News – ...
The US ended the Arab's genocide of Kurds.
At least until the next chemical butthead steps in to fill his role.
> A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.
The current war in Iraq has killed a great # of innocent civilians. Many more innocent civilians continue to die
in Iraq every day. The entire Iraqi infrastructure has been destroyed.
This is a useless war. The religious factions will continue to fight each other with/without US military there.
That's the nature of a religious war.
More accurately, Iraqis have killed a great number.
.
> On March 16, 1988, Iraqi forces launched a poison gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja, killing 5000 people. While that attack is today being touted by senior US officials as one of the main reasons why Hussein must now be "taken out", at the time Washington's response to the atrocity was much more relaxed.
Just four months later, Washington stood by as the US giant Bechtel corporation won the contract to build a huge petrochemical plant that would give the Hussein regime the capacity to generate chemical weapons.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html
These are good finds, blowback, certainly adding vital context to the squalid saga of "Chemical Ali"
(I wonder if former US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ever shook HIS hand?)
These hangings are sideshow alley justice.
They are done for one reason only.
To bury US complicity and re-write history.
We cannot let these truths, these facts, be buried with the dead.
Even the Kurds know whose side the US was on
when they were dying like flies.
It wasn't theirs.
It's funny how you blame those who, allegedly, did not do enough to prevent Arab mass murderers from obtaining chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and at the same time justify the very actions of these massmurderers.
Do you have any problems TODAY with the Russians, The French and the North Koreans supplyin nuclear technology to Iran?
It's about time; would't you say??
It's about time for what LOCKNLOAD? For the Iraqi people to start killing each other off?
...It's about time these Baath Party murders were brought to justice for crimes vs Humanity [the Kurds]...that's what!!...where have you been for the last 15 yrs??
> The coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power in 1963 was celebrated by the United States.
The CIA had a hand in it. They had funded the Ba'ath Party - of which Saddam Hussein was a young member - when it was in opposition.
US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time.
"I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them," he told me.
"The CIA were definitely involved in that coup. We saw the rise of the Ba'athists as a way of replacing a pro-Soviet government with a pro-American one and you don't get that chance very often.
"Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us".
This happy co-existence lasted right through the 1980s.
lots of countries have or have had chemical weapons supplies by the US, Russia CHina France, Britain etc. It is not who supplies the chemicals but who used them that is important. THe decision to use chemical weapons against Kurds was not made by the US and Just because some of the techmical expertise came from one country or another is not evidence of complicity. You obviously hate the US and regardless of the facts of the matter you will always blame the US for every ill that you percieve. Get a perspective that has some objectivity to it.
That's a pretty weak excuse. The bottom line is Saddam Hussein would not have been in power without heavy US backing. Its time our gov't starts taking responsibility for the monsters they create.
It's funny how the Russians never blamed Germans for 80 years of Communism. After all, Vladimir Lenin was illegally brought to Russia from Germany in a sealed coach...
I wonder if Arab apologists who blame everyone but the Arabs for Arab crimes realize how ridiculous their claims are. The only conclusion one can make reading these accusations that (at least according to them) the Arabs are no more than a bunch of infantile violent morons unable to take responsibility for their actions and that, therefore, is the American nanny that should be blamed.
...There is alot in what you stated....as for learning from past histories, Mr Bush should have studied the movie, "Lawrence of Arabia" where at the end of WW1..Britian had 'united' the Arabs to rule in harmony; yet, the Arab's mistrust for even their own kind resorted to tribal warring all over again, and it's still prevalent right now and in the future, what's to change with these people??
When the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran in 1979, America set about turning Saddam Hussein into Our Man in the Gulf Region.
Washington gave Baghdad intelligence support.
President Reagan sent a special presidential envoy to Baghdad to talk to Saddam in person.
The envoy's name was Donald Rumsfeld.
Everyone knew that Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iranian conscripts.
When 5,000 Kurds were gassed at Halabja in 1988, Kurdish leaders turned to America for help. Mahmoud Osman was one of them.
"I couldn't get any of my friends in the State Department to return my calls," he said.
"They told me we cannot listen to you when you talk about chemical weapons because we do not want to jeopardise our relations with the Iraqis".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_...
LOCKNLOAD; there is no way on this planet that anyone is going to change a society's manner of rule in one or two decades after is has been in place for more than 5000 years.
Invading a country and having a new power set up a provisional government according to the invading forces standards is doomed to fail no matter how it is implimented.
Don't forget, this war started in 1937 when the Brits tried to set up their own dictated provisional government in Kiwait. Following that, Germany, France, Russia and our own country started meddling in the affairs and governence of the entire Middle East.
Who do you think was responsible for putting Saddam Hussein in power and who supplied the idiot with his weaponry? We have our own dirty laundry to account for in the Middle East.
> Last week I met a major from Saddam's detested security service the Mukhabarat who had recently defected.
He told me he was ashamed of his career in the service of the dictator.
I asked him why he had not left his job.
"Listen to me," he said.
"I have a wife, a family, a boy. If I leave, he will kill him. Do you know what that means?
"Yes I am ashamed. But I am from this country.
"Not only I helped Saddam Hussein. America helped him, Britain helped him. He's your guy. He's your son."
THis is the problem in the world today. More so in the US> We cannot seem to get beyond blaming past administrations. We get on our high horses and anylise the past to death in order to place blame rather than attending to alleviateing the situation. We do not seek solutions only retribution. Get over it and propose something constructive rather thAN just pointing fingers. WHat are we ? 12 years old? Responsibility lies with the individual. What you are saying is that it is a vialbe defence to murdering your neighbor if you have ever been slighted by (a western) government. The US did no force Saddam to gas his people.
"Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone."
sorry, the catholic in me is coming out a little.
If someone was coming to kill your child or your family...I doubt you would be sitting back pondering if you are without sin or not.
> In 1961, he (Qassim) threatened to occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the foreign oil consortium that exploited Iraq's oil. In retrospect, it was the ClAs favorite coup. "We really had the ts crossed on what was happening," James Critchfield, then head of the CIA in the Middle East, told us. "We regarded it as a great victory." Iraqi participants later confirmed American involvement. "We came to power on a CIA train," admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general who was about to institute an unprecedented reign of terror.
Lazloe, Hitler thought communism was started by Jews in Russia to destroy Germany and longed for the old Germany under Frederick Barbarrosa. Hitler thought the Jews were not German because they refused to fight for Germany on the battlefront in the gas. So Hitler gassed Jews for treason. Hitler named his attack on Russia Operation Barbarrosa.
Today we see similar traits between Hitler and Putin looking for lost the respect of the USSR and Bin Laden demanding his lost respect for the Muslim nation or Caliphate and his fundamentalists. That is where we get the misnomer Islamofascists.
Muslims recoil at this because Islam does not have anything to do with conquering and neither does Christianity. But both share similar histories of conquest in the name of religion. Both share the idea is that this is exclusive club. With us or agianst us. Muslims are at a distadvantage because as they still have holy leaders. It makes leaders beyond reproach, as if the people are debating God.
> Muslims recoil at this because Islam does not have anything to do with conquering and neither does Christianity. But both share similar histories of conquest in the name of religion.
Sorry, brother. Islam has everything to do with conquer and mass murder and so had Christianity a thousand years ago.
You see, it does not matter what they SAY. What they DO matters.
The Muslim nation is really split between the two sects with each one fighting each other since the First Fitna or Muslim civil war. They fight the infidels at the same time. Each sect cannot be the "right" religion or path and there is only one thing more heinous to a Muslim than a nonbeliever who makes you question your faith. That is a believer that makes you question your faith. How can both be right? Someone must be wrong. Lets kill each other and see who's side Allah favors. The infidels who really make the Mulsims question their faith is the Jews. How can Allah allow the infidels to live so well? Allah must be testing us. Suicide and killing innocents are wrong in Islam. Yet suicide bombing of innocents of the other sects are done daily. Why? If Allah thought they were true he'd save them. So Allah's willing to let me do this it must be right. I offer myself to Allah because he is great and Allah let me.
It wasn't wrong to stop Saddam and the US did not start this.
If the USA, primarily our President and his staff, were not the ones who started this, why are they so driven to stay in Iraq? Would it not have been easier and less costly to just take out Saddam Hussein and his staff as individuals? After all, every major power in the world advised our President to think twice about invading Iraq and what the consequences would be if we did invade the country. Now, every citizen in our country is paying the price for thinking we have the power to change anything and everything on this planet by forcing our ideals onto another society.
I agree with you that Allah is the Muslim's ultimate leader and they exist and live by that premise. The real fly in the soup is that a Christian driven force invaded a Muslim world and started a non-winnable war. The US military went in with billion dollar state of the art weaponry and tried to fight an non-identifiable enemy and a society that has existed for 5000 years or more.
> Would it not have been easier and less costly to just take out Saddam Hussein and his staff as individuals?
It, probably, would be easier. Then another bloody murderer ruthless enough to kill all his less lucky contenders would cease power and we would end up with the same Iraq under another, not much different, dictator.
Get to the point. Muslims fundamentalists are looking to fight infidels to bring back the glory of Islam. You hear fundamentalists say the lines were drawn in the wrong place by France and England in the Middle East. Translated that means there should be no lines since the whole world should be Muslim. Secondly you hear, Stop meddling. Translate that it means let us kill off the minority tribes without you defending them. The underlying reasoning is Allah will allow me to kill anyone who is not innocent or he would stop me. Allah's will be done.
And what do you suppose will happen to the minorities and those who sided with our military and political wings when our forces withdraw?
What have we rectified vrs what have we created? Remember Vietnam? I was there! I saw first hand the aftermath of a hasty withdrawal. I can assure you, the same will happen in Iraq. So who do we then blame?
This is an interesting topic and one that I feel will suddenly vanish. If you want to discuss it further and without fear of being shut down, go to this site and start a discussion on the subject.
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I'm not sorry to see this tyrant go, but I sure as hell wish this Asia news service would learn how report.
Here's a link to better story...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070624/ap_on_re_mi...
Hmm .. looks like the URL now links to a different story. Anyway, read the AP story. It's much more informative.
I bet the people of Kurdistan are dancing in the street tonight.
http://www.theotheriraq.com
> Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a Congressional subcommittee investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that from 1985 until 1990 "the US government approved 771 licenses [only 39 were rejected] for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application ...
"The US spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted... US export control policy was directed by US foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was US foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."
http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html
True, in the 1980's the U.S. supplied Iraq with weapons during the Iran-Iraq war. However, it was more of a "lesser of two evils" IMO. The soviets were supplying Iran. Obviously the U.S. still held a grudge from the 1979-80 hostage crisis. We couldn't let Iran win -- at the time. Apparently, this was believed to be the best way to help. Later, Hussein used the weapons against his own people, and we realized he was like a mini-Hitler.
The Asia news report is also comprehensive of the necessary facts and issues when i opened it.
This is an exceptionally badly written piece, very unclear in places.
I would suggest starting all over with an article from an English language source which both offers background to the story and worthwhile commentary. e.g.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2110615...
or perhaps more juicy, definitely longer [!] and rather oddly buried quite deep on the website
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
The latter article examines the idea that the execution of Saddam without his standing trial on these charges was a denial of justice and also quotes a mother of victims who is dissatisfied with the result.