A lot of the sectarian violence in Iraq now is the direct result of Saddam's reign. He played various groups off on each other. It takes more than removing a dictator to restore a country to peace and prosperity.
US citizen murdered by government without trial
- Thread starter Mrs.Lucysnow
- Start date
Agreed, but getting rid of Saddam was a good start to the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
What we actually did was turn the native population against Al Quida who then suffered a stunning defeat. We also removed Saddam who was harboring international terrorists like Abu Nidal and the bombmaker for the first world trade center bombing.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
No you idiot, it was the insurgents who were blowing up the oil fields, not al qaeda. Americans are really bloody scary, you go into places and still haven't a fucking clue what happened. You guys are so obsessed with terrorism that you believe everything anything that happens is al qaeda. Do you know when the oil fields begin to burn? Do you remember?
Robert Fisk
"It's possible to argue it was Saddam's decision to switch from the dollar to the euro in 2000 that made regime change so important to the United States. When Iran threatened to do the same, it was added to the "axis of evil." The defense of the dollar is almost as important as oil. But the real irony lies in the nature of the United States' new power in Iraq. U.S. oil deposits are increasingly depleted and by 2025, U.S. oil imports will account for perhaps 70 percent of total domestic demand. It needs to control the world's reserves -- and don't tell me that the United States would have invaded Iraq if its chief export was beetroot -- and it now has control of perhaps 25 percent of the world's reserves."
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Actually its the opposite, he was the one who kept them all in line. He was like Tito in yugoslavia, who kept them from killing each other. It wasn't equitable in Iraq but it was more peaceful, which is why they are suffering from a security problem now.
Spidergoat: What we actually did was turn the native population against Al Quida who then suffered a stunning defeat. We also removed Saddam who was harboring international terrorists like Abu Nidal and the bombmaker for the first world trade center bombing.
That is an untruth. Saddam as I pointed out to so and so, was no friend of al qaeda or bin laden. Bin laden wanted Saddam out of power, Saddam was not harboring international terrorists, that was a lie. Abu Nidal was a palestinian freedom fighter not a bloody al qaeda agent! Abu Nidal was interested in attacking Israeli's and jews he wasn't connected to religious jihad. He died in 2002 and it was at the hand of Iraqi security so I don't know what you're going on about.
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It was not more peaceful in Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
It's a war not a court case, we often have to act with incomplete evidence such as that which would sway a jury.
We can do some things with soldiers, we can deprive the Taliban of the infrastructure of a state, and we can bomb training camps and leaders.
Some of the reasons Al Quida gives for attacking us have to do with our support for the liberation of East Timor. Their only complaint is that it used to be controlled by the Islamists and now they are free. This should give you a clue that they will not leave us alone as long as we encourage freedom in the world. They get murderously angry about people writing a book or publishing a cartoon. They are inherently unreasonable and advocate a totalitarian ideology that is incompatible with modern society as we know it.
No Lucy, you are the one who is clearly playing the role of a useful idiot:
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/g..._news]=5137&tx_ttnews[backPid]=167&no_cache=1
Then the chaos is a good sign. You act like these are uncivilized people who cannot rule themselves without a strongman dictator. I find that offensive. Saddam committed genocide. He attacked our allies. He often flirted with chemical and biological weapons. He lost his right to own Iraq no matter what the people of Iraq said.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Go back and re-read my post as there is an edit.
No Spider, I'm saying stop patting yourself on the back as if you've done a good job. You don't have to live in chaos they do, when an iraqi says that they are living in 2011 in a worse security situation than they did under Saddam, that should be a clue for you. What also should be a clue is that YOUR GOVERNMENT WAS THE ONE WHO PROPPED UP THE BLOODY LEADER TO BEGIN WITH AND YOU KNEW HE COMMITTED GENOCIDE AND COZIED UP TO HIM ANYWAY!
See? My favorite picture is of Saddam shaking hands with Rumsfeld in 1983. Its the US that actually sold him the lethal chemical gas. You lot are helpful that way. Here's the picture of Rumsfeld and Saddam:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Well he obviously violated whatever trust we had in him. I'm not the Bush administration so I don't have to answer for their actions. I only know that he forfeited his rights as the leader of Iraq. I acknowledge that the security situation in Iraq is poor, but we weren't necessarily coming to the rescue of the Iraqi people. This was about Saddam and the world.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Bullshit. You didn't break off relations with him after the gassing of the Kurds and when the Kurds asked for your help you left them in the lurch. The only thing Saddam did to piss you off was decide he would rather trade oil in euros as opposed to dollars.
Total BS.
From your source:
Iraq had broken off ties with the U.S. during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.
A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results." But the department noted in late November 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use.
the U.S. had publicly condemned Iraq's chemical weapons use, stating, "The United States has concluded that the available evidence substantiates Iran's charges that Iraq used chemical weapons" [Document 47]. Briefings for Rumsfeld's meetings noted that atmospherics in Iraq had deteriorated since his December visit because of Iraqi military reverses and because "bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use,
Arthur
From your source:
Iraq had broken off ties with the U.S. during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.
A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results." But the department noted in late November 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use.
the U.S. had publicly condemned Iraq's chemical weapons use, stating, "The United States has concluded that the available evidence substantiates Iran's charges that Iraq used chemical weapons" [Document 47]. Briefings for Rumsfeld's meetings noted that atmospherics in Iraq had deteriorated since his December visit because of Iraqi military reverses and because "bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use,
Arthur
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Not bullshit Read the following truths and then swallow your tongue:
Despite intelligence reports that Iraq still sponsored groups on the SD's terrorist list, and "apparently without consulting Congress", the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from the State terrorism sponsorship list in 1982. The removal made Iraq eligible for U.S. dual-use and military technology.
Iraq reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and significantly increased CW use in 1983. Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, said that reports of Iraq using CWs on Iranian military personnel "drifted in" at the year’s end. A declassified CIA report, probably written in late 1987, notes Iraq's use of mustard gas in August 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the SD and/or National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq's use of CW at this time.
Analysts recognized that "civilian" helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance. Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters.
Later, and despite some objections from the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters, officially for crop spraying. See "1988" for note on Iraq using U.S. Helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons.
Later in the year the Reagan Administration secretly began to allow Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer to Iraq U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons. Reagan personally asked Italy’s Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq.
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html
Have you finished swallowing your tongue yet?
We should have broken off relations. I'm not in control of our foreign policy, I can only support or object as I see fit. Our lack of support for the Kurds in the past was immoral. But if you agree that he gassed the Kurds, then you cannot agree that he should remain in control of Iraq as his personal property.
Nothing in that about selling them CW gas Lucy.
What there is is our public condemnation of his use of gas.
As to support, it was modest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_combatants_in_the_Iran–Iraq_War
Arthur
What there is is our public condemnation of his use of gas.
As to support, it was modest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_combatants_in_the_Iran–Iraq_War
Arthur
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Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
THE US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.
Classified US Defense Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.
The Senate committee's reports on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm
I shouldn't have to post this, this is such common knowledge you should know this yourself by now.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
I know. Most people when they consider voting for a politician do so based on domestic policies and positions and not foreign policy. That's what I keep trying to tell Sam in terms of Israel, no one is going to vote for a president on foreign policy, its the local stuff that matters. I think only Ron Paul makes a good show of what he would do if he were elected. I have a feeling it would be a return to isolationism where he wouldn't commit troops abroad and he wouldn't lavish other countries with money either.
I don't believe that outsiders should make those decisions for other nations. Regime change is too complicated, sometimes you create something worse than what they had. I like the idea of organic evolution or revolution as the arab spring.
It has been suggested that the example of Saddam falling at least partially inspired the Arab Spring movement. I'm not saying that foreign policy is not important, just that I don't always get the president I wish. I would have voted against Ronald Reagan if I was old enough at the time.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Well its the first time I heard this opinion that the fall of Saddam helped bring on the arab spring, perhaps it is true, maybe it helped in some way. Maybe we can look at it as the american government fixing a mistake but from what I understand (and I haven't by any means been paying very close attention to the arab spring events) the whole thing came out of economic suffering more than ideological principles. That's why there are those who worry about the Brotherhood in Egypt, they are popular but they are prone to religious extremity too. I mean no one is going to cry tears over Saddam, not his people far less his neighbors. He was a psychotic despotic dude but he did keep a certain consistency which can no longer be counted on, but that's probably a moot point to make since it can never be counted on no matter the situation.