in April 2003.
Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission’s special expert on the right to food, blamed the situation on the invasion, saying it was "a result of the war led by coalition forces".
Well gosh darn, why doesn’t the almighty UN do something about it?
 
Squawker said:
Well gosh darn, why doesn’t the almighty UN do something about it?

Why don't the mighty Bush and lapdog Blair do something about it? They assured us we were going into Iraq to "liberate" them, and now they're free to starve!
 
Squawker said:
Really? I guess if the UN gave a damn, they would have made sure the oil for food program worked like it should have instead of stuffing their pockets.
Well gosh darn, why doesn’t the almighty UN do something about it?

The UN pretty much pulled out when the occupying forces were incapable of providing a safe environment.

Its much like Sec Powell told the President before the assault began using the China Shop analogy.
You break it its yours.
 
on the light-side (if there ever was one) at least the people are "free" to protest at their will.

I agree, the wars after-math was poorly thought out, no true reason to invade Iraq has existed and the main reason Bush had "because dem Arabic peoples got tuh big-boom (wmds) " is full of horse-crap we didn't know **** about their weapons program. I still wonder what are plan was during the after-math of the war? sit there and let them kill us and eventually let the Iraqi people throw us out?

Yeah stupid UN, brain child of the United States, why do they always think of peaceful resolutions to these type of situations? Why aren't they more like us, if the first "peace" attempts don't talk then bust their chops up? (end sarcasm)
 
I think you should put some of the blame where it really belongs. All the time the UN knew people were starving, they took the money for themselves. How disgusting is that? :screwy

Published on Sunday, February 20, 2000 in the Baltimore Sun
Clinton Administration Turns Deaf Ear As UN Officials Voice Concerns About The Way Sanctions Have Ravaged Iraqi Society
-snip-
The sanctions, in place for almost a decade, have been responsible not only for the deaths of about 1 million Iraqis -- 500,000 of them children, according to UNICEF -- but also for the absolute shredding of the cultural, economic, political, family and intellectual fabric of Iraqi society.
When the first delegation of congressional staffers traveled to Iraq last summer, Von Sponeck provided extensive briefings and made his top staff accessible to them. He described for them the less visible but more corrosive long-term effects of the sanctions on Iraqi society.
Food shortages resulting from the sanctions remain a serious problem in Iraq. Burghardt, who just quit her post as the World Food Program's director, told the congressional staffers that 70 percent of household income goes for food: by U.N. and world standards, she said, that is considered an indicator of imminent famine.
Burghardt described how the oil-for-food program is shielding, but not reversing, the accumulated effects of sanctions. "Iraq's middle class is disappearing," she said, "and the stunted children will never recover. The monthly food basket lasts only about 21 days. Many families have no other income, and so are living in a situation of complete deprivation."
Source
 
Squawker said:
I think you should put some of the blame where it really belongs. All the time the UN knew people were starving, they took the money for themselves. How disgusting is that? :screwy


Source

I have to agree with you squawker. The missle attack that wiped out half of the medicinal inventory of Sudan was another crime.

If the American people were serious (they are not) about putting an end to terrorism they would refer the cases of Clinton, Albright, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others to the Hague to be evaluated for War Crimes.

Terrorism is a weapon of the weak. It is used in response to the heavy handed lawlessness of the powerful.
Thoughs who are weak have two choices they may capitulate to power or fight back in a way they deem effective.

A serious prospect of justice through the International courts would be the best deterent to terrorism.
 
Terrorism is a weapon of the weak. It is used in response to the heavy handed lawlessness of the powerful.
Thoughs who are weak have two choices they may capitulate to power or fight back in a way they deem effective.
I don't think I agree with that one. They act like the gangs in the US do. The terrorists are not reacting to oppression, they are two bit thugs. No more, no less. Don't elevate them to a status of legitimacy.
 
Squawker said:
I don't think I agree with that one. They act like the gangs in the US do. The terrorists are not reacting to oppression, they are two bit thugs. No more, no less. Don't elevate them to a status of legitimacy.

bin Laden left a personal fortune estimated at $300million behind to go to Afghanistan, live in caves and drive the Atheist Soviets from Muslim Lands. Al-qaeda has been fighting Russians in Chechnya and Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina where he perceives Islamic populations to be victims of western Infidel oppression.
He declared war upon the US for its sacrilegious military occupation of Saudi Arabia the land of the 2 mosques Mecca and Medina and also for its support for Israel in what he perceives to be a brutal oppression of the Islamic population of Palestine.

Israel is among the most heavily weaponized nations on earth. No nation has had more in foreign aide from the US over the past 30 years. It has a fleet of F16s, A lot of armor, a nuclear arsenal, attack helicopters and all of the highest technology.

Palestinian Arabs have arms that they can hide in a closet.

They can capitulate or fight with what they have. Many have found their situation sufficiently desperate to give up their own lives to hurt those that they characterize as their oppressors.
many of us know that when faced with overwhelming force regardless of how strong our beliefs and how deep our commitment the correct and moral thing to do is get on our knees and kiss the feet of our oppressors but these people are as you said thugs and know no decency.
 
myshkin said:
bin Laden left a personal fortune estimated at $300million behind to go to Afghanistan .

Correct he did do this to fight Russia, he then returned to Saudi Arabia and got into the construction industry (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/155236.stm) he then was expelled back in 1991 because of his Anti-Government propaganda. He never actually "left" his money.. he started using it for his terrorist organizations.
 
Arch Enemy said:
Correct he did do this to fight Russia, he then returned to Saudi Arabia and got into the construction industry (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/155236.stm) he then was expelled back in 1991 because of his Anti-Government propaganda. He never actually "left" his money.. he started using it for his terrorist organizations.

Arch Enemy, I'm sure that you are right about that but what I am trying to show is his commitment to his ideology.
When one leaves his home to fight a force like the Soviets in a Guerilla War one faces the prospect of not returning at all.
That he uses his personal fortune to finance his war seems to reinforce the observation that he is deeply committed don't you agree?
 
Arch Enemy, I'm sure that you are right about that but what I am trying to show is his commitment to his ideology.
When one leaves his home to fight a force like the Soviets in a Guerilla War one faces the prospect of not returning at all.
That he uses his personal fortune to finance his war seems to reinforce the observation that he is deeply committed don't you agree?
If he was committed for ideological reasons, he would have become a human bomb, wouldn't he?
 
I personally think these acts are for him to try and make him seem like a leader to these people. It's one thing to have alot of money, it's another to have less money than usual but have people who would kill others and die for you.
But I think he didn't start out hating or wanting to kill Americans.. it was just a way for him to gain leadership, seeing as before he actually accepted help and was personally trained by the CIA.

But not doubt there dude, no doubt.
 
Squawker said:
If he was committed for ideological reasons, he would have become a human bomb, wouldn't he?

He's not a stupid guy.
 
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