"READER JOHN KLUGE EMAILS FROM IRAQ:
Author
analogknight
original
Source: Wayback Machine
Rage66 writes "Here we go again... another example of the plentiful supply of people who are out to justify the Iraq war and Bush's nonsensical reasoning. This is a submission made on a blog called Instapundit.com.
"READER JOHN KLUGE EMAILS FROM IRAQ:
I am in Irbil in Kurdistan northern Iraq. Someone explained the history of this place to me today. The mountains here are bare and devoid of trees. They used be forested. Covered with trees. There used to be so many trees in Irbil that you couldn't see around corners. Now it looks like Kansas or really more like parts of Montana.
The reason is that Saddam cut down all of the trees in Kurdistan in 1988. He bulldozed 4000 of the 5000 villages in Kurdistan and the Kurds ran to the mountains for safety, so he cut down all of the trees on these mountains and killed all of the game, so that the Kurds would have no wood for fires and no food to eat. He was incredibly effective. The Kurds are now replanting the trees. You can see hundreds of tiny trees if you look closely at the mountains. I didn't notice them until they were pointed out to me. In Kirkuk they found a mass grave of Kurdish children. One of the U.N. guys offered to take us out and show it to us. I haven't taken him up on it. I have no reason to go there and I feel like it would be disrespectful to go and gawk. I guess some of the children were buried with their toys and dolls.
It makes me sick everytime I surf the net and see all these people in Europe and back home saying that the war was not justified because we haven't found 50 tons of sarin gas yet. I wish those people would come to this country and look at ruined villages between here and Kirkuk and the bare mountains. Anyone who protested against this war and defended Saddam ought to be ashamed of themselves. Its just unimaginable the things that went on here.
And largely unmentioned, by those who are still kvetching.
posted at 01:31 PM by Glenn Reynolds"
Whilst I greatly admire My Kluge's being in Iraq at this time, and whilst he is of course right in all that he says about the horrific acts perpetrated by the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein once again we get back to the same thing. We Europeans aren't kvetching for no reason. The American administration went to war for reasons vastly different from those mentioned in the article. The US has never stepped in to defend the Kurds in the past and didn't do so this time either. They also have been notoriously immune to the barbarities committed around the world by different regimes and have even actively supported a great number of them. Indeed most of us kvetching Europeans are just so fed up with the towering hypocrisy of America, Americans and their government that we are mostly past the point of kvetching.
As for us being labelled as defensors of Saddam Hussein I would defy this gentleman to find one european goverment that has defended Saddam Hussein at any time during the run up to this war and subsequently. What the people who write these things have to realise is that we are really just sick of American apologism. We are sick of how the average american manages to find it in himself to defend the undefendable and to find arguments in favour of their governments incredible ability to adjust realities to suit their political purposes. We are tired of it, and of you.
Enough. Go and wave your flag and sing your psalms somewhere else, the world needs solutions not just a bigger stick.
(Plus they don't let you comment on their articles!!)"
"READER JOHN KLUGE EMAILS FROM IRAQ:
I am in Irbil in Kurdistan northern Iraq. Someone explained the history of this place to me today. The mountains here are bare and devoid of trees. They used be forested. Covered with trees. There used to be so many trees in Irbil that you couldn't see around corners. Now it looks like Kansas or really more like parts of Montana.
The reason is that Saddam cut down all of the trees in Kurdistan in 1988. He bulldozed 4000 of the 5000 villages in Kurdistan and the Kurds ran to the mountains for safety, so he cut down all of the trees on these mountains and killed all of the game, so that the Kurds would have no wood for fires and no food to eat. He was incredibly effective. The Kurds are now replanting the trees. You can see hundreds of tiny trees if you look closely at the mountains. I didn't notice them until they were pointed out to me. In Kirkuk they found a mass grave of Kurdish children. One of the U.N. guys offered to take us out and show it to us. I haven't taken him up on it. I have no reason to go there and I feel like it would be disrespectful to go and gawk. I guess some of the children were buried with their toys and dolls.
It makes me sick everytime I surf the net and see all these people in Europe and back home saying that the war was not justified because we haven't found 50 tons of sarin gas yet. I wish those people would come to this country and look at ruined villages between here and Kirkuk and the bare mountains. Anyone who protested against this war and defended Saddam ought to be ashamed of themselves. Its just unimaginable the things that went on here.
And largely unmentioned, by those who are still kvetching.
posted at 01:31 PM by Glenn Reynolds"
Whilst I greatly admire My Kluge's being in Iraq at this time, and whilst he is of course right in all that he says about the horrific acts perpetrated by the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein once again we get back to the same thing. We Europeans aren't kvetching for no reason. The American administration went to war for reasons vastly different from those mentioned in the article. The US has never stepped in to defend the Kurds in the past and didn't do so this time either. They also have been notoriously immune to the barbarities committed around the world by different regimes and have even actively supported a great number of them. Indeed most of us kvetching Europeans are just so fed up with the towering hypocrisy of America, Americans and their government that we are mostly past the point of kvetching.
As for us being labelled as defensors of Saddam Hussein I would defy this gentleman to find one european goverment that has defended Saddam Hussein at any time during the run up to this war and subsequently. What the people who write these things have to realise is that we are really just sick of American apologism. We are sick of how the average american manages to find it in himself to defend the undefendable and to find arguments in favour of their governments incredible ability to adjust realities to suit their political purposes. We are tired of it, and of you.
Enough. Go and wave your flag and sing your psalms somewhere else, the world needs solutions not just a bigger stick.
(Plus they don't let you comment on their articles!!)"