Sometimes as we struggle for justice and fairness we forget how truly unjust the unending suffering those of our nation's leadership have unleashed upon a mostly unsuspecting world (although not anymore).  If we are to consider that ALL people are just that, people...... only then will we conceive the horrors of the reality that is the American Empire.  The thirteen year sanctions upon the country of Iraq have caused suffering almost incomprehensible to most of us.  Felicity Arbuthnot in an open letter to Britian's Minister of State for International Development at Global Research writes:

"To illustrate the the iniquity, an acquaintance, in desperation, sent a supply if insulin, in a jiffy bag, to his diabetic brother in Baghdad, as none was available. It was returned by the Post Office as needing an export licence.His brother died before the license arrived. I myself was threatened by DFID with prosecution, for taking a year's supply of cancer treatment to a surgeon with cancer, who had worked here at the Hammersmith Hospital, a specialist in pediatric orthopedics, who had enabled numerous British children walk again, able to use their arms, straightened small bodies. Cancer treatments too, were vetoed by the United Nations Sanctions Committee.

From elevators, to central oxygen, to incubators, all gradually collapsed - with the Sanctions Committee denying parts or replacements. And as the years went on, the situation deteriorated from the impossible to the apocalyptic. Then based on a pack of lies, Iraq was bombed and invaded in 2003 and the hospitals and health service have near-collapsed entirely - along with everything else - so catastrophically, under the United States and Britain's watch and responsibility, that an oft repeated Iraqi refrain, is to refer to the 'golden days' of the embargo. The 2003 attack was, of course, Nuremberg's 'supreme international crime' which as a lawyer, you will of course, be aware." -- Global Research

Barry Lando, in his book "Web of Deceit" describes the embargo which lasted from 8/1990 through 5/2003 this way: "The most lethal weapons of mass destruction to hit the people of Iraq were the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in August 6, 1990.  They cut off all exports and imports between Iraq and the rest of the world; that meant everything--from food and electric generators to vaccines, hospital equipment, and even medical journals.  Since Iraq imported 70 percent of its food, and its principal revenues were derived from the export of petroleum, the sanctions had an immediate and catastrophic impact on the country."

Who was in charge of the UN Security Council... mainly the U.S and Britain.

Lando continues: "The list of items blocked because they could conceivable be used to fabricate weapons of mass destruction or for other ulterior motives was as long as the list was absurd.  A request to ship baby food to Iraq was blocked by the United States because that food could also be consumed by adults.  Heart attack pills were vetoed because they contained a milligram of cyanide which--given tens of thousands of pills--could presumably add up to a lethal weapon; chlorine vital for treating the country's water supply was blocked for years because it could also be used for chemical weapons.  Also declared verboten: spare parts for incubators, hospital air conditioning units, filters for water treatment plants, vaccines, children's clothes, cotton swabs and gauze for medical use, Ping Pong balls from Vietnam, and funeral shrouds."

In August of 1991, under pressure at home and abroad the Security Council introduced a resolution which allowed Iraq to sell 1.6 billion of its oil annually.  Although of this amount one-third was to be paid to Kuwait for redress of Saddam's invasion.  This left scant little for humanitarian purposes for the 20 million Iraqis.  The people of Iraq were played as pawns by the UN Security Council and Saddam and his regime.  As the situation deteriorated hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died of starvation and illness. 

By 1996, the Clinton administration had initiated Resolution 986 which allowed Iraq to sell one billion dollars of petroleum every ninety days, this was labeled the Oil for Food program and was considered "a humanitarian measure".  Although this measure also required one third of proceeds to be repaid to Kuwait as well as the UN.  In "Web of Deceit" Lando explains:

"Many of those payments to Kuwait in fact went to American contractors doing business with that country.  That left $2.8 billion a year remaining to pay for 20 million Iraqis, which comes to $2 per Iraqi per week, less than thirty cents a day."

And this was hailed as an improved "humanitarian measure".  This in a country which had thrived because of its oil resources prior to the many air strikes and sanctions.  Air-strikes during this period and since have targeted civilian infrastructure, an illegality according to the "rules of war".

Wikipedia states:

"After a conflict has ended, persons who have committed or ordered any breach of the laws of war, especially atrocities, may be held individually accountable for war crimes through process of law. Also, nations which signed the Geneva Conventions are required to search for, then try and punish, anyone who has committed or ordered certain "grave breaches" of the laws of war. (see GC III, Art. 129 and Art. 130)

History has shown that the laws of war are traditionally more strictly applied to those defeated, as the victorious faction are placed in the role of policing themselves."  (emphasis mine)

Could this be why those who instigated and lied us into war are refusing to leave since it could be interpreted as a sign of "defeat"?  Saddam Hussein had killed his own people to be sure prior to America's invasion in 2003.  However America and it's allies through sanctions and invasions have killed many, many more.  Saddam was a ruthless tyrant, so what does that make those who lied America into this war and those who have kept us there since.....?