Dear editor,
This is in response to Melanie Morris' letter of Jan. 16.
Rule of law? Let's talk about rule of law. As of Oct. 3, 2002, Israel has violated 30 U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons (of which it possesses several dozen and is known to manufacture delivery vehicles). What is the U.S. response to this? Bomb Israel? Place sanctions that kill 500,000 civilians over a 10-year period? No, the U.S. gives $2-3 billion in military aid every year.
As of October, Turkey has violated 22 U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Between 1990 and 1994, 1 million Kurds fled Turkish repression, yet the U.S. sold more military goods to Turkey in 1994 than any other country. The Kurds are some of the very people Bush purports to save by attacking Iraq.
Let us not forget that when Saddam Hussein gassed his own people in el-Habja in 1988, the helicopters were U.S.-made and the U.S. supplied him with more military arms months after the incident.
Morris is correct in assessing the purpose of the 1991 resolutions. However, the U.N. set up a highly effective program of weapons inspection that destroyed the vast majority of Iraqi arms. It was Clinton who manipulated the inspection teams for CIA spying and then told the inspectors to leave before the U.S. attack in 1998.
The fact is, it's not Iraq which has flagrantly ignored international law, but the United States. In the past 130 years the U.S. has invaded or bombed over 27 countries excluding the two world wars. The U.S. illegally invaded North Vietnam and dropped hundreds of millions of landmines on Cambodia and Laos.
The World Court ordered an immediate halt to U.S. terrorism in Nicaragua and payment of reparations to which the U.S. responded by escalating the conflict. The U.S. waited 40 years to ratify the U.N. Genocide Convention and has never signed the Mine Ban Treaty.
It is clearly not a part of U.S. foreign policy to act in the best interests of humanity or enforce international law but rather to fuel the military-industrial complex and expand U.S. neoimperialist "interests" in the world. The same drives which wrought genocide on American Indians and apartheid on blacks is being targeted on innocent Iraqis.
Attacking a country to get to one person is monstrous. We killed 125,000 Iraqis in 1991 and 500,000 to 1 million more with the sanctions that followed. Iraqis know the scourge of white imperialism and are unlikely to support any regime backed by the U.S.
With the most powerful military in the world, Americans are the only people who can avert this war. It is our duty to stand up to warmongers.
Jonathan Hendricks
junior
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
