Son of Saddam

[Doug Goulden]

And thats bad?:laugh: Uptight Ex-Military Republican married to a Commie Lib - How weird is that?

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

You'd have to put damn good glue on that label to get it to stick! ;) I appreciate the sentiment though. :) Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears

"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia Graesch

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[Doug Goulden]

Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote: You'd have to put damn good glue on that label to get it to stick! Judging from your bio and website you might be right, but I'm willing to risk it.:-D Uptight Ex-Military Republican married to a Commie Lib - How weird is that?

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

Am I that obvious? :laugh: Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears

"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia Graesch

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[John Carson]

Brit wrote: Yes, it makes a mockery of Islam whenever one of those Muslim clerics declare a Jihad against the US for the invasion of Iraq. The moral of the story is: if an Arab kills a million Muslims they shrug, but if a non-Muslim goes to remove that very same megalomanic, expansionistic, mass-murdering Arab leader, it is grounds for jihad. Of course the US supported Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. Hypocrisy all round it seems to me. John Carson

[Brit]

John Carson wrote: Of course the US supported Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. Hypocrisy all round it seems to me. The US supported preventing Iran from gaining Iraqi territory, and that's all. Further, it was in an Iraq that was pre-Anfal campaign (the campaign to grind Kurds into submission) and pre-Kuwait invasion. ------------------------------------------ "What happened in that Rhode Island club is shocking. To think that over a hundred people would attend a Great White concert." - The Onion

[John Carson]

Brit wrote: The US supported preventing Iran from gaining Iraqi territory, and that's all. Further, it was in an Iraq that was pre-Anfal campaign (the campaign to grind Kurds into submission) and pre-Kuwait invasion. "that's all"! Iraq was at war with Iran. US companies (and those from other nations) supplied Iraq with the means to produce chemical weapons. The US (and other governments) allowed this in full knowledge of the "dual-use" nature of what was being supplied. Further, in full knowledge of the fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran and in full knowledge of the fact that Iraq was a brutal dicatorship, the US supplied Iraq with satellite intelligence to assist Iraq in the prosecution of the war. So the fact that the US was trying to prevent the loss of Iraq territory makes everything OK does it? You referred to Saddam Hussein being responsible for the loss of a million Muslim lives. Almost all of them were lost in the Iran-Iraq war with US support for Iraq (both military and economic). This support (especially economic support) continued right up until Iraq invaded Kuwait. No doubt you can convince yourself that the US was making the best of a bad situation. What puzzles me is that you appear puzzled that much of the rest of the world takes a different view to your own on the Iraq question. Let us do a quick review of US policy toward Iraq. First, we have the policy toward Iraq in the 1980s, as already discussed. Then we have the US-led UN attack on Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait. I believe that the attack was justified, but it cost many thousands of Iraqi lives and is unlikely to have won the US many fans within Iraq. After the conclusion of the Iraq war, the first Bush administration urged Iraqis to revolt against Saddam Hussein. The Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north did as urged. The US did not lift a finger to help and they were slaughtered by the Iraqi government forces. More dead bodies. Eventually the US/Britain/France imposed no-fly zones in the north and south. Better late than never. In similar fashion, the Clinton administration, via the CIA, encouraged the development of internal opposition groups but, in March 1995 and the summer of 1996, stood by while the Iraq regime crushed them. Little wonder that the anti-Saddam groups regard the US as an unreliable ally As part of the post-Kuwait settlement, sanctions were imposed on Iraq which have been estimated to have cost the lives of more than half a million childr

[Brit]

I'm well aware of US policy in the Middle East. No, things are not as bad as people make them out to be. Why can I make that statement? Because there's been a lot of BS statements about US involvement in Iraq that aren't true. (1) The US gave money and loans to Iraq. Yes, but the critical detail is this: the US gave agricultural loans. A little known fact is that Iraqis were eating large amounts of US-grown food. (Oh the horror!) This is contrary to the generally accepted idea of the US supplying arms. "Many in the American government, including Presidents Bush and Reagan, also hoped that U.S. aid would gradually cause Hussein to moderate his ways and even play a positive role in the Middle East peace process." (2) The US supplied chemical weapons or precursors to Iraq. The US did not supply chemical weapons to Iraq, and the dual-use technology can be made to sound sinister, but the term is a little vague. For example, chlorine is used in water purification, but it's also a major component in chemical weapons. So - after the first Gulf War, the US banned selling chlorine to Iraq. What happened? There was a backlash by Muslims claiming that the US was preventing the Iraqis from getting clean water - and therefore, responsible for their deaths! Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess. Further, I've seen people pointout the sale of insecticides from the US to Iraq. That is, technically, a dual-use item because it can be used to kill soldiers (and apparently, Saddam used it for that purpose), but you have to ask the question "Where do you draw the line?" because dual-use covers a broad range of products - some of them have an obvious civilian use, but no obvious military use. It seems to me the only solution is not to deprive the Iraqis of dual-use technology, but to remove the person who is determined to use everything as a killing device. (3) The US armed Iraq. Wrong again. Countries like Russia and France were the biggest arms dealers in Iraq. You might've noticed that Scuds are Russian weapons. Also, the Iraqi military uses T-72, T-62, T-54 tanks (Russian), Chinese-built T-55 and T-54 tanks, MIG fighters (Russian), Mirage fighters (French), and Chinese-built Mig-21s, and AK-47s (Russian). in 1987 the Soviet Union, having provided more than US$8 billion worth of weapons since 1980, was Iraq's most important arms supplier. In early 1987, Moscow delivered a squadron of twenty-four MiG-29 Fulcrums to Baghdad. Considered the most advanced fighter in the Soviet arsena

[John Carson]

(1) As you are no doubt aware, the set of criticisms to which you have replied intersects but is rather different from the set of criticisms to which I referred. I did not, for example, claim that the US armed Iraq, nor would I dispute what you say about France, Russia and China in this respect. (2) Regarding the money and loans to Iraq being for agriculture, they still constituted support for the regime and there was evidence that some of the money was diverted to weapons purchase. At the time, some members of congress were arguing for action against Iraq because of its human rights record. The Bush administration resisted this. It can certainly be argued (and it was argued) that this was economic engagement designed to moderate the regime. It can equally be argued that this was about the pursuit of commerce with lip service being paid to human rights. "Richard Schifter of the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, however, vehemently opposed increasing Iraq’s credit facility only four months after its use of chemical weapons against the Kurds...[arguing]'If the general American public were aware of Iraq’s human rights violations, as it is aware of human rights violations in countries covered more fully by the media, there would indeed be a great public outcry against U.S. assistance to that country.' " (3) By definition, "dual-use" chemical and biological agents aren't necessarily used for weapons. But your chlorine example is at one extreme of the spectrum rather than a representative example. It can't seriously be doubted that many of Iraq's purchases were intended for weapons and that the US knew it at the time. Goto Riegle Senate Enquiry[^] and search for the section: U.S. Exports of Biological Materials to Iraq (the conclusions with regard to chemical weapons in the introductory section of the report are also worth looking at). (4) No doubt Saddam Hussein contributed to the cost of sanctions to the Iraqi people. But the UN has persisted with them in spite of knowing that the burden of them was falling on ordinary Iraqis (I am aware that Colin Powell was lobbying for "smart sanctions" pre September 11). The fact

[Brit]

John Carson wrote: As you are no doubt aware, the set of criticisms to which you have replied intersects but is rather different from the set of criticisms to which I referred. I did not, for example, claim that the US armed Iraq, nor would I dispute what you say about France, Russia and China in this respect. My intention was not to deny what you said, but to mitigate it with other facts. There is simply no doubt that the US (and in particular the CIA) have gotten their hands dirty. ------------------------------------------ "What happened in that Rhode Island club is shocking. To think that over a hundred people would attend a Great White concert." - The Onion