US Plans for Use of Gas in Iraq

by Chekov - WSM Wed Feb 12, 2003 11:52

There is no evidence that the Western powers have any problem in principle with a) dictators like Saddam or b) use of weapons of mass destruction by dictators like Saddam. That is unless you can claim that the principles and practices of these powers today have nothing in common with their historical principles and practices, historical here meaning as recently as 1991. Therefore if you accept that the US supported Saddam until then and did nothing to stop him using WMD, you need to produce evidence of a systematic change in their practice of power since then to support the theory that the war is about WMD and liberating people from dictatorships. Evidence of this systematic change is singularly hard to produce since, not only do you have the same system, you actually have largely the same administration in power, doing and saying the same things.

The obvious conclusion would be that their stated reasons for the war are transparently phony.

Did anyone mention oil?

by what about this Tue Feb 11, 2003 21:03

So barry you are saying there should be no intervention now becuase there was none in 1998? Nice logic.

You seem to think the Iraq people have no responsibility for the deeds of Saddam. Who takes the homes of Kurds who don't convert to Islam? Is it Saddam who personaly takes the homes or Iraq familes happy to profit from others misfortune. Who hangs civil servants accused of taking bribes by meat hooks and video tapes the deaths for Saddam? Iraq 'civilians' that's who.

You insistence on putting all the blame on Western (read U.S) governments gives too much credit to the infulence of these governments in the region and ignores the reality that Saddam is the leader of a larger powerbase that is a danger to everyone in the region.

by barry Tue Feb 11, 2003 20:01

Saddam did what he did with the full knowledge of the western worlds elite, apologists (hereafter referred to as hawks) trotted out the old lines about sanctity of borders, strategic interests, strange bedfellows and so forth. If you want to talk about saddams atrocties a more recent example would be the slaughter of the marsh arabs in southern iraq, slaughtered after they answered bushs call for rebellion, slaughtered by repuclican gaurd helicopter units inside a UN no-fly zone, slaughtered because they were not a desirable post saddam government.

how about this?
the people of iraq have been utterly failed by the western 'civlised' world who happily profited from saddams regime and continue to do so.
Thats a failure shared by those who built his military machine and those who exccsed this by declaring him a strategic necessary evil.
It's a failure shared by those who negotiated lucrative trade deals and those who stayed quiet in order to profit from them.
It's also a failure on the part of those who being aware of the truth of life in Iraq spoke out politely but 'understood' the need to maintain economic relations with the regime.

how about this?
bombing the people of iraq because we cannot think of any other way to clean up our mess will not excise our responsibility for these failures, nor will anything which occours after saddams downfall remove the taint of that responsibility.

by How about this Tue Feb 11, 2003 18:42

People who spellcheck other peoples posts obviously have nothing to contribute to the discussion.

But I'm sure it makes you feel a lot better about yourself. Good for you.

by teacher Tue Feb 11, 2003 17:55

It's "accusations" and "journalism".

Didn't you learn anything in school?

by How about this. Tue Feb 11, 2003 15:19

For those of you who don't know what readl chemical weapons really do read the related link. Although for those only interested in bashing the U.S it is not actually about them so you may be disappointed.

by Terry Tue Feb 11, 2003 14:30

An old NAZI trick that was regulary used was to accuse your enemies of those things which you were about to do to them.

This would take the form of accussations of attrocities and other inhuman actions.

Today we have the US regularly accussing the Iraqis about weapons of mass destruction, killing of civilians and use of chemical weapons.