Bert
Sacks
Tue,
Feb 14, 2006
To:
John Barton
Dear
Mr. Barton,
Thank
you for sharing your email address with me via the Times.
Below
is the letter which I sent to the Times in response to yours.
They
have informed me that they will not print my letter, so I
appreciate
the chance to send mine to you personally.
There
is much more that I did not have time to address. Specifically,
the
issue of Saddam's palaces (of which I do not approve), of the
so-called
oil-for-food scandal, of where Saddam got the overwhelming
amount
of smuggled money, and where he squandered the greatest amount
of his
country's resources.
After
spending 10 years studying this issue, the conclusions I have
come to
are not those widely held here. I'm
glad to discuss them more
with
you, but would ask that you read what I sent to the paper and --
if you
are willing -- get back to me.
In
short, the statements of U.S. bombing strategists from the '91 Gulf
War
convinced me that we intended to inflict great suffering and death
on
Iraqi civilians in order to get what we wanted.
Saddam
has some responsibility, but the 1991 bombing and sanctions are
ours. www.concernforiraq.org/infrastructure has
some quotes and links
to the
sources. Please have a look.
Thank
you.
Sincerely,
Bert
Sacks
----------
Forwarded message ----------
From:
Bert Sacks
Date:
Feb 13, 2006
Subject:
in response to John Barton's letter today
To:
letter to the editor <opinion@seattletimes.com>
John
Barton writes [in response to my column of Feb. 9] that it is
Saddam's
propagandists who spread hatred by blaming Iraqi civilian
deaths
on the U.S.
Here is
U.S. Air Force Colonel Kenneth Rizer, writing in an official
USAF
journal: "... destruction of these facilities [Iraq's electrical
plants
in 1991] shut down water purification and sewage treatment
plants. As a result, epidemics of gastroenteritis,
cholera, and
typhoid
broke out, leading to perhaps as many as 100,000 civilian
deaths
and a doubling of infant mortality."
Should the USAF take
these
deaths into consideration? He answers,
"The US Air Force has a
vested
interest in attacking dual-use targets because ... [these deaths]
indirectly
target[s] civilian morale."
The New
England Journal of Medicine wrote: ... the Gulf War and trade
sanctions
caused [the excess deaths of] more than 46,900 children" in
1991.
Mr.
Barton makes my point: How much has our media covered such
reports? [See BertOnIraq.blogspot.com for more
details.] Saddam's
palaces
and WMDs let us feel better about ourselves.
But we have told
ourselves
many half-truths to hide a simple fact: the U.S. used
epidemic
and famine against Iraqi civilians as tools of our foreign
policy.
###
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From:
JR Barton
To:
Bert Sacks
Date:
Feb 15, 2006
Dear
Mr. Sacks
War is
HELL . . . and people die.
Strategic
targets such as electrical power plants, and destroying the
civilian
morale are all part of winning. Just as
in World War II.
Had
Saddam focused his efforts on the well being of his people, most of the
deaths
could have been avoided, as well as those resulting from the invasion
of his
country in 2002.
We have
been at war with Islamic terrorists for 25+ years. There were 11
attacks
on the US during the Clinton administration.
Thank God we now have
an
administration that recognizes that we are in a war.
The
Bush Administration is trying to bring about a long-needed cultural
change
in the Middle East. As a direct result,
he has had the following
successes
(prepared in 2005, and not quite up to date):
a. The Taliban government of Afghanistan
fell in a number of days.
b. Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq fell
after a couple weeks.
c. Libya's Moammar Qaddafy gave up his
nuclear weapons program. (Ever
wonder
who the potential targets were to be?)
d. The government of Pakistan, which had
supported the Taliban in
Afghanistan,
switched alliances and joined the U.S. in its war on terrorism.
e. North Korea pushed its way to the
bargaining table, revealing their
nuclear
weapons program.
f. Qatar's new Constitution gives the right
to vote to every Qatari citizen.
g. Saudi Arabia has allowed elections at
the local level.
h. Egypt's President Mubarak has allowed an
election-law change so there are
now
opposition parties. (Not perfect, but a start.)
i. The Palestinians recently had free
elections. Hopefully, this will make
them
face the reality of the situation.
j. People in Lebanon have demonstrated for
free elections, and forced the
removal
of Syrian troops from their territory.
· Walid Jumblatt, the patriarch of the
Druze Moslem community, says the
people
want the truth about Arab regimes and why they have failed to deliver
on
their promises of progress and prosperity.
k. Afghanistan had elections, and even
women were allowed to vote.
l. Iraq has had elections with massive
turnouts in spite of death threats
against
voters, and women voted.
m. The people of the Ukraine threw out a
corrupt government. They were
inspired
by the free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And
most important of all:
n.
There have been no attacks on U.S. soil.
A
Lebanese newspaper editor noted [in 2005] that there have been three major
elections
in the Moslem world in recent times.
Two were provided by the
U.S.
(Afghanistan & Iraq) and one by the Israelis (Palestine). He
questioned
why Arab leaders can't do the same.
I noted
that you are retired. If you are about
my age (70), you should well
remember
the unanimity of our country during World War II. We need that
same
level of support to win this war.
Instead, we have the hate Bush crowd
and the
hate America first crowd ridiculing nearly everything the
Administration
does, and all spurred on by the liberal media.
It is mostly
just
plain old politics, which should be set aside when it comes to issues
of war.
President
Bush is not my favorite president, but neither was FDR. I would
encourage
you to support Bush, and every future president, in our struggle
against
the terrorists.
John
Barton