American Logic

[davidthegnome]

47. I wasn't aware of that.

It can't be disputed though, that our sanctions did in fact result in suffering and death. I'm not referring to food, specifically, but to things like medical supplies - as well as the devastating poverty that economic sanctions can bring on. In particular - there were arguments that certain (very necessary) medical supplies could be used to make weapons - and so they became part of the sanctions.

Economic sanctions might be a preferable alternative to war, I do think though, that more diplomatic solutions (we certainly had time to pursue them much more fiercely) might have worked even better.

I'm certainly not suggesting that war would be a good or effective alternative, more the opposite. Almost anything would have been better than what the eventual result of our conflict with Iraq was. It wasn't even "our" conflict, really, it was an issue most Americans knew little about, in a Country that few of us knew anything about until the war. What I do know is that Iraq, as a Country, was already suffering a great deal - and some of that suffering was our doing.

The invasion... the... pre emptive strike, as they called it... it will go down in history, I suspect, as being what really instigated the hell out of the middle east, sparked the growth and strength of ISIS, terrorist organizations - and so on. It also destroyed a lot of our credibility internationally, devastated our own Country financially, cost thousands of lives... I don't need to go on, we know what war does.

I'll have to look more deeply into how much suffering our sanctions actually did cause. I wasn't aware that so much was lied about and fabricated by the Iraqi government. Thanks for correcting my ignorance there.

What it really comes down to is the war - and the presentation I saw was something put together by a protest group trying to prevent it.

I don't think the US is evil, I think a lot of bad shit goes on behind closed doors, I think deals get made that we have no say in and no control over. I think our government is financially corrupt. I also think we've done some really terrible things in the middle east. The leap to invade made any future efforts at diplomacy much, much more difficult in that part of the world.

In any event, looks like I've got some searching to do.