Iraq atrocity-Sanctions, Invasion, Occupation

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Saturday March 31, 2007 03:49 by johnfitz

End Shannon collaboration pre election

demand that the Dail is not dissolved until it ends the atrocity of our complicity in mass murder in Iraq. There is an irrefutable case that our TDs are aware that we, members of the UN, remained silent while half a million Iraqis kids were murdered by UN Sanctions up to 1998 That continued at 5,000 a month under 5y/o kids until March 2003. We then supported the illegal war of aggression - "the greatest crime of all" according to the Nuremberg Tribunal.

After six years heavy campaigning against the long term criminal treatment of Iraq, I wrote to the 5 local TDs in 2006 indicating my revulsion at our government's support for the Iraq Sanctions, invasion, and continuing occupation” and determination not vote for them, but canvass for alternative candidate(s), if they don't end our collaboration at Shannon now.

We must take effective action to convince our politicians to end our involvement! If they can't, or won't do it now why could or would they do it after the election?

Reasons given for this stance were- All UN agencies in Iraq pre 2003, and Liz ODonnell then Minister at Foreign Affairs, agreed that 5,000 children (under 5 years old) were dying a month from the effects of the UN Sanctions. That's 20 times as many in a year as were killed in the 9-11 atrocity. There was no evidence that Iraq or Iraqis had any part in that atrocity.
Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Aid -Coordinator for Iraq, said on resignation in 1998, 'We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral- GENOCIDE!
His successor Von Sponeck (in 2000), Jutta Burghardt (2000) Head of the World Food Programme in Iraq & three UNSCOM inspectors (Ritter, chief Inspector in '98) also resigned & condemned the Sanctions.

Mary Robinson, the most senior world human rights official (UNHCHR), speaking in 1998 against the sanctions, said-
"How can you expect me to condemn human rights abuses in Algeria and China and elsewhere when the United Nations themselves are responsible for the worst situation in Iraq."

President McAleese, in Kuala Lumpur (Sept '02) “It seems to me that it is part of the mission of countries like ours to help resist the supposed realpolitik of “might is right” and seek with all the vigour, wisdom and intelligence at our command to advance the indispensable tenets of international cooperation and the rule of law.” How did we live up to this mission??

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark's letter to the UN Security Council, and UN General Assembly August 1999 said: - 'The United Nations, cannot continue to exist as an institution of honor and hope if it fails to act immediately to lift all economic sanctions from Iraq and prohibit the United States from nearly daily murderous aerial assaults on its defenseless people. The Security Council through nine years of economic sanctions, forced on it by the United States, has caused the greatest human disaster in this last decade of a century of self-inflicted human disasters. More than 1,500,000 people have been killed; overwhelmingly infants, children, elderly persons, pregnant and nursing women, the chronically ill and emergency medical cases. The whole population of Iraq has been afflicted. Every UN agency dealing with health, food, and children has confirmed the effect of the sanctions on the people of Iraq and reported to the UN and the world regularly on this human catastrophe since 1990!'

The above is a little of the overwhelming evidence that the Iraq Sanctions were 'illegal, murder, genocide', a fact well known at the UN before 1998. That WMD were eliminated (last significant find was '93 - UNSCOM Chief Inspector Ritter) was also know by then, eliminating the supposed reason for the Desert Fox bombing in '98, for retaining the Sanctions or invading Iraq in 2003

It was imperative then, that those who knew that, should do all in their power to end Sanctions & the excuse for war? No TD took any significant action to achieve that- just talk. We've flouted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, other human rights conventions, international law, our own constitution. Article 29 says Ireland affirms-
1. its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality.
2. its adherence to the principles of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration and judicial determination
3. Ireland accepts the generally recognized principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.

The Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes Tribunal declared: "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole".

Recent "The Lancet" figures indicated that the 2003 invasion and occupation caused the death of more than 600,000 Iraqis.

Is it acceptable that those who supported our involvement in this, or didn't resign, like the top UN officials in Iraq, rather than give credibility to the majority Dail decision, be returned to the Dail?

If TDs won't or can't end the collaboration now, why, or how would they do it afterwards?

Please write or email them now and tell them to end our collaboration or they'll not get any vote etc. That, I believe, is the minimum anyone living in a democracy must do when dealing with Dail support for murder
Go raibh maith agat. John Fitz.