Re: [casi] You have been scammed. Move on people!!!

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

Dear Darin Zeilweger and list members

I gather from Darin Zeilweger's various mailings to this list that he
disapproves of Saddam Hussein. But I don't entirely understand why.

It can hardly be because President Hussein was oppressing his own people.
Clearly Mr Zeilweger, who supported the policy of keeping him 'in his box'
through the use of sanctions, doesn't feel too strongly about the suffering
of the Iraqi people, who had to live in his box with him. Assuming the worst
possible interpretation of Mr Hussein's character and motives then sanctions
provided him with a wonderful excuse and opportunity to torture his people.
And never during the whole course of the sanctions regime did I see it
suggested that they might be eased in return for, say, allowing in human
rights inspectors. All we had was weapons inspectors, who never, over a
period of seven years, found any evidence of any ongoing nuclear, chemical
or biological weapons programme.

So, if Darin is not motivated by a passionate concern for the wellbeing of
the Iraqi people, perhaps he has some other reason? Perhaps, despite the
anti-leftist rhetoric (if the word 'bullshit' can be dignified with the term
'rhetoric'), Darin is an old fashioned militant Communist, who hates
President Hussein because he suppressed the Iraqi Communist movement. Could
that be it?

Or perhaps he thinks he was a great threat to 'his neighbours'. That if I
remember rightly was a major concern of President Clinton and British
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

Iraq's neighbours are Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Which of
these, I wonder, has aroused Darin's sympathies? Perhaps Turkey, but I've
never seen it much suggested that Hussein was threatening them. He did,
however, break the impetus of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. So perhaps
Darin is a supporter of that revolution. Perhaps he wanted Iraq, with its
Shi'i majority, to join it? Perhaps, he supported the Kurds, who were
helping the Iranian war effort?

Or perhaps he is an ardent supporter of the Pan-Arab goals of the Ba'ath
Party in Syria. Perhaps that is why he hates President Hussein, who
prevented the union of Syria and Iraq under a united Ba'ath Party
leadership. Or perhaps he is a Sunni fundamentalist who loved Kuwait, which
was giving considerable financial and other support to the forerunners of Al
Qaida, the followers of the great ideologue of the Sunni revolution, Sayyid
Qutb, whose brother taught in Kuwait university?

Or, for similar reasons, is Mr Zeilweger enamoured of the government of
Saudi Arabia and did he agree with Osama bin Laden's (in my view rather
farfetched) opinion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to it?

Well, I see I've come up with quite a lot of reasons why Darin might not
like Saddam Hussein. Ruling out as self evidently absurd consideration for
the wellbeing of the Iraqi people, we are left with the possibilities that
he is a Communist, a Shi'i fundamentalist, a Sunni fundamentalist, or a
pan-Arab nationalist. These were the people who had serious reasons for
hating Saddam Hussein. I would be curious to know to which of these
categories Darin belongs. Or is there something else I haven't thought of?

Yours

Peter



> From: "Darin Zeilweger" <dzepplin@charter.net>
> Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 01:09:11 -0700
> To: "'CASI discussion list'" <casi-discuss@lists.casi.org.uk>
> Subject: Re: [casi] You have been scammed.  Move on people!!!
>
>
> Colin Rowat wrote:
>> What is the relative importance of these two half questions -
>> supporting Saddam and helping Iraqis?  I will not try to offer an
>> answer to this, but do think that the balance implied by Albright in
>> her famous claim that the deaths of a half million Iraqi children
>> were 'worth the price', is very widely viewed as abhorrent.
>
> Well, I always viewed that as human error.  I don't mean to sound like
> I'm insulting her, but lets face it, she made a stupid mistake by
> answering a rigged question.  It was an especially stupid mistake
> because rigged questions are asked quite frequently by the press in the
> world of politics and she should have known better.
>
> That being said, when Leslie Stahl asked her "blah..blah..blah... Do you
> think it was worth it?", she was asking Albright a rigged question.
> Whether Albright answered 'Yes' or 'No' she would have erroneously
> 'confirmed' that 500,000 children had died.
>
> Since Albright was at the interview to begin with as an 'advocate' of
> current U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, she made a grievous mistake by
> answering that rigged question.  What she should have done is answered
> the question put to her by Stahl with another question.  A question that
> challenged both the the data and the source of that data.
>
> Since that big shing-ding in 1996, Madelyn Albright has certainly caught
> a whirlwind of flak for it.  She has made sincere apologies for her
> error all across the U.S. and after the one I saw several years ago,
> there is no doubt that she was sincere.  It all boils down to this:  An
> old lady basically fucked up by answering a rigged question.  Give her a
> break,  Let it go.  And move on...
>
>
>
> --Darin Zeilweger
>
>
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