Reply #46: Well OK

[snowFLAKE]

But it remains baffling to me how a residential area can be Cluster Bombed (or whatever) and then the Perpetrators can claim to be "Shocked, Shocked I tell you" that Children Died.

Sure, in the case of Beirut the Perpetrator was Reagan - maybe he's that stupid, I'll buy that. But in other cases, the perpetrators are much more nefarious.

Consider the Bush I/Clinton sanctions against Iraq:

"Since the program began, an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died as a result of the sanctions?almost three times as many as the number of Japanese killed during the U.S. atomic bomb attacks."

http://www.harpers.org/CoolWar.html?pg=1

According to Madeline Albright these deaths were regrettable but "worth the cost" - in fact they were the deliberate intention of the United States

"U.S. intelligence assessments took the same view. A Defense Department evaluation noted that ?Degraded medical conditions in Iraq are primarily attributable to the breakdown of public services (water purification and distribution, preventive medicine, water disposal, health-care services, electricity, and transportation). . . . Hospital care is degraded by lack of running water and electricity.?

According to Pentagon officials, that was the intention. In a June 23, 1991, Washington Post article, Pentagon officials stated that Iraq's electrical grid had been targeted by bombing strikes in order to undermine the civilian economy. ?People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,'? said one planning officer at the Pentagon. ?Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions-help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions.?"

also from http://www.harpers.org/CoolWar.html?pg=1

Come on - these deaths are neither Accidental nor are they Unintentional as you claim. They are a deliberate policy of ours. But it's nice, nevertheless, to sit around and post how Evil the Muslim and Chechan Terrorists are and How Pure we are.