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A. Pedant

 
Iraq v Darfur

I have just heard Gordon Brown, in a joint press conference with George W. Bush, refer to Darfur as (one of ?) the greatest humanitarian problems of our time. He spoke of the two million refugees, the four million undernourished and, I think, deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

For heavens sake, what about poor Iraq? Two million refugees in Syria and Jordan, another two million ‘internally displaced’, and well over half a million killed. Still, he didn’t mention that Iraq has won a footballing trophy, so that’s all right then…

An Oxfam report goes on to mention:

...that 70% of Iraq's 26.5m population are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% percent prior to the invasion. Only 20% have access to effective sanitation [and] nearly 30% of children are malnourished.

Read the short summary here.

Gordon was also asked about mistakes in Iraq and dodged the question. Isn’t it about time he started to take responsibility for Western atrocities, while condemning comparable ‘misjudgements’ by others?
posted by josh at 5:15 pm