<p>McCain is not the anti-war candidate.</p>
<p>McCain is a little more conservative than you. :)</p>
<p>So what are your thoughts?</p>
<p>I am not thinking of supporting McCain. I simply won’t support the wife of a mass murderer, who deliberately killed half a million children. Yes, I’m sure he had his reasons, and he is very popular. People who commit genocide always have reasons, and are usually very popular. I wouldn’t vote for the wife of Pol Pot or Idi Amin either. I spent quite a bit of time in 1995-1996 raising funds for medical supplies for children, and for wastewater treatment equipment (to repair that bombed by Clinton), and openly and deliberately broke the law in order to save the few children’s lives I may have, and I, like the millions of Iraqis who lost child family members, have a long memory.</p>
<p>As to Hillary (not that I feel a need to move past the above), well, she either has experience or she does not. She either was in on the Big Lie of 1998 that eventually resulted in the War and aggressive, hostile occupation of Iraq or she was not. She was either in on the bombings of December 1998, or she was not. She either was derelict in her duty, and makes decisions about war and peace without reading the intelligence reports, or was not, because she already knew it was a pack of lies to begin with, and voted for the war anyway. As for her statements from the Green Zone in 2005, well, is this someone you really want to be President? I don’t think she is qualified to be elected dogcatcher, but again, to me it doesn’t matter - I don’t vote for wives of those who commit genocide. If she was in on the genocide decision, I don’t believe in capital punishment either.</p>
<p>But would I vote for McCain? Only if I thought it would make a difference (in my state I can’t imagine a scenario where it would.) I did, however, vote for him in the 2000 primary because there was this other guy…</p>
<p>OK. The lesser of two evils.</p>
<p>No. I would not be voting for McCain as the lesser of two evils (I voted him for him in the primary in 2000 knowing I would not vote for him the general election.) I would only vote for McCain to defeat the spouse of a mass murderer. There is a difference.</p>
<p>mini, you’re willfully distorting by consistently tossing the word genocide around like that. While Clinton’s policies may have resulted in the death of half a million children, for that to qualify as genocide would have required the deaths of those children to be a primary goal, and a goal motivated by their race, nationality, etc. etc. The effects of Clinton’s policies do not meet that criterion, as I suspect you know, yet in your rush to emotionalize the issue you continually refer to what happened as genocide. Come off it.</p>
<p>Actually Sadam was to blame for that. He was diverting food-for-oil money for his pleasure.</p>
<p>What is the purpose of this consistent RANT against Clinton?</p>
<p>He did not kill the children of Iraq. Hussein was building billion dollar palaces. Clinton embargoed trade with Iraq so Hussein wouldn’t have money to build his palaces. The children would have starved either way. Hussein kept the money from the children of Iraq, not Clinton.</p>
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<p>Thank you for articulating what I have been thinking for awhile. There are other, more blatant examples of genocide that mini seems to turn a blind eye to, while intent upon pushing this Clinton thing.</p>
<p>^^^^ I agree. Has everyone forgotten about the 18 wheeler truck after Hussein went into hiding with 100’s of millions of dollars, while his country had very little health care and food (Hussein blaming the UN for causing it while he secretly sold oil)</p>
<p>Watch the discovery channel about his 2 son and how they tortured people.</p>
<p>Clinton did nothing…either way he did nothing. In Breibart.com the govt released some of the interviews, and Hussein even said he believed that we wouldn’t do anything, b/c we never went after him. He also said he invaded Kuwait b/c they offended him. The man was sick…sick…sick. Anybody who can kill his daughters husbands is not quite right in the head</p>
<p>A LEGITIMATE rant against Clinton might be that he sent no troops during the Rwanda genocide.</p>
<p>^^ditto for Bush and Darfur. Fortunately, neither guy is running for office in 2008. Recently Bill Clinton said Rwanda was his biggest regret during his 8 years. What will Bush regret?</p>
<p>Just wanted to add meaninglessly to talking about people not running for the office.</p>
<p>OTOH, Mini’s point about Hillary’s experience/not experience is germaine to her candidacy, so I found that quite interesting to read and consider.</p>
<p>What about the Cuban children? There has been an embargo against Cuba since Kennedy.</p>
<p>“mini, you’re willfully distorting by consistently tossing the word genocide around like that. While Clinton’s policies may have resulted in the death of half a million children, for that to qualify as genocide would have required the deaths of those children to be a primary goal, and a goal motivated by their race, nationality, etc. etc”</p>
<p>According to Denis Halliday of the U.N. High Commission, it EXACTLY met the definition, and he cites the specific sections of international law, and, specifically, the United Nations Convention on Genocide, that apply. I have quoted them, at length in the past. I mean “genocide” - with specific intent to kill a population to achieve a political end (in this case, to get at the nation’s ruler). Note - it wasn’t ONLY an embargo, but the specific targeting of waste water treatment plants. And, to quote Madeleine Albright when asked about the killing of the half a million children on national tv, “we think it is worth it.”</p>
<p>The deaths of Iraqis and, specifically, of children, was the primary goal. At the same time Clinton was killing children, he was negotiating with Chemical Ali, seeking military allies inside Iraq who would overthrow Saddam Hussein, and invite the U.S. in. The theory was that if the state of the Iraqi population was so weakened, the military would revolt. Clinton knew the impacts in advance, and pursued his policies for political ends. It meets all the United Nations conditions for genocide. </p>
<p>There are differences in scale, though. Clinton killed roughly 8 times as many children as Idi Amin, and more than Pol Pot. On the scale of the country’s population, it was like killing all the children under age 5 in approximately 20 U.S. states. </p>
<p>“Actually Sadam was to blame for that. He was diverting food-for-oil money for his pleasure.”</p>
<p>You don’t know what you are talking about it. Oil for Food was instituted two years AFTER the failure of the Clinton genocide, and as a specific response to it. At the time, several European leaders were preparing to bring genocide charges before the International Court of Justice.</p>
<p>Mind you, Hussein was not a nice guy. Given a free hand by the Rumsfeld Handshake and U.S. backing, he used chemical weapons against Iran, killing half a million people. But on the scale of the Clinton genocide, he was a minor thug. But why compare? One was the so-called “leader of the free world.”</p>
<p>Today, Chemical Ali is condemned to death. But the U.S. refuses to turn him over to the Iraqi Government, as they have requested. The reason is actually quite simple - he has quite a tale to tell. </p>
<p>As I said, I don’t believe in capital punishment, either for Bill Clinton or for Chemical Ali. As for Hillary, I don’t have any idea what role she played in any of this. I fear she might be “experienced”.</p>
<p>Mini, I have to say, I am very confused with your timeline.</p>
<p>I’d love to read your timeline on what happened when? What did the first Bush do and when? Oil for food? When did Clinton bomb Iraq? When were the wastewater treatment plants bombed? How many people died because of that event? How many died later? When did the 500,000 people die? What the UN did and when?</p>
<p>It could be brief, but what happened when?</p>
<p>Also, why would McCain, who says we might be in Iraq for 100 years, be better?</p>
<p>Last question first: I have no idea whether McCain might be better. I simply don’t vote for wives of mass murderers. I just don’t. It’s not a question of better or worse. I draw the line at mass murderer spouses. Others might feel differently. </p>
<p>As for the timelines, I have posted them so often, I think you might simply search the archives. (Oil for Food is not ratified until late 1996, and not implemented until 1997, after most of the deaths have already occurred). The Clinton Big Lie of 1998 happens in January 1998, after the failed attempt to use the U.N. inspections teams as a cover for the CIA - made public in January 1999, by which time Clinton had kicked the U.N. inspectors out of Iraq, so he could commence the massive aerial bombardment of December 1998. The wastewater treatment plants were bombed much before that - in 1993/1994 - the American Friends Service Committee started shipping in wastewater treatment supplied in 1995.)</p>
<p>Mini, how many people died in the wastewater bombing? How many died after?</p>
<p>You said the oil for food program started 2 years after Clinton’s genocide? Didn’t the oil for food program start in 1995? What did Clinton do in 1993?</p>
<p>[Oil-for-Food</a> Programme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme]Oil-for-Food”>Oil-for-Food Programme - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>“The Oil-for-Food Programme, established by the United Nations in 1995 (under UN Security Council Resolution 986) and terminated in late 2003, was intended to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to rebuild its military.”</p>
<p>Almost no folks died from the wastewater bombing from the explosions. The deaths occurred from the spread of dysentery and cholera, coupled with the fact that, without any oversight or agreement from the United Nations, the U.S. imposed embargoes on simple antibiotics, anti-diarrheals, and the like. According to the U.N., approximately one million people died from 1992-1996, including about a half a million children. There is debate as to whether these were all children under age 5 (I have seen an estimate as low as 400,000 for those under age 5.) Oil for Food was finally ratified by all parties in late 1996, and implemented in 1997. (Denis Halliday has some choice words for it as well.) By this time, it seems that the secret negotiations with Chemical Ali and perhaps other Iraqi military leaders had broken off, and Clinton and Tenet come up with the Big Lie of 1998 as a prelude to direct military attack (supported by all the “experienced Democrats”.)</p>
<p>Did the policies of 1992 change when Clinton came into office in 1993?</p>
<p>How many people died after the bombing in 1998, because of the spread of disease?</p>
<p>One thing that bugs me when I read your posts on this subject is you seem to tie the bombing in 1998 to the 500,000 deaths between 1992 and 1996.</p>
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<p>So your only affirmation of your point of view is a single UN official?</p>
<p>I’d love to see which specific parts of the Convention on Genocide he quoted, since the articles that define the act of genocide are crystal clear: for an action to qualify as genocide, the destruction of an ethnic, racial or national group must be its primary goal. Not secondary. Not collateral. Primary goal.</p>
<p>Killing all of the children was not Clinton’s primary goal. You could argue that it was; you’d be wrong. Clinton’s primary goal was to destabilize the regime in Iraq, and/or to cripple its economic machinery to prevent further aggressive actions by Saddam. The fact that so many died was a horrible, unfortunate (though foreseeable) collateral effect, but it was not the primary goal.</p>
<p>By your definition of genocide, any war that results in collateral civilian damage can be considered genocide. That is entirely and completely wrong, and the fact that Halliday espoused such a view makes it not at all surprising to me that he resigned from the UN.</p>
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<p>Confusing… Clinton killed half a million, yet is a horrible murderer, and Saddam killed half a million yet is “not a nice guy”?</p>
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<p>That is an insufficient answer. The search function on this forum is not sophisticated enough to make pulling posts of your time lines feasible unless we were to have some idea of the content in order to construct a search. If your argument is credible, and your sources/timelines still relevant, you should be able to repost them. The onus is not on us to go find your arguments in the distant past in order to substantiate your current ones; it is on you to provide them. They are, after all, your arguments.</p>
<p>Anyways, I’m still waiting on your evidence to substantiate your wild, and often-posted rant-ish claims. So far, you convinced me of nothing other than that Clinton was responsible for a lot of collateral in the name of trying to effect regime change in Iraq by destabilization. But I already knew that.</p>
<p>bump… still waiting on mini to substantiate any of his wild claims. Doubt that’ll happen, but we can dream.</p>