Here’s a list of this year’s Medal of Freedom recipients:
Madeleine Albright
From 1997 to 2001, under President William J. Clinton, Albright served as the 64th United States Secretary of State, the first woman to hold that position. During her tenure, she worked to enlarge NATO and helped lead the Alliance’s campaign against terror and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, pursued peace in the Middle East and Africa, sought to reduce the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons, and was a champion of democracy, human rights, and good governance across the globe. From 1993 to 1997, she was America’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Since leaving office, she founded the Albright Stonebridge Group and Albright Capital Management, returned to teaching at Georgetown University, and authored five books. Albright chairs the National Democratic Institute and is President of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.John Doar
Doar was a legendary public servant and leader of federal efforts to protect and enforce civil rights during the 1960s. He served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. In that capacity, he was instrumental during many major civil rights crises, including singlehandedly preventing a riot in Jackson, Mississippi, following the funeral of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evars in 1963. Doar brought notable civil rights cases, including obtaining convictions for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and leading the effort to enforce the right to vote and implement the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He later served as Special Counsel to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary as it investigated the Watergate scandal and considered articles of impeachment against President Nixon. Doar continues to practice law at Doar Rieck Kaley & Mack in New York.Bob Dylan
One of the most influential American musicians of the 20th century, Dylan released his first album in 1962. Known for his rich and poetic lyrics, his work had considerable influence on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has had significant impact on American culture over the past five decades. He has won 11 Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award. He was named a Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Art et des Lettres and has received a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. Dylan was awarded the 2009 National Medal of Arts. He has written more than 600 songs, and his songs have been recorded more than 3,000 times by other artists. He continues recording and touring around the world today.William Foege
A physician and epidemiologist, Foege helped lead the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He was appointed Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1977 and, with colleagues, founded the Task Force for Child Survival in 1984. Foege became Executive Director of The Carter Center in 1986 and continues to serve the organization as a Senior Fellow. He helped shape the global health work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and remains a champion of a wide array of issues, including child survival and development, injury prevention, and preventative medicine. Foege’s leadership has contributed significantly to increased awareness and action on global health issues, and his enthusiasm, energy, and effectiveness in these endeavors have inspired a generation of leaders in public health.John Glenn
Glenn is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States Senator. In 1962, he was the third American in space and the first American to orbit the Earth. After retiring from the Marine Corps, Glenn was elected to the U.S. Senate in Ohio in 1974. He was an architect and sponsor of the 1978 Nonproliferation Act and served as Chairman of the Senate Government Affairs committee from 1987 until 1995. In 1998, Glenn became the oldest person to visit space at the age of 77. He retired from the Senate in 1999. Glenn is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.Gordon Hirabayashi
Hirabayashi openly defied the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, he refused the order to report for evacuation to an internment camp, instead turning himself in to the FBI to assert his belief that these practices were racially discriminatory. Consequently, he was convicted by a U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle of defying the exclusion order and violating curfew. Hirabayashi appealed his conviction all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against him in 1943. Following World War II and his time in prison, Hirabayashi obtained his doctoral degree in sociology and became a professor. In 1987, his conviction was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Hirabayashi died on January 2, 2012.Dolores Huerta
Huerta is a civil rights, workers, and women’s advocate. With Cesar Chavez, she co-founded the National Farmworkers Association in 1962, which later became the United Farm Workers of America. Huerta has served as a community activist and a political organizer, and was influential in securing the passage of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, and disability insurance for farmworkers in California. In 2002, she founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, an organization dedicated to developing community organizers and national leaders. In 1998, President Clinton awarded her the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights.Jan Karski
Karski served as an officer in the Polish Underground during World War II and carried among the first eye-witness accounts of the Holocaust to the world. He worked as a courier, entering the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi Izbica transit camp, where he saw first-hand the atrocities occurring under Nazi occupation. Karski later traveled to London to meet with the Polish government-in-exile and with British government officials. He subsequently traveled to the United States and met with President Roosevelt. Karski published Story of a Secret State, earned a Ph.D at Georgetown University, and became a professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. Born in 1914, Karski became a U.S. citizen in 1954 and died in 2000.Juliette Gordon Low
Born in 1860, Low founded the Girl Scouts in 1912. The organization strives to teach girls self-reliance and resourcefulness. It also encourages girls to seek fulfillment in the professional world and to become active citizens in their communities. Since 1912, the Girl Scouts has grown into the largest educational organization for girls and has had over 50 million members. Low died in 1927. This year, the Girl Scouts celebrate their 100th Anniversary, calling 2012 “The Year of the Girl.”Toni Morrison
One of our nation’s most celebrated novelists, Morrison is renowned for works such as Song of Solomon, Jazz, and Beloved, for which she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988. When she became the first African American woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1993, Morrison’s citation captured her as an author “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” She created the Princeton Atelier at Princeton University to convene artists and students. Morrison continues to write today.Shimon Peres
An ardent advocate for Israel’s security and for peace, Shimon Peres was elected the ninth President of Israel in 2007. First elected to the Knesset in 1959, he has served in a variety of positions throughout the Israeli government, including in twelve Cabinets as Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, and Minister of Transport and Communications. Peres served as Prime Minister from 1984-1986 and 1995-1996. Along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as Foreign Minister during the Middle East peace talks that led to the Oslo Accords. Through his life and work, he has strengthened the unbreakable bonds between Israel and the United States.
NOTE: Mr. Peres will not attend the ceremony, as he will receive his Medal at a separate event.John Paul Stevens
Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010, when he retired as the third longest-serving Justice in the Court’s history. Known for his independent, pragmatic and rigorous approach to judging, Justice Stevens and his work have left a lasting imprint on the law in areas such as civil rights, the First Amendment, the death penalty, administrative law, and the separation of powers. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Gerald Ford, and previously served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Stevens is a veteran of World War II, in which he served as a naval intelligence officer and was awarded the Bronze Star.Pat Summitt
In addition to accomplishing an outstanding career as the all-time winningest leader among all NCAA basketball coaches, Summitt has taken the University of Tennessee to more Final Four appearances than any other coach and has the second best record of NCAA Championships in basketball. She has received numerous awards, including being named Naismith Women’s Collegiate Coach of the Century. Off the court, she has been a spokesperson against Alzheimer’s. The Pat Summitt Foundation will make grants to nonprofits to provide education and awareness, support to patients and families, and research to prevent, cure and ultimately eradicate early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type.
That’s a pretty impressive list. I might have my beefs with a couple of the recipients (can you guess which?) but I can’t deny the massive contributions of any of these folks. Bob Dylan is our greatest songwriter and a great voice of conscience. Jan Karski is a legend. You should read about him. Dolores Huerta could make Sen. Jeff Sessions’ heart stop.
It’s a nice selection.
The Medal of Freedom for Bob Dylan. Here’s a proper homage:
I get the whole Dylan thing but Bruce (and a lot of people) IMO do Dylan better than Dylan.
Otherwise some good names there.
Toni Morrison is a bit predictable but OK
Juliette Gordon Low is a great choice. GS is a great choice and the whacko right hates them and her.
Pat Summit has done so much to put women’s sports into the big time.
Glenn is deserving for a lifetime of service.
Interesting to learn about some of the others. That is the point of these things.
Could have passed on Peres IMO
Yeah, people have focused so much on Madelein Albright that they forgot a much worse example in Shimon Peres.
But then earlier in this century George W. Bush and Tony whatsisname were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, so these things don’t have a whole lot of meaning.
Good to see Dolores Huerta on the list.
Hearing Springsteen made me think of Pete Seeger and how much his voice and lyrics have led this country towards the light.
Impressed with many of the names on the list, but Albright and Peres are both, in their own special way, war criminals. And what list of accomplished Americans (Peres is an American, yes?) would be complete without at least a couple of those?
How quickly we forget:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4
that one quote is way overused.
If Saddam Hussein had taken all the money he spent on palaces and put it to reducing infant mortality, the problem would have been largely solved.
Let’s not make Ms. Albright into a mass murderer.
I don’t have to. She did that herself. And that one quote is overused only because it sums up in a tidy 30 seconds both a history most people in the US have already forgotten, and the official rationalization for it: sure, it’s a shame all those people died, but it was worth it. (To whom?)
Hussein was a selfish asshole, sure. But that wasn’t exactly a secret. The US economic sanctions against Iraq were imposed with the full knowledge of anyone familiar with the region that the full impact would be on ordinary citizens, not Iraq’s political and economic elite (i.e., Saddam & his allies). The U.S. chose that path anyway – causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians – in the utterly mistaken belief that it would cause other Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, blaming him for their misery.
Quite aside from ignoring the local memory of the US betrayal of the 1991 uprising, that idea is completely counter to most of the research as to what conditions produce revolutions (hint: it’s not when people are desperately trying to survive) – but even if our Serious People in DC (of both parties) had been right, the tactic to achieve their goal was still mass murder, and it was still a major war crime.
The ends do not justify the means. Period. Just because we live in a country and time that routinely uses that as a rationalization for every conceivable depredation doesn’t make it true.
The European left hated Saddam Hussein for his human rights crimes long before the neocons had ever heard of him. We were powerless to do anything about them and were open to the charge of being hand-wringing bleeding heart liberals when the macho US right decided to meet force with even greater force and eliminate him.
I do not know if the history of Iraq would have been even worse than it was had Saddam just been left in power (although I doubt it – his atrocities were generally on a smaller scale).
What I do know is that the US intervention debased western political culture for the last decade and made us all complicit in war crimes.
You cannot fight evil with more evil…
Ms. Albright didn’t impose the sanctions and the sanctions that really led to a lot of death in Iraq were modified after a couple of years, before she was Secretary of State.
Moreover, sanctions had worked in South Africa and there was no reason to just assume that sanctions would do nothing but harm to innocent people. The UN has limited tools to try to influence governments that don’t do what they are asked to do.
Ms. Albright’s quote was very unfortunate, but the biggest problem with it was that she accepted the premise, which was that we were to blame for the death in Iraq. We were not to blame. The government of Iraq invaded Kuwait and then clung to power while letting its own people suffer needlessly while they built the most opulent palaces and projects. Saddam Hussein is responsible for those deaths, not the American people or the government or Ms. Albright. And when our government realized the impact the sanctions were having because of Saddam’s negligence, they modified those sanctions,
The sanctions ceased to be UN sanctions and were American-imposed-and-administered sanctions under the Bill Clinton administration. They were UN sanctions in name only, and were only kept in place because Clinton and his little sidekick Great Britain would not allow them to be lifted. The rest of the Security Council wanted them lifted, and some – France, for example – even undertook sanction-breaking actions.
The “modifications” did a lot for the sanctions by allowing those who supported them to pretend they had fixed the part that was destroying the lives of Iraqi people. They did very, very little for the Iraqi people. The two UN humanitarian coordinators for Iraq resigned in disgust and despair. I have had the honor of meeting one of them, and spending one-on-one time with him, but he had a lot to say in public, and much of it is readily available. The head of WHO in Iraq made numerous statements as to the effect of the “modified” sanctions. Why don’t you listen to what they had to say instead of acting as an apologist by parroting the standard talking points over and over again?
I don’t know how you can compare the sanctions on South Africa with the 13 year embargo on Iraq and keep a straight face. There is simply no comparison.
You absolutely were culpable for “the death in Iraq” (my, what a nice, sanitary phrase for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings, and the destruction of the lives of millions more). First in 1991 you systematically and intentionally destroyed critical civilian infrastructure. Care to tell me how sewage processing plants are military targets, BooMan? And yet you bombed them to the point of inoperability. Then for 13 years you denied the means to repair that infrastructure. You destroyed hospitals, you denied imports of common medicines, medical supplies, and medical equipment. You denied doctors access to medical journals even. You even blocked the import of ordinary things like wheelbarrows, ash trays, pencils, musical instrument strings, and music writing paper, not to mention paper in general. You destroyed the agriculture by blocking the import of agricultural equipment, tools, and chemicals. You also blocked the import of critical veterinary medicines and supplies needed to keep livestock healthy. And you did all this on the pretext that Saddam still had masses of “WMD’s” even when the UN inspectors said otherwise.
Stop blaming others for your actions. Saddam Hussein has his own crimes to answer for. He is not responsible for your crimes.
Stop being an apologist, BooMan. It doesn’t become you.
the problem with the sanctions in Iraq is that they did not weaken Saddam’s grip on power and he was willing to see his country ground down by them rather than step down from power. He also, at the same time, misallocated unconscionable amounts of resources that could have gone to dealing with malnutrition or coming up with ways to deal with unclean water and other factors that were increasing mortality. But really, if he loved his country and his subjects, he would have done whatever it took to help them. And, as we know, the only way to do that was to step down.
I will not dispute that the sanctions did not work and took a terrible human toll. That was not the intention. The intention was the same as it was in South Africa and the same as it has been in North Korea.
If the UN cannot impose sanctions, then it can’t do much at all. What we should learn from Iraq is that sanctions should be designed to hit the people who have the power to change things and to do as little harm to others as possible.
This is, in fact, how sanctions are done today. But when you complain about paper and wheelbarrows, I have to ask, how many of those should have been sold to the apartheid regime? It’s food, medicine and sanitation equipment that should never be denied, not wheelbarrows and paper.
“the problem with the sanctions in Iraq is that they did not weaken Saddam’s grip on power“
What an outrageous statement coming from a supposed “progressive”.
The problem with the sanctions was that they killed hundreds of thousands of human beings, destroyed a medical system that was once the finest in the region, destroyed an education system that had previously turned out the most highly educated women (and men) in the region, and attracted students from all over Asia and even Europe, and ruined the lives of generations of Iraqis.
And then as an afterthought, oh yeah they did take a terrible human toll and didn’t even work. So, it would have been OK that they took a “terrible human toll” if they HAD worked? And it wasn’t obvious after the first couple of years that they weren’t working and weren’t going to work – that in fact they were having the exact opposite effect than the intended one?
The United States, most particularly Bill Clinton, punished the people of Iraq for 13 years in the most horrific way because Saddam Hussein, 100% predictably, did not react to the sanctions the way the United States wanted him to.
Despicable is not strong enough a word not only for what the United States did to millions of Iraqi human beings, but for the fact that you and others insiste upon blaming Saddam Hussein for what Bill Clinton, his predecessor, and his succesor did to the Iraqi people for 13 years.
You don’t get to present your facts uncontested. Frontline is about as honest as journalism gets in this country:
Even the Lancet article that people cite so often discovered that infant mortality decreased in Kurdistan while rising in the areas of the country controlled by Saddam.
To be blunt about it, Saddam Hussein should never have tried to swallow Kuwait and call it his own. That forced a difficult choice on United Nations and the United States. Most of the world was united in the opinion that he should not be allowed to keep Kuwait and that the coalition should not overthrow him.
In my opinion, that was the worst of all worlds. Either let him keep it or go get him and put someone else in charge. But that’s what people wanted, so that’s what they got. I didn’t support it. Most Democrats didn’t support it. But that doesn’t matter anymore. The point is that Saddam’s survival was basically an intelligence failure on our part. The sanctions regime, at least in their design, were a mistake. And they should have been modified sooner, but Saddam wasn’t exactly cooperative.
Any way you slice it, Saddam is the one who carries primary responsibility for what happened. A selfless act on his part could have alleviated the suffering at any time. And only through some very serious brutality did he prevent a coup.
And, once again, if he had just taken the money he spent on opulence and put it to better use, his people would have fared much better, just as the Kurds did throughout that time.
BooMan, you can issue all the apologetics, parrot all the standard talking points, and use all the twisted logic you like. You will never succeed in exculpating the United States in this matter.
You have no legal, moral, or ethical leg to stand on. When you choose to undertake an action you are responsible for the outcome. When you choose to undertake or continue an action that you know will cause or is causing great harm to innocent people you are legally, morally, and ethically responsible. Period.
As for the “facts”, I will take the word of people like Denis Haliday, Hans von Sponek, and the head of WHO in Iraq who were there on the ground in Iraq in their official capacities over anything that comes from any media of any kind anywhere.
As for the obsession over Saddam Hussein as a threat to the world, give me a break!
BooMan presents arguments and facts to support his position, and Hurria just repeats hers at ever-greater levels of fury.
This doesn’t prove that Boo’s position is correct, but it certainly is suggestive.
When I complain about things like ashtrays, music writing paper, and musical instrument strings, I am pointing out how comprehensive and detailed the embargo was, and the fact that it was designed to hit every aspect of life, including culture. Wheelbarrows are used for construction and agriculture. Paper and pencils are needed by school children. Part of the reason the education system fell apart was the unavailability of things like paper, pencils, and up-to-date books.
And you DID deny food, food production equipment, medicine, medical supplies, medical equipment, equipment to repair the sewage treatement plants and water processing and delivery systems you intentionally and systematically destroyed in 1991.
The sanctions rose to the level of a crime against humanity, and the fact that you are acting as an apoligist for them is despicable.
You do know that Albright retracted the quote, disagreeing with the premise that the sanctions had killed 500,000 children, and clarified that she thought the actual costs, not the phony numbers, were “worth it,” right?
Yeah, she “retracted” the quote years later after it had been a PR nightmare for her for how long? “Oh, yeah, maybe I shouldn’t oughta have said that.”
And her denial that the sanctions in the first couple of years had cost 500,000 lives (specifically, had killed 500,000 children under the age of 5) is not convincing. Madelein Albright was a politician trying to wriggle out of a bad PR move she had made years before. You can believe what she says if you like, but I’m going with 1) the UN reports, 2) WHO reports, 3) information I received from people on the ground, 4) my own lying eyes.
OK, so now your argument is that in just a couple of years, the sanctions killed half a million people just in the 0-5 age group. Scale that up to the entire population, and we’re well into the millions. To put that in perspective, you’re saying that in just a couple of years, a sanctions regime that did not even result in a food shortage killed more people than were killed in the entire Iraq War.
You are a very gullible person.
Yeah, I’m gullible and you’re a big blowhard. So?
PS Mr Blowhard, it is not my argument, it is the result of a study done by a very credible body.
Secondly, Mr Blowhard the sanctions most certainly DID result in a food shortage, and that was one of the desired effects. Even after the so-called oil for food program was instituted very few Iraqis had adequate nutrition, especially in the less central areas, partly because the food rations did not provide adequate nutrition, and partly because of increasing delivery problems caused by blockades on spare parts to keep the delivery trucks running (as reported by the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq).
But malnutrition and starvation were only part of the problem. Lack of clean water was a bigger problem because the United States blocked imports of water purification equipment, chemicals, and spare parts to repair and maintain water purification systems. Do you know that diarrhea caused by water-borne organisms is the number one killer of babies and small children? Do you know that malnutrition is usually not the cause, but a contributing factor in child deaths? Do you know that the longer you are unable to vaccinate the children in a population the more will be killed by preventable diseases? Do you know that the more you deny access to common medications such as antibiotics the more children are going to die of easily curable diseases and infections, including diarrhea caused by bacteria? Do you know that the more you deny access to electricity to run refrigerators the more children will die from things like salmonella, and simple vomiting and diarrhea caused by eating spoiled food?
I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I have loved ones who lived through it, mainly because thankfully they had money, and they had people on the outside to send them medicines, food, and vitamins. Two of my elderly aunties, both widows, lived for years in pain and then died within 15 minutes of each other because they could not get the medicines they needed to make their elder years comfortable and productive. One of them had severe osteoporosis because she could not get enough calcium in her diet. And this in a country where no one needed to go hungry; a country that was once famous for the state-of-the-art medical care it provided to all its citizens. We did what we could, but we couldn’t provide everything they needed.
So, don’t tell me about what the sanctions did and did not do, you ignorant sod. I have direct knowledge of it.
The US economic sanctions against Iraq were imposed with the full knowledge of anyone familiar with the region that the full impact would be on ordinary citizens, not Iraq’s political and economic elite (i.e., Saddam & his allies).
Link?
Please not that the preceding word is not “impassioned rant restating the unproven assertion.”
“The US economic sanctions against Iraq were imposed with the full knowledge of anyone familiar with the region that the full impact would be on ordinary citizens, not Iraq’s political and economic elite (i.e., Saddam & his allies). The U.S. chose that path…in the utterly mistaken belief that it would cause other Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, blaming him for their misery.“
That is exactly correct, and I have seen documentation of this.
To the best of my knowledge people have never responded to externally-imposed sieges, embargoes, and other punishments by rising up against their leaders, even strongly despised ones. On the contrary, in those cases they tend to rally behind their leaders against the outsiders who are torturing them. Israel has demonstrated that numerous times over the years when it has used the tactic of punishing the Palestinian people in order to get rid of both popular and unpopular leaders. It has never worked.
The use of this kind of tactic assumes that the Iraqis (or Palestinians or whomever) are too stupid to understand who is causing their suffering. It also assumes that they are incapable (perhaps because they are too primitive?) to differentiate which of their miseries is caused by which person or entity. The Iraqis knew very well that it was the United States of America that destroyed their infrastructure, and they knew very well that it was the United States that denied them even the most basic necessities of life. Saddam Hussein was responsible for a lot of things, but not that.
Huh? apparently you “forgot” about the clean water issue:
Sanctioning key chemicals needed by Iraq’s water treatment plants is appalling. Even if Hussein “had money” I’m not clear why he needed to be forced to go out in the black market and purchase what every nation needs to keep their people healthy/alive.
Estimates indicate 500,000 Iraqi children died. You may recall not long ago Albright coldly (just like everyone else involved with this travesty) chalked it up to “collateral damage”. This comment justifiably led to an uproar in some quarters, and it wasn’t long before she lamely attempted to walk her comment back/spin it.
Too late; the truth comes out in her initial take.
http://www.progressive.org/mag/nagy0901.html
Make that 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 years. That is all the study looked at – excessive mortality of children under 5 years. It did not consider excessive deaths of children outside that age bracket, and it is more than fair to believe that there were significant numbers there too, as well as among adults, and elderly.
The Oil for Food thing was a bit of a scam. It allowed Iraq to sell a certain limited amount of oil to buy goods and materials, but the Clinton Administration, under the guise of the UN, controlled the money, and had complete control over what the Iraqis were and were not permitted to buy with that money. As a result they were able to continue to punish the Iraqi people by blocking whatever they wanted to block. You could even say that the Oil for Food program was a scam intended to quiet growing opposition to the sanctions while bringing about little real change on the ground in Iraq.
As one example, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Denis Haliday reported that food distribution was severely hampered because Iraq was not allowed to import spare parts and equipment needed to keep the delivery trucks running. Of course, the US apologists blame this on Saddam because he is the arch villain of the piece, but the reality was quite different according to the man whose job it was to oversee the program on the ground in Iraq. His successor, Hans von Sponek, confirmed Denis Haliday’s complaints, and himself resigned in disgust as Denis had.
Since you brought up water, let me mention something about the water supply before the United States deliberately destroyed Iraq’s water processing and delivery systems. There were ample supplies of clean, pure water running from taps 24/7 in homes and businesses in cities, most towns, and some villages. There was close to no concern about waterborne diseases except in remote villages and in the marshes where most people had no running water because they lived most of the time on the water itself. In 1966 there was a cholera outbreak (caused not by the water supply but from produce) that caused a huge reaction because it was just unheard of. Tourists could certainly drink the water safely. That is still not the case more than 20 years after the United States destroyed Iraq’s ability to deliver clean water to its citizens.
Ah yes! Saddam Hussein is not only culpable for his own crimes, but even self-defined “progressives” insist on making him culpable for Bill Clinton’s crimes as well.
But as we know some “progressives” are selective in what they are progressive about, and American exceptionalism is alive and well among American “progressives”.
It’s not me who is selective. Here’s an excerpt from the 1986 Statement at the World Conference on Sanctions against Racist South Africa.
Note two features. Western Powers, including especially America, France, Germany and the UK are responsible for the horrors of apartheid. Second, we have a responsibility to impose sanctions.
I agreed with that statement when it was made. And I agree with it today, although I think the primary responsibility for apartheid belongs to the South African people who imposed it.
Sanctions are not war crimes. Bill Clinton did not commit a crime against Iraq. Saddam Hussein committed crimes against Iraq. George W. Bush committed crimes against Iraq.
BooMan, once again, you are trying to pretend that the sanctions against South Africa are equivalent to what amounted to a 13 year siege on Iraq. Looked at realistically that dog will never hunt.
Saddam Hussein committed plenty of crimes against the Iraqi people. Bill Clinton committed his own set of crimes against the Iraqi people. Saddam is not responsible for Clinton’s crimes, and Clinton is not responsible for Saddam’s crimes.
The logic of blaming Saddam for the crimes of the two George Bush’s and Bill Clinton is beyond astonishing.
What, in principle, is different about the sanctions on Iraq and South Africa? Their duration?
Everyone called us lousy racist bastards for trading with South Africa, including myself. But when we get people to stop trading with Saddam we’re all war criminals.
The difference was in their effectiveness. One government finally listened and did what was right. And the other, didn’t.
Are you seriously claiming that the sanctions on South Africa were even remotely as comprehensive and all-encompassing as the embargo on Iraq? Really, BooMan? REALLy?!
So, you are saying that South Africa was not allowed to import food, food processing equipment, medicine, vaccines, medical supplies and equipment, agricultural equipment and chemicals, veterinary supplies, medicines, and vaccines, school supplies, paper, pencils, school books, water purification equipment and chemicals, sewage processing equipment and chemicals, equipment needed to generate electricity, for communication systems, building supplies, spare parts to repair vehicles, tractors, water processing equipment, cleaning chemicals for hospitals, soaps and detergents, insecticides, and so on and on and on.
So, you are saying that as a result of the sanctions South African citizens went without adequate food, could not get their children vaccinated because of embargos on vaccines, syringes, or both? Are you saying that South Africans went from having clean water on tap in their homes 24/7/364 to having no clean water to drink, and some sort of water coming out of the taps a few hours a day if they were lucky that day? Are you saying that because of the sanctions South Africans were unable to light, heat, or cool their homes, that they had no electricity to keep refrigerators and freezers running?
Are you saying that as a result of the sanctions the South African education system broke down almost completely, so an entire generation of SA children went without any education at all?
Really, BooMan, do not depend on our credulity this much.
The sanctions against South Africa were less severe because the Reagan government opposed them and they were scaled, escalating bit by bit. So, at first it was more focused on banning imports from South Africa than exports to South Africa. And the sanctions came in many forms, including targeting businesses and universities for disinvestment, banning sporting events and other cultural exchanges, and, finally, a general unwillingness to lend money to them. This last part was more related to the unrest and unpredictability of the business and political environment than as a result of outside pressure. But the outside pressure was at least some small factor.
South Africa obviously knows how to build or rebuild a water treatment plant without needing imports. Likewise, a power grid. And, in any case, those were never destroyed or degraded by war.
You seem to entirely miss the point that South Africa’s sanctions weren’t more severe because they didn’t need to be. You look at the cost of the sanctions to Iraq over time, without focusing on the fact that they could have been ended at any time through Sadddam’s free actions. He could have had an Oil for Food program for six years before he got one. And that’s the period when Iraq had the most severe problems.
Let’s not beat around the bush here. Once Saddam invaded Kuwait and refused to leave, it was US policy to have regime change in Baghdad. It was also the policy not to do what Bush the Younger ultimately did, and invade and occupy the country. This was mainly because the first Bush administration was savvy enough to know that a Ba’athist regime was preferable to an Iran-dominated democracy run by religiously conservative Shiites. The policy was to put enough pressure on that someone would rise up internally and conduct some kind of palace coup.
I opposed getting messed up in the business in the first place, but once a decision was made to come to Kuwait’s aid, this was about as sensible as anything could have been. But Saddam was too clever and brutal to allow a palace coup or any kind of successful uprising. So, we wound up stuck.
It’s easy to look back in retrospect and saw that any fool should have known that the sanctions wouldn’t work. But to suggest that the architects were war criminals? To suggest that anyone but Saddam was responsible for the suffering of the Iraq people is flat wrong. He made the decision to cling to power at all costs knowing full well what that meant for his people. He was never going to be allowed to carry on as before, sitting on a mountain of black gold, and harboring all kinds of resentments and delusions of grandeur. He is responsible for what happened.
What he’s not responsible for is Bush’s decision to end the stalemate based on impossible demands and phony intelligence. But even then he should have sought exile to spare his people further pain and suffering.
“The sanctions against South Africa were less severe…” Precisely. Thank you for admitting it finally. Therefore you cannot make a comparison between the SA sanctions and the comprehensive, all-encompassing, deadly and destructive embargo that punished the Iraqi people for 13 years.
“It’s easy to look back in retrospect and saw that any fool should have known that the sanctions wouldn’t work.“
Are you suggesting that it was not obvious that the sanctions would not work after the first two years, or three years, or five years? Are you saying that it took 13 years, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings, the destruction of a once-fine education system, the finest medical system in the region, and an entire generation for them to figure out that the sanctions weren’t going to work? You know, that’s funny, BooMan, because most of the rest of the world figured it out pretty quickly. It was only Mr “I feel your pain” and his officials who couldn’t seem to figure out that the sanctions weren’t working, and so all that “collateral damage” was not “worth it” after all.
And by the way, far better people than you or I have termed the sanctions criminal.
“It was also the policy not to do what Bush the Younger ultimately did, and invade and occupy the country. This was mainly because the first Bush administration was savvy enough to know that a Ba’athist regime was preferable to an Iran-dominated democracy run by religiously conservative Shiites.“
Yes, and so after Bush I The Hypocrite did not get the result he wanted when he urged the Iraqi people to “rise up and overthrow the tyrant” his military assisted, aided and abetted that selfsame tyrant in crushing the insurgency, slaughtering the insurgents by the tens of thousands. That has been well-documented by now, and I have friends who fought in that insurgency, so I have first-hand accounts of what happened.
To say that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the sanctions is flat wrong. Bill Clinton made the decision to continue the sanctions and the embargo for eight years knowing full well that his actions were destroying lives and destroying a country while only strengthening Saddam’s grip on power. He also made the decision to continue the sanctions in the face of report after report from the UN inspectors that Saddam was, for all practical purposes, disarmed. When he heard that, he just moved the goalpost.
When you make a decision to continue actions that you know are not having the desired effect, and are causing grievous harm to millions of innocent people then that is your decision, and your actions, and you, not anyone else, are culpable for the outcome. Period.
“South Africa’s sanctions weren’t more severe because they didn’t need to be.“
ROFLMAO! So now you are saying that if it had been “necessary” to do so the South Africans would have been starved to death and deprived of the most basic necessities if life in order to save them from apartheid?
Your arguments are becoming increasingly irrational.
Madeleine Albright is a war criminal and should be in jail, not receiving a Medal of Freedom.
So, she’s a war criminal but not President Clinton? Not William Cohen or Les Aspin or Warren Christopher or John Major or on and on?
The words “war criminal” are thrown about way too much by those who should know better. As a result they have lost all meaning.
Yes, it seems all it takes to become a war criminal is to answer a question inartfully on 60 Minutes. If she had said something like, “We deeply regret the suffering of the Iraqi people and we have modified the sanctions to mitigate their worst effects, but Saddam Hussein still has more than enough money to prevent people from dying in his country. He uses the money, instead, to build monuments to himself,” then no one would ever suggest that the Secretary of State was the only official in the US Government during the Clinton administration who is guilty of war crimes.
“…no one would ever suggest that the Secretary of State was the only official in the US Government during the Clinton administration who is guilty of war crimes.“
That is most certainly NOT what we are suggesting, and that is not what anyone I know has ever suggested. Madelein Albright was not only not the only Clinton official guilty of war crimes, she is not the worst one.
Right. Send them all to the Hague. Even the Ambassador to the UN.
Let’s haul Al Gore off there tomorrow.
You need to get a grip.
and your remark makes sense because…
Based on your argument, why wouldn’t Al Gore be on trial in the Hague?
I don’t know, BooMan, you’re the one whose getting more hysterical by the minute, so you tell me.
The words “war criminal” are thrown about way too much by those who should know better. As a result they have lost all meaning.
Along with “unconstitutional,” and “violation of international law.”
All words that once had actual meanings, and are now used as a form of punctuation to show that the speaker is really, really wound up.
That is obviously not what Seabe said, BooMan.
Really?
Because he’s made probably more than a thousand comments here and he’s never, to my knowledge, called anyone else in the Clinton administration a war criminal.
Yes I have. I and Don Durito both called not only other people in the Clinton admin war criminals, but Bill Clinton himself; he was one of the worst administrations foreign policy-wise post UN when it came to the number of innocent people killed under his watch due to US imposed imperialism.
Okay.
So, let’s say that’s all true. Can you point me to anyone who has served in a position of foreign policy or military responsibility in our country since 1948 who you don’t consider a war criminal?
So, if they’re ALL war criminals, then that excuses the war criminals from the Clinton administration? Does it also excuse the war criminals from the Bush I and II administration? You know, launching a war of aggression is the ultimate war crime. Iraq 2003 was unarguably a war of aggression. So are Bush II, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Darth whatsisname off the hook if everyone since 1948 was a war criminal?
war criminals!! war criminals!! every I look I see war criminals!!
I think you are just beginning to glimpse the outer contours of the absurdity of your own argument.
That, yes, invading a country under false pretenses and then failing to live up to your obligations under the Geneva Conventions, and killing tens of thousands of people are war crimes. But that imposing UN sanctions on a country is not a war crime. That no one forced Bush to invade and occupy Iraq, and no one forced Saddam to cling to power in the face of overwhelming evidence that he would never be left alone to govern Iraq in a way acceptable to his people’s well-being.
I’m trying to think of an appropriate analogy and I can’t find a perfect one. But this one I think captures some of what I want you to try to understand.
Imagine that you are the coach of a girl’s softball team. Now imagine that you have, through mean-spiritied aggressiveness, completely alienated all the people who umpire softball games in your league. Soon you discover that the calls never go your team’s way. Strikes are called balls. Safe runners are called out. Your girls are losing game after game because the umpires hate you so much. Granted, they have good reasons to hate you, but why do they have to take it out on your girls?
There is a simple solution. The umpires have even told you repeatedly that they’d like you to resign and that you’re ill-equipped to coach softball. They pass resolutions signed by other coaches that suggest as much. As long as you insist on remaining coach, your team is going to continue to get screwed. Apologies will never work. Good behavior won’t work.
If you give one crap about your girls, you’ll take responsibility for the harm you’ve done and resign, even if you think the way your team is being treated is unfair.
Personally, I think this analogy is too generous to Saddam and too harsh on the United States, but it at least acknowledges that what was done to the Iraqi people was not fair and was excessive and to some degree unethical. Nonetheless, it’s clear who the asshole was.
You definitely do need to get a grip.
“no one forced Bush to invade and occupy Iraq
Who forced Bush I to impose on Iraq the most cruel sanctions and comprehensive embargo in modern history? Not the UN. The whole 1991 action against Iraq was a Bush I initiative, not a UN one. The UN imposed sanctions as a short-term measure to induce Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait (and supposedly as an alternative to armed attack), and they were supposed to be lifted once he had done so. Who forced Bush to insist on continuing the sanctions after Saddam was out of Kuwait?
Who forced Bill Clinton to continue those sanctions and that embargo for eight years, accompanied by regular minor and occasional major bombing attacks? Who forced him to continue them even after the rest of the Security Council wanted to lift them, and in the face of reports that Saddam Hussein was disarmed? Not the UN for sure. The UN had planned on lifting the sanctions when Saddam was out of Iraq and had no idea they would go on for 13 deadly and horrible years.
Your girl’s softball team analogy is beyond ridiculous. It is, in fact, outlandish.
The sanctions and embargo were an illegal action on the part of the government of the United States of America. Saddam Hussein reacted to an external threat the way any head of state, and in particular any dictator would; by digging in. Do you honestly, honestly think anyone in a similar position, even your beloved Obama would step down in a similar situation? I guarantee they would not, so why would you expect a person like Saddam who had a seriously disordered personality would do so?
wow. You would have been a great defense lawyer for Saddam. His disordered personality gives him a license to do anything and anyone who challenges him is unjustified. Saddam was just acting like any leader would do.
Also, no one in the UN has any autonomy and the organization is really run by the US president.
you’re really getting pretty desperate now with your fake history and double standards.
To answer your question, yes, I think any U.S. president (with the exception of Dubya) would step down in that situation. Of course they would step down. Only a monster would not step down.
Ah yes, BooMan, as usual you go to your default of accusing me of defending someone whenever I try to inject a note of reality into your always-simplistic, good America-good, the-other-guy-evil analysis of Middle East politics. You just don’t get it, and I don’t think you ever will with your knee-jerk apologetics. I think you really do believe that people like Saddam Hussein know they are wrong and America is right, and are just being stubborn, heartless, and cruel to their people when they don’t do as they’re told. You can’t for the life of you see that what the two Bush’s and your guy Bill Clinton did to Iraq and Iraqis was AT LEAST as heartless and cruel as Saddam’s failure to see that it was all his fault and graciously step down. Tell me, BooMan, who in history has ever willingly obeyed a foreign demand to step down for any reason, including “the good of his people”.
If you really believe that any president of the United States would step down in the face of an external attack or seige, then you really have no grasp of the reality of human nature. What any President would do is what virtually any national leader would do. S/he would dig in “for the sake of the country/freedom/honor/fillinyourfavoritewordhere”, and thank the people for their patriotic sacrifice. And you would praise them to the skies for their patriotic fortitude and do your part – if and only if they were a democrat, of course.
What you don’t seem capable of understanding is that people who are attacked. besieged, threatened, embargoed, bombed, or insulted by the United States of America do not say to themselves “you know, I really AM an evil sonofabitch, and America is doing this for pure, virtuous reasons, therefore I will step down for the good of my country and let America have its way”. What they say is “my country and I are under attack, and I must stand firm – for the sake of my country”.
BooMan, you really, really are a prime example of an American exceptionalist, and you can’t even admit it to yourself.
Probably Jimmy Carter. That’s about it. That doesn’t mean I don’t dislike his foreign policy either; I most certainly don’t approve of Camp David or normalization with Israel. But he is the only one who doesn’t really fit the ticket.
Nor does it excuse his meddling in Afghanistan, a policy that was not only continued under Reagan but amplified times ten. But I’m not so sure that really fits the ticket of “war criminal.”
Besides, as Don and I both discussed together, pretty much any president since the UN DOES fit the definition (you could prolly find Carter guilty as well). It comes with the job description when you insist your country be an empire. I do think that despite Clinton’s disgusting policies, that George Bush II’s policies were worse, though. I’m by no means naive enough to think that the “US never tortures” before this (or even before our policy of rendition). But it’s arguable, imo, that Bush “went too far.”
I guess our country is so rotten that we should just replace these Medals of Freedom with War Criminal Badges.
Too bad Jimmy Carter won’t be awarded one. I would have thought his support for the Shah and his instigation of the Soviet-Afghan War would have gotten him into the club.
Poor fella.
He never gets any respect.
My hope is that you are just so young that you just don’t understand why we have all this detritus from the end of the Cold War. It just seems like a meaningless and unjustifiable self-regard or something. An evil empire that never served any purpose but it’s own selfish aims, or something.
If any other country had emerged from World War Two with our wealth and power (instead of us) the world would look a lot different, and not in a good way. And now all the tools and ideals we used to keep us from blowing each other to kingdom come are used to judge us and find us wanting.
That’s fine. That’s ultimately the logical end of what we set out to do.
But to call it nothing but an empire of war criminals is just a very extreme and ahistorical view. A parody of the left, in fact.
When RWNJs call us the “blame America first” crowd, the conversation by some in this thread is what they’re talking about.
Can’t believe what I’m reading here, wow.
America needs to take responsibility for its actions and stop blaming others. Saddam is responsible for his actions, and he has plenty to answer for. He is NOT responsible for actions taken by the government of the United States.
I’ve seen you make that argument all over this thread and it’s not persuasive, especially since Saddam could have had a oil for food program in 1991 instead of 1996 like Booman said above.
The Oil for Food program did very little for the Iraqi people because there was no real relief of the blockade, which was the main problem. It was designed more to relieve criticism of the sanctions than it was to help Iraqis.
BooMan, sometimes your logic is beyond strained. Maybe you need to sit down and take a deep breath and think a bit.