The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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Alun you and all the CASIEites who give their assent by their silence, sure have a heck of a high threshold for when silence degenerates into complicity. On the other had, the bottle is more than 1/2 full: there are indeed at this point considerably more than 12.5 million Iraqi still alive (more or less, leaving asside horrific permanent damage to their health and their prospects of any sort of decent lives. But yeah, we sure don't want to turn anyone off.. Let's stay respectable at any cost. . Sorry, I didn't know the rules; sacred cows like AI and HRW and Int. Assoc. of Genocide Scholars evidently can't be criticized -- the good old double standard. Ok, you silent dignified gentlemen, you win. I quit. This is my final post to CASI. I've lived with taboo for 20 years as a gentleman assoc. prof. in Washington. And I am deeply ashamed by my own guttlessness. Now, I turn a new page by quiting the CASI list and putting my energy into active nonviolence rather than active avoidance. Cheerio (hell it's not your children--yet), tom Alun Harford wrote: > --- " Tom Nagy, Ph.D." <nagy@gwu.edu> wrote: > > Rotate the nouns! Are your suggesting it was > > appropriate for "Good' > > German professors and others to keep quit about A. > > Hitler's crimes > > even before speaking out did NOT get the speaker a > > one-way ticket to a > > death camp? > No. But they were not a large organisation established > to deal with human rights issues worldwide. > AI is not expendable. > > > > Or do we have a deeper problem here? Are some > > victims, even > > children sacred, while other as disposable for > > "higher truth" and > > "interests" Confront the State Dept. and Ministry > > of Foreign Affairs > > and Democratic Peace candidates like Kucinich. Post > > copies of their > > replies if any*** to this and similar lists. Have > > written Kucinich 4 > > times in response to his request for comment (was it > > a ruse to get my > > address on his mailing list?) > To a certain extent - everyone is "disposable" (boy - > am I going to get flamed for that) - is it acceptable > for one person to die to save a thousand? In my > opinion, yes. I am certainly "disposable" in that > regard. > > > > If Amnesty and HRW and the Holocaust Museum > > don't condemn the > > continuing liquidation of Iraqi kids, they disgrace > > not only any > > individual brave investigators on their staffs, but > > make a mockery of > > Human Rights , reducing it to good stuff as long as > > it does not upset > > big donors otherwise, just plain expendable > > expendable-- as in lets roll > > another Halabja tape and ignore horrors larger in > > scale and fare more > > contemporary than Halabja. > And if they upset too many people? And if the whole > organisation (or more than 1 organisation) goes down, > turning governments against humanitarian agencies? > What then? > > > Oh yeah and lets not > > forget the good old > > "International Association of Genocide Scholars" and > > their clones with > > their wonderful talk about preventing future large > > scale atrocities. > > Has anyone heard a peep from any of these groups > > apart feel good > > notices to act nice and respect International Law > > (buried inside a long > > recitation of the crimes of the former Iraqi > > government)? Am I benign > > too harsh? Don't think so when the Int. Assoc. of > > Genocide Scholars > > printed a diatribe long of accusation, short on > > footnotes alleging that > > ALL of the crimes were the fault of the S. H. > > regime. Or am I just > > imagining all of this? > This is basically an issue of justice, which in my > opinion comes WAY after issues about the lives of > millions of people. > Secondly, people do not repond well to being told that > something is "their" fault or their government's fault > - they tend to get too defensive, walk away and say > "nothing to do with me". It's better to say "this is > somebody elses mess and we need you to help us deal > with it. Please." > <snip> > > > > It's well and good to be prudent, but there come > > sa time when prudent > > degenerates into complicity. > We are not yet there. > > Alun Harford > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). > http://calendar.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. > To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss > To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk > All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk