The Us Is Murdering The Iraqis Essay, Research Paper

The US is Murdering The Iraqis

Each day we eat three meals a day, sometimes more. We listen to music, drive in our cars, or play on our high-tech computers. Some may pick up the newspaper, but other than those few words on the page, the American population is living a life of excess. Excess that is at the expense of other people s lives. The American people take pride in the capitalistic democracy that is a model for the other countries, but they forget to watch the government. They don t even know what their government is doing. For years now people on the street curse and wish death upon the Saddam Hussein. He has been given titles such as the devil s son because the media has told all of the horrible things he has done. The media has shown how he is killing his own people for power. The struggle for power is killing the people of Iraq, but it is not their own government who is fighting for this power, it is the only remaining world super power, the United States of America, fighting constantly to hold on to its domination.

It is a ritual of the United States to stop any country from taking our power. The government will destroy any way of life that may take away from the policy of democratic promotion, for the US is the model of such a way of life. If that role was threatened then their power would be threatened. This is shown in the history Iraq and U.S. relations from 1972 on. In 1972, Iraq began to nationalize its oil; large amounts of money where now coming into the country. Saddam was using this money to help his people in a way no other country ever has. A free education system was set up for everyone in the country, from the equivalent of kindergarten to college or professional school. There was free housing for everyone. There was also a medical system that was free for Iraq people, while for non-citizens, it was about three dollars. This three dollars was for everything, from strepp throat to heart surgery. All of this improved the quality of life for the people of Iraq. The infant mortality decreased and people were living longer and better lives. Saddam oversaw all of this and his people loved him. But the United States government felt that Saddam and Iraq were growing too powerful in the sensitive Middle East region, and thus began a series of attempts to weaken their power.

1972 is when the U.S. put Iraq on the list of terrorist nations. This was probably done because the country was becoming very well developed and it was not a democracy. Part of the US policy is to take part in every conflict that goes on, by participation, they have a bit of control in the outcome. Such is demonstrated in the Iraq – Iran War. This war lasted from 1980-1988. The US sold weapons to both Iraq and Iran during this war. The law had to be changed to sell arms to Iraq, because no nation is supposed to trade weapons of mass destruction with “terrorist nations.” The US sold weapons to both sides (partially in secret) because what would be more in the U.S. s favor than these two counties destroying each other. In 1988, the war was over between Iraq and Iran and both nations were stricken by debt. In Iraq the country was $60 million dollars in dept. Even this doesn t put an end to the socialist programs in the country. During the war, Kuwait gave money to Iraq, but when the war was over Kuwait claimed their assistance was a loan. So when Iraq couldn t pay them back, Kuwait started developing Iraq s oil. They would sell this oil below OPEC prices. Shortly after the war Iraq hung a British person who was suspected of being a spy. This resulted in all monetary assets from foreign nations being frozen. These two events greatly crippled the Iraqi economy. Iraq then decided to invade Kuwait. Before they invaded, Saddam talked with an American Ambassador who asserted that the US did not have any position on border disputes. Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Over night Saddam became equated with Hitler. The American media began portraying Saddam as an evil person, who was killing innocent people for his own control and power. This is when the U.S. extended the sanctions from just monetary aid to all foreign supplies. In 1990 the U.S. invaded Iraq for invading Kuwait, marking the beginning of the Gulf War. The war was a chance for the U.S. to prove its super power abilities while aiding humanity. Before the sanctions were placed, Iraq was beginning to have economic difficulty, but they were just as advanced as the modern European countries so they could survive on their own resources under the pressure of the sanctions. During this war, the U.S. dropped 80 thousand bombs. The media showed the bombs as nothing more than smart bombs. Smart bombs meant the impact was not wide spread, they were just a small bomb that affected the immediate target, and those targets where reported as strictly military. But the official reports of the war says only 7% were smart bombs, and the other 93% were much more destructive and they were dropped on every city, village, and town in the country. 70% of the farms and fisheries were bombed. Seven Hydro-electric plants where destroyed as well as the water system. The U.S. also knocked out Iraq s power grid. All the power in the whole country was gone, including the heart machines and incubators in the hospital. The U.S. was killing the Iraqi socialist way of life for no reason other than they were not a democratic country. The crimes of the U.S. are equivalent to Hitler s killing of 6 million Jews, except the American people are doing nothing to stop this atrocity.

America had once again proved its strength as the police of the world. Iraq was bombed back to the stone age, so the sanctions really began to take hold. The U.S. didn t succeed with trade so they decided to kill. During the war, a shelter where men, woman, and children were hiding was bombed by the U.S. It was not an accident, the smart bomb was sent down the chimney deliberately. The bomb broke a water pipe and the two forces combined incinerated most of the people. You can go back to that building to day and on the ground floor the walls are covered in a brown gunk. This stuff is the skin of the people who where killed from the impact of the water and bomb. The Iraq country and people where hit so hard by the sanctions after the war because they didn t have power system or any way to support themselves in their country and any supplies food or medicine would have to come from trade. But the sanctions against Iraq meant the oil from their country was off the market. That was 95% of the countries income and even if countries were willing to trade with them they had no money or nothing to trade with. They are now forced to be at the mercy of the U.S., a state that knows nothing of generosity.

What the blockade is exactly, is unclear. It is simply what the US, through the UN, decides can or can t go into the country. This is merely another way for the American Government to play a leader in the game of power politics. Power that is costing the lives of people everyday. A little boy 5 years of age, Mustafa, was playing outside one day and cut his finger. He is now dead because the wound got so infected. He couldn t clean it with soap because the country is only allowed to have food and medicine, not soap. He couldn t clean it with boiling water because the U.S. took out the water system. The parts needed to fix the water system are not food or medicine, so it was vetoed by the U.S. The streets are full of waste water. The country is not allowed to have propane to heat gas stoves because they could use that to make weapons. There is not enough medicine to go around, so when Mustafa was taken to the doctor by his mom, they were unable to give him an antibiotic. So the little boy got gangrene, but he could not have surgery to have his finger removed. The scalpels and other surgical equipment are 10 years old and dull, there is also a lack of surgical gloves. The country is not allowed new surgical equipment because it is not food or medicine. This is just one story of a child dying from everyday curable disease. The August report shows 500 thousand children under the age of five have died as a direct result of U.S. sanctions. 9,060,000 children are dying from malnutrition. These sanctions are designed to create desperation and when the UN Ambassador , Madeline Albreight, was confronted about this she said “it was a tough decision but we think the price is worth it.”

The war is over, basically nothing is left in the country, so why are we still holding sanctions against them? The U.S. claims they have weapons of mass destruction and they won t comply with the inspectors. Each round of inspections come out with a new list of things the country must do in order to have the sanctions lifted. At one point UNSCOM inspectors went into a convent to looking for weapons of mass destruction. They threw out the biology books, the chemistry sets, and other books on science for all of these could be used to make weapons of mass destruction. The people of this convent said nothing, and they let all of this proceed until the UNSCOM inspectors wanted to dig up the graveyard. The people of the convent refused and the reports say that they were noncompliant, and therefore the sanctions would not be lifted. The media exacerbated these events without telling how the people of Iraq were not complying. The media would simply say that they didn t comply once again and it would show pictures of the inspectors going in or leaving, but never anything else. The last list of things Iraq was supposed to comply with of course was not met. Scott Ridder was one of the UNSCOM inspectors who quit after this list came out. He said this list would be impossible for any country to comply with, and the US had no intention of it being complied with. It was merely an excuse to bomb the country. The U.S. hadn t got to use it s weapons in a while and was afraid other countries might forget that the U.S. is running the show on this earth.

The American foreign policy against the country of Iraq is very simple; sanctions that kill the nation, the people, and the culture. It is a ritual for the government of the United States of America to police the affairs of the world, so they butt in to every conflict that has taken place. But if Iraq has already been destroyed and they are not capable of fighting anybody, why are we still bombing them? It comes down to the U.S. economy. When Iraq s oil is off the market then other countries increase the their production to fill the vacuum. For example, Saudi Arabia increased its oil production in 1991 from 5 million barrels a day to 8.2 million barrels a day. This greatly helped the Saudi economy, but by 1995 they were $100 million dollars in debt because they were using the money to buy the U.S. weapons. All of these oil producing countries would therefore be stuck in this vicious cycle, to produce more oil to pay for debt, while still buying weapons from the US. There is no reason for the United States to stop killing because when they kill it causes the sale of their number one cash crop (weapons) to increase, thus increasing their economy. Meanwhile, many the other countries are just digging themselves deeper and deeper into debt, and decreasing the their power in the world.

The Unites States Government has a ritual of making other countries think they are helping them, but in reality, behind all the highly confidential, top secret files, they plan to trap these countries under their control while furthering their own power and well being. Children and people of all ages are dying at this moment in Iraq, so that we, the people in America, can live a life of abundant materialism. This is just one country in the world, there are sure to be others in the past, present and the time to come, that will suffer and die at the mercy of the United States of America. Yet people are too concerned with the trivial things of their daily life to take interest in the government that is killing people and destroying cultures. The United States of America is supposed to have the government of the people, so unless we, the people do something, we will continue to be the murderers of innocent people.

All of the information in this paper came from Father Harring. He had traveled to Iraq and is working with the Voices in the Wilderness organization to help the people in Iraq. He quit his job as a professor in Connecticutto work full time with the organization. He gave the speech on Iraq sanctions (because Father Gumbleton had been hospitalized and was still ill) in October 1999.