There's always good reason to distrust the child abuse propaganda. Always. It's the first thing trotted out when a government is gearing up the public against another country. Remember the Kuwaiti nurse testifying about watching the Iraqis pulling the plugs on incubators after the invasion of Kuwait - the "nurse" turned out to be the daughter of a Kuwaiti diplomat and hadn't even been incountry at the time?

Anyway, at the end of the article the author says "It seems awfully hard not to conclude that the embargo on Iraq has been ineffective (especially since 1998) and that it has, at the least, contributed to more than 100,000 deaths since 1990."

Let's assume those are more or less innocent civilians - OK, half of them are innocent civilians, the other half are military and government personnel (though we both know those would be the LAST to be deprived). That's still 50,000 deaths for NO good reason - 50,000 people dying as the result of sanctions which had no effect upon the regime.

That's more people than have been killed in the US, Israel, Britain, Ireland and France due to terrorist actions.

I'm not saying that there aren't political reasons for carrying out such brutal tactics. What I AM saying is that it's understandable why some people hate the US for it. We are not a "genteel", benevolent society if anything gets in the way of "free trade".

The "I'm killing you for your own good" argument isn't valid anywhere, and won't sell except to a jingoistic crowd. There's an old policy attributed to the Crusaders who couldn't tell Arab Christians from Arab Muslims - "Kill 'em all, God will recognize his own!!" If true, and if carried out, would not particularly endear Christians to Arabs of any religious persuasion. I wouldn't blame Arabs for not trusting Europeans.

Neither do I blame many Arabs for not trusting the US. While it's understandable why we aren't always kind and considerate toward the innocent and helpless, you really can't blame the innocent victims, their friends and their families, for resenting it. Much the way we in the US resent, justifiably, the folks who took out the World Trade Center and with it thousands of innocent people.

Thanks for finding and posting the link to an interesting article.

Arf