Seanad debates
Wednesday, 2 April 2003
Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq: Statements.
Let us look at the language used. I salute and thank Senator Ormonde for her sensitive speech but they are not the only phrases and they are very interesting. There was the British soldier who said the American airman who shot up his tank column was "a cowboy . out on a jolly."That is what we are dealing with in the American army. Let us have a few more quotes from The Sunday Times, one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers: "The Iraqis are sick and we are the chemotherapy." What does that tell one about the mentality of those troops? However, there is a progression. The next person quoted said, "I'd like to meet one of those friggin' Iraqis, I'd kill him." The final quote is, "I'm sick of the war, I'd like to nuke that bloody town." Perhaps they will because they are mad enough. George Bush is so thick that he seems to believe gas masks are weapons of mass destruction and chemical warfare. They present them on television and say, "We told you so." Are the unfortunate Iraqis not to protect themselves? It reminds me of the time in this country when the British were bombing the hell out of O'Connell Street, and one of O'Casey's characters in the play said, "Do they want us to come out in our pelts and throw stones at them?"
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