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Forums - The lounge
Subject: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
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Original Message Date: 11-Aug-02 @ 12:49 PM - [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
earliest possible opportunity. They threaten the US's
control of this vital oil producing region. If the US has no
access to this oil, the economy will crumble and people
will starve. let's keep the starving where they belong. In
the thrid world!
What's the point of being the world's greatest power if
you can't excercise that power in your own interests?
The whinging liberals can leave the country as far as I
am concerned. The US should use its military, political
and economic power to assure it's safe future. Any
other course of action is mere self delusion. Do you
think that another country with the same power as the
US would act any differently?
Anyone, like bin laden, or arafat, who dares to attack
the US or its interests must be first humiliated and then
destroyed. This may cause resentment in other nations,
but what the hell are they going to do about it? Invade
America?
Anyone who threatens the viability of US corporates
must be taught a lesson. The US controls the IMF, the
World Bank, etc etc. The US should NOT be afraid to
use this leverage to further its own ends.
The time has come for the world to realise that we are
not beholden to any organisation, legal body or treaty,
whether or not we signed it sometime in the past.
Times, as they say, change.
Message 131/168 03-Sep-02 @ 01:11 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Wednesday August 21, 2002
The Guardian
Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons in the past is repeatedly cited by the US and British governments as justification for his removal from power now. But just what was their response to his use of poison gas against Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s? Far from condemning his actions, they stepped up their support for Baghdad. One of the most damning revelations to come out of the Scott inquiry into the arms-to-Iraq affair was the British government's secret decision to supply Saddam with even more weapons-related equipment after he shelled the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988 with gas bombs, killing an estimated 5,000 civilians and maiming thousands more. Saddam said he had punished the Kurds for "collaboration" after the town had been successfully attacked by Iran. The weapons were produced with German-supplied chemicals.
At the end of the Iraq-Iran war later that year, Sir Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary, drew up a paper entitled The Economic Consequences of the Peace. There were "major opportunities for British industry", he said. But he was terrified his plan to increase British arms exports to Iraq, secretly agreed by the government, would be leaked.
"It could look very cynical if so soon after expressing outrage about the treatment of the Kurds, we adopt a more flexible approach to arms sales," one of his officials told the Scott inquiry. The government's decision to change its policy, but keep MPs and the public in the dark, was even more cynical, replied Lord Scott.
As Whitehall turned a blind eye to exports to Baghdad of equipment which ministers and officials admitted could be used to produce chemical and nuclear weapons, Howe ordered his paper to be kept under wraps until, in the words of Ian Blackley, a senior Foreign Office diplomat, the "cloud had passed" - a reference to the attack on Halabja.
This cynicism and hypocrisy was matched only by the US. Soon after the attack, Washington approved the export to Iraq of virus cultures and a $1bn contract to design and build a petrochemical plant the Iraqis planned to use to produce mustard gas. And while the Reagan administration condemned the use of chemical weapons during the eight-year Iraq-Iran war, US officers were secretly supplying Iraqi generals with bomb-damage assessments and detailed information on Iranian troop deployments.
"The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern," Walter Lang, a former senior US defence intelligence officer, told the New York Times this week. Washington was worried about the threat of Iran spreading its Islamic revolution to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Ever since TE Lawrence and his admirers in Whitehall drew the map of the modern Middle East after the first world war, the British and, later, American approach to the region has been dictated by naked self-interest. It is an approach which demanded a totally craven approach towards human rights. Saudi Arabia, no respecter of these and a past funder of Islamist extremism in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, remains one of Britain's biggest arms markets and a key supplier of oil to the US.
Whatever the reasons, and there are many, for seeing the back of Saddam, don't listen to Bush or Blair when they talk of morality, democracy and good governance. The evidence of Lord Howe and his officials to the Scott inquiry revealed the government's priorities. This might be salutary to remember as the government prepares to respond to pressure for a debate about the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq.
"Public opposition in this country might have been embarrassingly vociferous, particularly in view of the use by Iraq of chemical weapons," Scott told Howe. Howe replied that he wanted to defend British corporate interests from "malicious commentators" and "emotional misunderstandings". The decision to prevent MPs from knowing about the government's shift in policy was a "perfectly legitimate management of news", he said.
Then, the evidence against Saddam was there for all to see, but conveniently ignored. Britain and the US were desperate to benefit from Saddam's massive arms procurement programme. Now, we are told, Saddam must be overthrown because he is again said to be developing weapons of mass destruction, but we are not given the evidence.
A senior Foreign Office official told the Scott inquiry: "If there had been an outcry [over the change in policy towards Iraq] I am not sure it would necessarily have reflected the view of the country, only of the number of people prepared to comment." Those words may be worth recalling in the weeks ahead.
Richard Norton-Taylor is the author of Truth is a Difficult Concept: Inside the Scott Inquiry
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 132/168 03-Sep-02 @ 01:35 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Independent - 02 September 2002
"...In fact, if your ancestry is in the so-called Third World, you cannot but question the theatrical anniversary we are about to experience. This week, we will be manipulated by emotional stories about babies who were born on that day in New York, healthy babies to two parents who feel damaged. I wonder how many of these sensitive couples remember 2 December 1984? Would they recognise the name Bhopal? And, if they did, would they recall that between 16,000 and 30,000 Indians were choked to grisly death by acid fumes, and that 500,000 were wounded? In his book, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, Dominique LaPierre calls this "the most murderous industrial disaster in history". Read this, if you can, without screaming. A young girl with bells on her ankles was piled in with the dead, still alive with frothy bubbles coming out of her burnt insides; Muslim graves had to take 10 victims each; hearts, livers and spleens tripled in size and victims drowned in their own secretions.
An Indian court last week reminded the world that, 18 years on, Union Carbide, the American company responsible, and the chief executive officer James Anderson have escaped justice. So do US couples who gave birth on 2 December feel a sense of horror?..."
Message 133/168 03-Sep-02 @ 07:36 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Zazza
Posts: 1502
Link?: No link
File?: No file
cheddar, everyone knows that one western baby is worth at least a thousand third world ones..
Message 134/168 03-Sep-02 @ 09:08 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red
Bill drummond 1585-1649
Message 135/168 03-Sep-02 @ 09:41 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
i'm not telling.
Message 136/168 03-Sep-02 @ 10:33 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Zazza
Posts: 1502
Link?: No link
File?: No file
Message 137/168 03-Sep-02 @ 11:26 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Message 138/168 03-Sep-02 @ 11:27 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
the old classics are the best
why did Marx only drink herbal tea's?
cos all property is theft
drrrrrrrrrrr-tishhh!
Message 139/168 04-Sep-02 @ 02:23 AM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Bush has little to no support for this war. Both inside and outside of the US. Not that you're interested...
Message 140/168 04-Sep-02 @ 08:23 AM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Zazza - "...In a special section on the Vietnam war, which also defined the era, there is a list of the numbers killed: US troops, 58,000; Vietnamese deaths, 1,639,000, which McCleary describes as a "probably low estimate"". (The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopaedia of the 1960s and 1970s, by John Bassett McCleary) - So soldiers have a much lower exchange rate.
Moonunit - That isn't the same Bill Drummond of Echo and the Bunnymen manager, Julian Cope killing, KLF ABBA sample stealing, million pound burning, Turner Prize hijacking, only guy I ever wrote a fan mail to... fame...is it?
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