In the U.S., there are a number of issues not being discussed. One of those is international law. The U.S. somehow doesn't believe that international law applies to this great democracy, to this great empire. We've seen Mr. Bush reject various aspects of international law in the past year. That's a failure on the part of Washington to understand that the U.S. is in fact subordinate to the charter, to the declaration of human rights, to the Geneva Conventions and protocols -- all of which would protect Iraq, a sovereign state and member of the United Nations -- from further harassment, attacks and killings by the United States.
[What's missing is] respect for international law and an awareness that this is not an empire -- that "might" is no longer "right" in the year 2002, and that Mr. Bush does not have any God-given right to attack Iraq or its people without consultation with the Security Council. There is no legitimate way for the U.S. to wage war again on the people of Iraq. That's one huge issue that's missing, in my view.
Another would be the fact that American foreign policy is not understood by the vast majority of American people. And that this is due to a media that in this country is suppressed by Washington and by the owners of this media, who often tend to be corporate entities close to the [White House] and very often are arms manufacturers with a vested interest in chaos [in] the Middle East. And as a result Americans do not actually get both sides of the story.
I believe that Americans are basically decent people. If they understood that Iraq is not made up of 22 million Saddam Husseins but made up of 22 million people -- of families, of children, of elderly parents, families with dreams and hopes and expectations for their children and themselves -- they would be horrified to realize that the current killing of innocent Iraqi civilians by the U.S. Air Force, or what happened in the Gulf War, is being done in their name.
This is my first post here -- hi all, and thanks to Dr Menlo for the invitation.
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