We Need American Troops

The Iraq war will end like the war in Vietnam ended, with puppets hanging on the the last helicopters struts.
As for Mr. Talabani, any gov't elected under the iron boot of foriegn occupation is illegitimate

 

The UN has no authority to act on its own and no means to do so. It is as if five people go into a room, form a committee, vote to do nothing, leave the room and blame the committee.

I always enjoy these fictional accounts of middle east history. Number one, the US never vetoed such a resolution. In fact the UN Security Council did issue a statement condemning the use of chemical weapons, and the US made other public statements condemning it.

I have always wondered why people consider Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam to be a historic event of immeasurable signficance yet apparently the fact that the US provided less than 1% of Saddam's arsenal seems irrelevant. $44 billion dollars worth of arms sold to Saddam, nearly all by the USSR, China, and France, and yet no interest because of course only the US can be to blame.

 

at any rate, saying the usa shoudl stop propping up foreign dictators then complaining after the fact seems kinda like a waste of time. the way everything was done gives me a headache and sore jaw from gritting my teeth to this day, but i've got that irritating tendency to try to find the bright side.

 

Do you think we fully appreciate what was going on back then.. international relations is a bit of a bitch... just because we may have seen the end results or the way certain things failed or did not .. like the Iran-Contra Affair for one .. that was so complex it blows the mind.. we point the finger at who we wish [to a certain degree].

 

How can we have any assurance that they won't do this again? It's a point to be raised. If the government isn't held accountable they will tend to keep doing these things.

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The U.S. did veto a U.N. resolution around 1988 that condemned Saddam's use of chemical weapons. No fiction there. I've posted it a number of times here.

It's true the USSR and other countries were supporting him in the 90s. That doesn't erase the fact that the U.S. was buddies with him in the 80s and turned a blind eye on his activities. Not to blame the U.S. entirely, but the government had an opportunity to act against it and did nothing.

It doesn't bother anyone that Rummy was Special Envoy to Saddam? No one even questions what he was doing in his meetings with Saddam?

The atmosphere in the 80s was very different than today. People in general didn't care about what Saddam was doing or the support of unsavory groups in the Mideast to go up against the Soviet in Afghanistan (which later ended up knocking over buildings in NY). Many were getting satisfaction that he was whipping Iran who had embarassed the U.S. There were a few people who saw the dangers of supporting someone like him but they were a small voice.

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No, the the UN Security Council statements were in 1984 and there was no veto. Its a bit of a strange point to make since most people here opposed the sanctions and opposed both Gulf Wars - actions to back up UN resolutions - yet they think a UN resolution alone would have somehow convinced Saddam to stop gassing people? Just as a piece of paper to wave at Saddam? Stranger still, you think China, France, and the USSR - his multi billion dollar arms dealers - were going to support a UN resolution condemning him, and only the bad old US was going to stop such a resolution? History is a little more complicated than you might like to think.

The whole US position on Iraq is being misrepresented. It was like supporting Stalin against Hitler. Did we like Stalin? No. Which did we prefer - Iran taking over Iraq's southern oilfields and sitting right next to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? No. Iraq taking over Iran's oilfields and having a few more tens of billions of arms money? No. In practice we wanted neither to win, and that was the strategy - support the losing side, to ensure a stalemate. In retrospect I find it hard to believe that there was a better option. The stakes were very high - we very much needed a special envoy in the region .

 

well, THEY are elected, but THEY will also shovel shit for you and call it sunshine whenever THEY want. the government tends ot do what it thinks is the best idea given the situation and their abilities at any given time. they're just people.

 

I am American...

 

** Am I really on teh hipfora right now ??

 

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/US_Relation_Iraq_1980-90.html

"The Security Council could only condemn Iraq by name for using chemical weapons through non-binding Presidential statements, over which permanent members of the Security Council do not have an individual veto. On 21 March 1986, the Security Council President, making a "declaration" and "speaking on behalf of the Security Council," stated that the Council members are "profoundly concerned by the unanimous conclusion of the specialists that chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian troops...[and] the members of the Council strongly condemn this continued use of chemical weapons in clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 which prohibits the use in war of chemical weapons".[51]

The US voted against the issuance of this statement, and the UK, Australia, France and Denmark abstained. However, the concurring votes of the other ten members of the Security Council ensured that this statement constituted the first criticism of Iraq by the Security Council. A similar Presidential statement was made on 14 May 1987, which noted that the Council was "deeply dismayed" about the CW use against Iranian forces and civilians."

(it's also listed firsthand in the U.N. archives, although I don't have the page handy)

 

I think we're missing the point nitpicking on one U.N. resolution. There were many throughout the 80s, but the U.S. was insistent on putting up roadblocks to anything that criticized Iraq's use of chemical weapons if they were mentioned by name.

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It's hard to believe people actually support the idea of arming two groups in a conflict to keep them busy killing each other. What great ethics. Reagan sure didn't use any diplomacy in the 80s to try to solve the situation between Iran and Iraq. A shame he didn't even try. Going by that mentality, we should now arm the Sunnis and Shiites just to keep them busy killing each other so that their disturbance doesn't spread into surrounding countries like Syria and Iran.

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Most of them aren't elected. That's a problem. People like Rummy have been in government since the Nixon era even though no one ever voted for them. How could anyone hold someone like Rummy or others accountable?

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I think I'm going to spend some time on military.com. Maybe I'll actually find some people over there with hippie values compared with this room.

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Thank you for finally conceding that there was no veto. I'm sure the Kurds and Iranians were thrilled to learn that the Security Council was "deeply dismayed" and "profoundly concerned".

Iran and Iraq had already been armed to the teeth by the USSR, China and France by the time the war broke out. The US intervention came when Iran looked like it was going to win. But but you want to pretend there were no consequences had the US just stayed out. What would have happened if either Iran or Iraq won? I pointed this out before, but you aren't addressing the issue. I think a strong case can be made that had either side won, the result would have been catastrophic. Ensuring neither side won was the right policy. But anti-war activists don't want to deal with the reality of the choices available, they just want to blame the US and move on to the next topic. They want to believe some Reagan peace envoy could convince two maniac countries, neither of which liked the US, to abandon their massive war.

Actually I think the logic is that the US should abandon Iraq, because if that leads to a civil war at least we can blame the US for that too so it doesn't really matter.

 

For target practice, only.

 

I thought this was a forum for hippies.

 

....a few none hippies are within these forums to keep it 'interesting'.

 

thats not very 'peace and love'

I thought this forum was for hippies