quoted:
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...

But a quite distinct sort of claim is also made in the “double standards” debate. This holds that Israel stands in breach of Security Council resolutions in just the way Iraq does, and therefore deserves to be treated by the UN with equal severity. Not so.

The UN distinguishes between two sorts of Security Council resolution. Those passed under Chapter Six deal with the peaceful resolution of disputes and entitle the council to make non-binding recommendations. Those under Chapter Seven give the council broad powers to take action, including warlike action, to deal with “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression”. Such resolutions, binding on all UN members, were rare during the cold war. But they were used against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait. None of the resolutions relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict comes under Chapter Seven. By imposing sanctions—including military ones—against Iraq but not against Israel, the UN is merely acting in accordance with its own rules.
The distinctiveness of Chapter Seven resolutions, and the fact that none has been passed in relation to Israel, is acknowledged by Palestinian diplomats. It is, indeed, one of their main complaints.

A Palestine Liberation Organisation report, entitled “Double Standards” and published at the end of September, pointed out that, over the years, the UN has upheld the Palestinians' right to statehood, condemned Israel's settlements and called for Israel to withdraw. But “no enforcement action or any other action to implement UN resolutions and international law has been ordered by the Security Council.”

Economist.com | Iraq, Israel and the United Nations

“We’ve been sending messages every day to New York that this was going to happen, that we need more troops,” the French commander of the U.N. peacekeepers told a reporter. “Nothing was done.” This has become a routine scenario: massacres foretold, warnings ignored, slaughter erupting under the noses of U.N. forces with useless mandates. The mutilated remains of two peacekeepers were found in Bunia last week, and the commander, who has given shelter to some thirteen thousand civilians, was slashed with a machete at the gates of his compound. As Bunia burned, the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan—haunted by his failure to heed warnings of the impending genocide in Rwanda in 1994—sent a letter to the Security Council asking its members for a “rapid reaction force” to pacify the region. France, which is also tainted by complicity in the Rwandan slaughter, has said it can muster troops to maintain order until the U.N. can field a plausible force, but only on the condition that other nations join in. At least five governments have said they would consider contributing to a French-led operation. The Bush Administration has expressed support for the project but has refused to commit any troops to it.

The Congo Test

By Matthew McAllester
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
May 23, 2003

Baghdad - Throughout the 13 years of UN sanctions on Iraq that were ended yesterday, Iraqi doctors told the world that the sanctions were the sole cause for the rocketing mortality rate among Iraqi children.

"It is one of the results of the embargo," Dr. Ghassam Rashid Al-Baya told Newsday on May 9, 2001, at Baghdad's Ibn Al-Baladi hospital, just after a dehydrated baby named Ali Hussein died on his treatment table. "This is a crime on Iraq."

...

Now free to speak, the doctors at two Baghdad hospitals, including Ibn Al-Baladi, tell a very different story. Along with parents of dead children, they said in interviews this week that Hussein turned the children's deaths into propaganda, notably by forcing hospitals to save babies' corpses to have them publicly paraded.

...

Under the sanctions regime, "We had the ability to get all the drugs we needed," said Ibn Al-Baladi's chief resident, Dr. Hussein Shihab. "Instead of that, Saddam Hussein spent all the money on his military force and put all the fault on the USA. Yes, of course the sanctions hurt - but not too much, because we are a rich country and we have the ability to get everything we can by money. But instead, he spent it on his palaces."

The U.S. government and others long have blamed Hussein's spending habits for the poor health of Iraqis and their children. For years, the Iraqi government, some Western officials and a vocal anti-sanctions movement said UN restrictions on Iraqi imports and exports were at fault.

Newsday.com - Blood of Innocents

A mortal decision made: Journalistic objectivity is casualty of firefight

by Jules Crittenden
Sunday, April 13, 2003

...

Down the broad avenue, the column halted in front of a Versailles-like palace, topped with four gargantuan and very bizarre busts of Saddam in an arabesque war helmet that caught our attention briefly, but the fire coming from the ditches under roadside hedges distracted us.

It was here I went over to the dark side. I spotted the silhouettes of several Iraqi soldiers looking at us from the shadows 20 feet to our left. I shouted, ``There's three of the (expletive) right there.''

``Where are the (expletive)?'' Howison said, spinning around in his hatch.

``The (expletive) are right there,'' I said, pointing.

``There?'' he said, opening up with the 50. I saw one man's body splatter as the large caliber bullets ripped it up. The man behind him appeared to be rising, and was cut down by repeated bursts.

``There's another (expletive) over there,'' I told Howison. The two soldiers in the crew hatch with me started firing their rifles, but I think Howison was the one who got him, firing through the metal plate the soldier was hiding behind.

Some in our profession might think as a reporter and non-combatant, I was there only to observe. Now that I have assisted in the deaths of three human beings in the war I was sent to cover, I'm sure there are some people who will question my ethics, my objectivity, etc. I'll keep the argument short. Screw them, they weren't there. But they are welcome to join me next time if they care to test their professionalism.

A mortal decision made: Journalistic objectivity is casualty of firefight

(cpunks/cpunks for login)
BLEAK CONCLUSIONS FROM THE HISTORY OF A PEOPLE.
The Rejection
by Benny Morris

What are the Palestinians after? There are two basic interpretations of their actions in the past three years, which began with their rejection of the Barak-Clinton compromise proposals and the launching of the ongoing terroristic and guerrilla assault on Israel known as the Aqsa Intifada. According to one view, the Palestinians are conducting a rebellion against a repressive military occupation and their aim is to establish a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which comprise 22 percent of historic Palestine. According to another view, they aim to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian Arab (and perhaps Islamic) state in all of historic Palestine, "from the river to the sea." In this view, ejecting Israel from the territories is merely a stage on the road to Israel's liquidation, which, like the ultimately successful Islamic assault on the medieval Crusader kingdoms, may take several centuries.

To judge from the declarations in English of their secular Fatah-dominated leadership, headed by Yasir Arafat, the Palestinians have strived since 1988 for a Palestinian state alongside Israel: the "two-state solution." To judge from the statements of some of these same Fatah leaders (including Arafat) in Arabic, and from the pronouncements by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, they seek Israel's destruction and replacement by an Arab (or Islamic) state. Why the forked tongue of most of the Fatah leaders? Perhaps they really aspire to a two-state solution but feel that they must appease their people with rejectionist pronouncements, so as to assure their hold on the leadership and their room for maneuver in the continuous struggle against the rejectionists and the Islamicists in their midst. Perhaps, like the Islamicists, they really intend to destroy Israel but feel that they must dupe sympathetic Israelis and Western supporters of Israel who might be antagonized by a frank rejectionism.

TNR Online | The Rejection (1 of 4) (print)

Excellent collection of links and quotes about the ties between the groovy Iraqi Government and real, live, terrorists.

example:
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It now transpires that Saddam was hoping to take advantage of Abu Nidal's presence in Baghdad to persuade him to use his considerable expertise in terrorist techniques to train al-Qa'eda fighters.

Sean LaFreniere - Connecting the Dots

John O'Farrell
Friday April 18, 2003
The Guardian

The Baghdad branch of Neighbourhood Watch has been completely overwhelmed this week. "If you notice anyone behaving in a vaguely suspicious manner, please contact the police immediately," say their little signs on the lamp-posts, but these were all brazenly nicked, along with everything else in the city that wasn't nailed down.

As the war stumbled to a confusing and chaotic end, lawlessness swept across the country as thousands of people helped themselves to computers, stereos and other electrical goods. Such is the state of anarchy in the country that many of them haven't even sent off the little guarantee postcards yet.

Western leaders have been reluctant to condemn the looters, perhaps because the clamour for material goods is partly what this war was all about: bringing western-style consumerism to a former Islamic "socialist" republic. With sufficiently aggressive advertising, within a few weeks the rioters will become vaguely dissatisfied with that Sony Playstation they seized and will feel the urge to go out and loot Playstation 2 with integral DVD player.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | John O'Farrell: The thieves of Baghdad

The "Guernica" Myth
You may have heard the story about how Colin Powell forced the U.N. to cover Picasso's "Guernica" while he made the case for war in Iraq. It isn't true.
by Claudia Winkler
04/16/2003 1:00:00 PM

...

Early this year, as the Iraq drama was playing out at the United Nations, the press corps covering the Security Council swelled. The usual press stakeout, where ambassadors routinely take reporters' questions outside the Security Council, simply couldn't hold the numbers--expected to reach 800 for Powell's address on February 5. So the Secretariat moved the stakeout down the hallway.

As over 200 cameramen were setting up, they complained that the background at the new location didn't work for them. Powell would be speaking in front of the tapestry, of which only indecipherable shapes would be visible. Couldn't a plain background be provided, like the white wall the cameramen were used to outside the Security Council chamber, which is ornamented only by the words Security Council / Conseil de Securite in brass letters?

The temporary solution, provided by the Secretariat, was a U.N.-blue backdrop. Said the British diplomat, "The Secretariat did it, to meet the visual requirements of the TV guys."

It was only afterwards that comments were heard about the unfortunate symbolism of blocking out "Guernica." As a result of these, the Secretariat moved the press stakeout to a third location halfway between the first two. Now cameras could take their choice: They could pan across "Guernica" and some flags to the speaker, standing in front of the blue backdrop against the plain white wall, or they could content themselves with the usual head shot.

Nothing in this account is the teeniest bit implausible. By contrast, everything about the claim that "American officials" or "Powell's handlers" "demanded" this "censorship"--and that a Dominique de Villepin-friendly U.N. instantly provided it!--fails the laugh test. Yet expect the suppression of "Guernica" by the Bush administration to enter the settled leftist lore of the Iraq war.

The 'Guernica' Myth

Here's a great story detailing the history of Saddam Hussein. Feel free to forward to anyone who says that Bush is worse than Saddam..

=darwin

quoted:
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Tales of the Tyrant
by Mark Bowden

What does Saddam Hussein see in himself that no one else in the world seems to see? The answer is perhaps best revealed by the intimate details of the Iraqi leader's daily life

The Atlantic | May 2002 | Tales of the Tyrant | Bowden

France became a major military supplier to Iraq after 1975 as the two countries improved their political relations. In order to obtain petroleum imports from the Middle East and strengthen its traditional ties with Arab and Muslim countries, France wanted a politico-military bridge between Paris and Baghdad.

Between 1977 and 1987, Paris contracted to sell a total of 133 Mirage F-1 fighters to Iraq. The first transfer occurred in 1978, when France supplied eighteen Mirage F-1 interceptors and thirty helicopters, and even agreed to an Iraqi share in the production of the Mirage 2000 in a US$2 billion arms deal. In 1983 another twenty-nine Mirage F-1s were exported to Baghdad. And in an unprecedented move, France "loaned" Iraq five SuperEtendard attack aircraft, equipped with Exocet AM39 air-to- surface missiles, from its own naval inventory.

...

Iraqi debts to France were estimated at US$3 billion in 1987.

1Up Info | Iraq | Arms from France | Iraqi Information Resource