We Need American Troops

I gave you the documentation about the veto. I'm not sure what you are referring to.

The U.S. didn't have any problem with condemning Iraq or Saddam when it wanted to invade Iraq. The veto and other roadblocks put up by the U.S. came when he was an ally to the U.S. because those in the U.S. government thought it would have been embarassing to it. When it came time to vote for a resolution officially condemning, the U.S. chickened out.

.

 

I acknowledge there was a problem between Iran and Iraq. What I was questioning was the tactic of arming both sides without any serious attempts at diplomacy. Calling Rummy's visits with Saddam diplomacy is way off base.

Also, Saddam started that war by invading Iran.

.

 

Interesting or amusing?

.

 

Maybe the U.S. will do a better job this time, although I'm not all that optimistic. It's hard to imagine the U.S. doing anything worse in that region compared with what it did in the 80s.

.

 

Wikepedia has some good summaries of what happened in the 80s, for anyone interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

"Halabja poison gas attack

On 23 March 1988 western media sources reported from Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan, that several days before Iraq had launched a large scale chemical assault on the town. Later estimates were that 4000 people had been killed.

The Halabja poison gas attack caused an international outcry against the Iraqis. Later that year the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the "Prevention of Genocide Act", cutting off all U.S. assistance to Iraq and stopping U.S. imports of Iraqi oil. The Reagan administration opposed the bill, calling it premature, and eventually prevented it from taking effect.

The Iraqis blamed the Halabja attack on Iranian forces. [3] This was still the position of Saddam Hussein in his December 2003 captivity. ("Bearing", 2003) Some evidence appears to support this theory. A report at the time by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency asserted that evidence of blood agent use was found in bodies of dead Kurds. At the time of the attack Iran was reportedly using the blood agent cyanide whereas Iraq was employing mustard gas. (Pelletiere, 2003) Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights disagree with this, since the symptoms they found all corresponded to both mustard and sarin gas, and there was little evidence to suggest cyanide poisoning.

Also See The Chemical Attack on Halabja.

End of the war with Iran

While numerous Security Council resolutions condemned the use of chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war the U.S. veto prevented any explicit condemnation of the Iraqis for years. As the war came to an end so did the last documented uses of WMD's in Iraq.

See also Iran-Iraq war."

.

 

Well now old dien is gone and dead
All the new leaders are anti-red.
Yes they're pro-american, freedom sensations
Against red china, the united nations.
Now all the news commentators and the cia
Are saying, "thank god for coincidence


Artist:Phil Ochs
Album:All The News That's Fit To Sing
Title:Talking Vietnam

 

HippyPaul, excellent post.




.

 

Personaly neither..but both i imagine.

 

It's getting hard for people to tell whether some of the posts are sarcastic or if posters really believe what they are saying. It's almost to the point of self-parody. People are in such a state of denial as to what the U.S. government has done in the past. I know some people who are still denying that Rummy was an envoy to Saddam and claim that the pictures are forged. The best some can do is split hairs over tiny details to try to divert attention from the bigger picture or simply take a stance of outright denial.

.

 

I believe what i am saying, i think the majority do.. I think the sarcasm comes in when the same questions are asked by the same people and answered by the same people..time and time again...thats gotta breed sarcasm along the line.

The same type of people that think those pictures are forged are the same type of people that think OBL is a goverment stooge.

 

The first time you said they vetoed, the second time you said they voted against but did not veto. I was correct in saying there was no veto. Check your own posts.

What's happening here is that a US vote against a meaningless UN Security Council statement - which went ahead anyway - is considered a decisive historic event, a special envoy handshake is a decisive historic event, but the origins of 99% of Iran's and Iraq's multi billion dollar arsenals are considered peripheral details. Where did they come from and what relationships did these countries have with the sellers? Who knows and who cares. That's because this is a history lesson which starts with the conclusion of US guilt and works backwards from there. And you call this "missing the big picture"? Its no wonder people find that the US is responsible for everything, when its always treated as the only suspect.

I noticed this is the second (third?) time you have ignored the consequences of an Iranian or Iraqi victory in the war. Suppose the US had condemned Iraq and enforced sanctions against it. Khomenei's fundamentalist theocracy wins the war, conquers Shia southern Iraq and becomes the biggest oil exporter in the world, and has massive revenues to further expand its military and entrench its regime. It is by far the most powerful country in the region and its armoured divisions are a few short hours from Kuwaiti and Saudi oilfields. How do you like this scenario?

But that's the anti-war approach. What if we had left Saddam alone and ended the sanctions. What if we let him keep Kuwait. What if we pulled out and let a civil war break out. In each case the answer is who cares? Whatever happens, we can blame the US for that too, so problem solved.

 

Before the US arrived in Iraq, communists were hunted down and killed by the Baathists. After the US arrived, they had the freedom to assemble and campaign and have participated in the elections.

Yet abroad, communists celebrate the killing of the American troops that brought this freedom.

That is why communists are the absolute scum of the earth.

 

What communists celebrate the killing of American troops? The Iraqi communists or those of other nationalities? I don't think you can say that ideology of communism necessarily transcends other ideological standings such as nationalism and religious views, etc...

 

Regarding the veto, whether we want to call it a 'veto' or a 'vote against' is immaterial. The point is that the U.S. wouldn't support anything that was critical or had the impression of being critical its buddy Saddam. The U.S. has also done this many times with respect to votes regarding actions taken by Israel. Other countries do the same thing. It's nothing new.

Regarding the spread of the war into the gulf, the tactic of arming both Iran and Iraq , (which you support) made the situation more unstable. That was my whole point. Look at what happened. Saddam invaded Kuwait, when he was supported and armed by the U.S. for the purpose of trying to protect Kuwait. It likely could have been avoided by a well thought-out diplomatic approach. We're still paying a price today for the short-sighted bungled policies of previous administrations.

Saddam was furious when he found out that the U.S. was selling arms to Iran behind his back. It's not surprising he turned against the U.S. and invaded Kuwait.

Again, Saddam was the one who started the Iran-Iraq war when he invaded Iran.

.

 

With respect to your post about the arming of Iran, the U.S. had armed Iran in the 60s and 70s when it had the Shah installed there. Moreover, it was the U.S. that developed the nuclear program in Iran. The U.S. government and U.S. companies set up about a couple dozen nuclear facilities in Iran during the 70s as part of a program to generate electricity for the growing population. It's this same program that the U.S. now demands to be dismantled since the U.S. no longer has a leader installed there.

Officials in Iran sometimes joke about the irony of the current political situation. Many of the Iranian government officials still around today know all of the tricks of the U.S. with respect to surveillance and other activities because they were trained by U.S. officials back in the 70s. For example, the Iranian government is hip to the current spy flights that are being conducted over Iran by the U.S. because they are familiar with the equipment and tactics that the U.S. trained them in back in the 70s.

.

 

The societal backlash that occurred in Iran in the late 70s was revolt against the U.S. having the Shah installed there for a couple decades. The Shah and the U.S. managed to keep a lid on it by expelling leaders such as Khomeini and others, but it didn't work. The solution for the Reagan administration after the Iranian revolt was to arm Iraq and Iran behind each other's backs and keep them busy fighting each other.

One can imagine the frustration in the U.S. if a foreign power had one of its leaders installed in DC for a couple decades against the will of Americans. Many people in the U.S. don't have any sense of what it would be like to be in that type of situation, as they have never experienced it. Imagine a foreign power arming the U.S. and Canada behind each other's backs for the sake of keeping the two busy fighting each other.

In short, the solution to these problems is for the U.S. to stop propping up dictators.

.

 

Well said - would solve a lot of problems and over time restore our standing in the world

 

It certainly is not, don't you know the difference between a veto and a 'no' vote? The UN Security Council went ahead and made its statement despite the US 'no' vote. So the US vote had not impact whatsoever. Yet you are trying to make it sound like a US vote could have changed the course of history.

Then why did the US publicly condemn Iraq for using chemical weapons? This is the cliche - Saddam the US "buddy". No, not the Gulf states that financed his war or the countries that sold him 99% of his weapons - no, it was the US that was his buddy because Donald Rumsfeld shook his hand.

Wrong. Iran and Iraq were armed to the teeth BEFORE the war by OTHER countries, and they had been at war for a while before the US took an interest in preventing Iran from winning. Again, you want to skip all the history up to the point where the US got involved, ignore the 99% of arms sales which were made by other countries, and then explain how the US is to blame for the whole situation. Not very convincing.

Its not that complicated. Iraq and Iran were armed to the teeth by China, the USSR, and France. They went to war. They continued to buy weapons from these countries. Then, as Iran started to gain an edge, the US (and the Gulf states that were terrified of Iran) stepped in and tried to prevent an Iranian victory. To blame the US for the war makes no sense, not that that will stop anybody from doing it.

Except that he wasn't armed by the US. 99% of his weapons came from elsewhere. You keep going back to this "the US armed Iraq" idea because its too ideologically convenient not to be true, but unfortunately it is not true. The USSR, China, and France armed Iraq. In fact Kuwait was a major provider of finance to Iraq - lending about $14bn - during the war, so I suppose by your logic Kuwait were to blame for getting invaded (obviously blaming Iraq or Iran is out of the question - how could they possibly be responsible? It must someone else.). But what could Kuwait do? It was a support Stalin against Hitler scenario, there was no option to have an anti-war protest and go home.

Empty rhetoric. Sure we could have just, you know, solved it diplomatically! With a well thought-out approach. That would have done the trick! Except we had our Security Council resolutions and statements calling for an end to the war. Iraq had long been open to a ceasefire and negotiations once it was clear it couldn't win. They (you know, Iraq, our "buddies") said they would accept international mediation. But Iran wouldn't. The eventual ceasefire was based on UN Security Council Resolution 598, which the US supported.

That's a pretty tenuous cause-effect, seems to me to be more based on ideological convenience and ensuring a consistent application of the idea that whenever bad things happen, somehow the US must ultimately be to blame.

The US also talked the Shah into signing the NPT, and no, they are not asking for a dismantling of Iran's nuclear program, they are asking for an end to uranium enrichment. Any reason you choose to misrepresent things that way? Also I wonder how a nuclear program which by 1979 consisted of two unfinished reactors being built by German firms was a "US developed" nuclear program. Maybe it just sounds better that way? Also, the best hardware the Shah got from the US was F-14s. During the war the US refused to sell Iran spare parts and by the end of the war practically none of them were serviceable, unlike the French and Soviet aircraft.

Equipement and tactics - you mean like flying planes over things and taking photographs? I'm pretty hip to those tactics too, and I have never been trained by the CIA.

Again, this idea is so convenient that you can't let it go. But Iran and Iraq were armed by China, the USSR, and France. The US involvement came later and was intended to prevent an Iranian victory, much the same as many other countries in the region were doing to a much larger extent. US arms sales to Iran were minor and other countries were selling vast quantities to both sides. Only by eliminating the role of far bigger players can you try to make this sound like something of monumental significance.

Well, we could still hate Britain if historical gripes were so valid. Britain could still hate Germany and South Korea could hate Japan. Yet they don't. This is more an exercise in excuse making than understanding history. As long as we can find a way to blame the US for everyone else's actions, then somehow that passes for understanding history.

Catchy, but unfortunately history wasn't that simple.

For the fourth time, was it bad to support Stalin against Hitler? What would have happened if Iran won? Any interest in thinking about these issues?

 

Up to this point you've been mainly using talking points to try to play a game of gotcha. If you want to have a substative debate, I'd be glad to entertain one. I suggest you review the long involvement the U.S. had in the affairs of Iran and Iraq, particularly in the 70s.

You talk as if the U.S. came in during the last minute in the affairs of Iraq and Iran and was forced to support Saddam which isn't true. The U.S. had political control of Iran for a couple decades and also had a long murky history with Saddam going all the way back to the late 50s. Try not to blame other people for bringing up these issues. I know it gets some people upset when those facts are brought up but I'm not to blame for it.

Also, I'm not denying other countries were involved in the affairs of Iran and Iraq. There was a long complicated history with respect to the relations among Iran, Iraq, the U.S., and the Soviets, as well as other countries.

Iran wanted control of its own country. There wouldn't have been political repercussions from Iran if the U.S. hadn't had its people installed there for many years. You talk 'in the box' and 'after the fact' as if there were no other options. If a power like the U.S. control a country like Iran for a couple of decades, eventually there will be a backlash. There will always be those who simply say 'we had no other choice but to bomb them or have Saddam invade them to stop the backlash'. That's not much of a thought process. That's like saying 'they hate us for our freedom.' It doesn't address deeper issues that caused the backlash to begin with. That's what I am trying to address.

Regarding what would happen if Iran won? What would happen if the U.S. hadn't installed the Shah for a couple decades and let them run their own country? Would there have been a backlash against the U.S.? What if the U.S. hadn't supported someone like Saddam and Saddam never invaded Iran to begin with? The problem is that the U.S. went overboard supporting Saddam after the embarrassment that happened with Iran. The U.S. ego was hurt badly and some bad decisions were made by the U.S. govt. in the late 70s and early 80s. Governments make mistakes. The relations are still bad between the U.S. and Iran 25 years later. The U.S. has no diplomatic ties with Iran even today.

.

 

This Stalin thing is brought up again and again on this board. It's a talking point that's used to try to play a game of gotcha, as if we have to support dictators in tough situations because Stalin was part of the allies back in WWII.

.