---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Boudewijn Wegerif" <•••@••.•••> To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:@hub02.mail.iol.ie;> Subject: WHAT MATTERS-95: repeat posting - Ramsay Clarke calls on U.N. re Iraq Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 11:33:53 +0200 NOTE: It seems many list members did not receive What Matters E-letters 94 and 95, posted on Friday, so I am sending them out again through the •••@••.••• server. I am sorry if this reaches you as a repeat posting. _______________________________________________________ WHAT MATTERS-95 September 6, 2002 Ramsay Clarke calls on U.N. to stop the U.S. from carrying out its planned war crime against Iraq _________________________ Dear list members, "If, as promised so many times, the U.S. does attack Iraq to overthrow its government, it will be the most notorious, arrogant and contemptuous violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the Nuremberg Charter and international law yet experienced, or likely hereafter. Only absolute power unrestrained by any rule of law or standard of human decency openly taunts an intended victim as President Bush has taunted Iraq." The quotations is from an open letter by Ramsey Clarke, a former U.S. Attorney General. The letter was sent on September 4 to all members of the U.N. Security Council, with copies to the U.N. General Assembly and Senator Biden of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In his letter, Ramsey Clarke calls on the United Nations to act to prevent an attack by the United States against Iraq. This is what Clarke writes about the merciless bombing of Iraq for 42 days in 1991: "The Pentagon announced it conducted 110,000 aerial sorties against the defenseless 'cradle of civilization', dropping 88,500 tons of bombs. The widespread bombing destroyed the economic viability of the civilian society throughout the nation. It killed tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens and others. A major part of the bombing was directed at civilians and civilian facilities. It was less accurate than the recent indiscriminate attacks in Afghanistan. U.S. bombs destroyed Iraqi water systems, electric power transmission, communications, transportation, manufacturing, commerce, agriculture, poultry and livestock, food storage facilities, markets, fertilizer and insecticide production, business centers, archeological and historical treasures, apartment houses, residential areas, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and synagogues. "The Pentagon stated its casualties were 156," Clarke continues. "One third were from 'friendly fire'; the rest were accidental. The U.S. had no combat casualties." To make matters worse, on August 6, 1990, the 45th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, the U.S. crafted economic sanctions against Iraq, which the Security Council approved. "Those sanctions are the direct cause of the very cruel deaths of more than a million people," writes Clarke. "This is the greatest crime against humanity, in the last decade of the most violent century in history". The imminent attack being planned by the U.S. represents a dramatic escalation of the daily bombings of Iraq by the U.S. and U.K. As Ramsay Clarke writes: "The U.S. has engaged in air strikes against Iraq at will since March 1991, when the massive attacks averaging one aerial sortie every 30 seconds ended. "Without losing a single plane, U.S. attacks have killed: cleaning personnel at the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad in a failed attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein; scores of people each year in attacks on radar stations in or near the U.S.-imposed no-fly zones; all the persons aboard a U.N. helicopter shot down by U.S. aircraft; and civilians from all walks of life, including the internationally famous artist and Director of Iraqis' National Center for Arts, Leila al Attar." According to Clarke, the U.S. has falsely claimed that Iraq is working to develop weapons of mass destruction to attack the U.S., Israel, its neighbors and others. He writes: "The U.S. claimed its 1991 attacks destroyed 80% of Iraq's military capacity. The U.N. inspection efforts claimed to discover and dismantle 90% of Iraq's post-1991 capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction. Iraq, its peoples and resources are exhausted. It has a 'stunted' generation of children under age 10 and a debilitated population at all ages. It is the victim of the worst crime against humanity in recent decades. "Two of the highest U.N. officials responsible for U.N. weapons inspection within Iraq and a principle U.S. citizen participating in the inspections have resigned, denounced the sanctions and denied that there is a threat that Iraq will develop weapons of mass destruction." The letter by Ramsey Clarke was forwarded to me by list member Maereid Sullivan. To read it in full, go to: http://www.iacenter.org/rc_letter802.htm -- I suspect that the planned war crime against Iraq is not just about control of the Middle East oil fields and a personal Bush vendetta against Saddam Hussein. It may also be intended as a cover under which Ariel Sharon will drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank into Jordan and Syria, to realise his objective of an expanded Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Let there be no doubt, the forces of darkness are gathering, in violent competition for land and other riches, even as more and more of us, individually, are being drawn into the light of higher reason, where cooperation and diversity in unity are in order. In friendship, Boudewijn Wegerif What Matters Programme Folkhogskola Vardingeby** ________________________ This E-letter is posted at http://www.whatmatters.nu/wmemails/wmemails18.html#WM-95 ** The What Matters Programme is an initiative by Boudewijn Wegerif, to spread information about what is happening in the world today, and how things could be, given a schooling at all levels to free the self and the world from debt/guilt oppression and money madness - a schooling for love. The trustees of the What Matters Programme are the collegiate of Folkhögskola Vårdinge By, an adult education residential college south of Stockholm. You can read WHAT MATTERS E-letters 1-95 at the WHAT MATTERS web site - http://www.whatmatters.nu/wmemails/wmemailsindex.html To subscribe or unsubscribe to the WHAT MATTERS E-letters: http://www.whatmatters.nu/contacts.html Boudewijn Wegerif, Torsberget, 669 92, Deje, Sweden. Tel: +46.552.21112 Administration: Johanna Heckscher, FHSK Vardingeby, 150 21 Molnbo, Sweden. -- ============================================================================ cyberjournal home page: http://cyberjournal.org "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://cyberjournal.org/Productions/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists='cj' newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists='newslog' cj_open list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists='cj_open' subscribe addresses for cj list: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• subscribe addresses for cj_open list: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• ============================================================================
