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The Second Gulf war : a response to PBS Frontline


Kevin Trotter
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quote:

By 1441 the security council has the final say on what is or is not a material breach.

I think that common sense has the final say on what is a material breach.

quote:

You think big oil is some neural or benign force. I don't agree. Big Oil bought Bush the presidency and most of his chicken hawks have major ties to oil.....even "condy".

I think they're as benign as General Motors, Intel, Microsoft, British Telecom, IBM, Toyota, etc. As far as buying the presidency, the election was an even split, so don't go around thinking that "big banking" like Citibank, or "big labor" like the AFL-CIO or the NEA didn't throw their money around, too. It's disengenuous to imply that Bush won because of money from the oil lobby, while ignoring how close Gore's lobby money got him to the White House. Personally, I think that the oil money isn't as tainted as the banking money (Robert Rubin of Citibank/Enron was Clinton's Treasury secretary) or the labor money (taken from union dues) or teacher money that went to Democrats (but that's a topic for another thread).

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It is already known that we provided WMD material and information....shame on them for following our lead.

We didn't do it against UN sanction resolutions. Also remember that when we armed Iraq, they were in a war against Iran (yes, I know Iraq started it), but Iran had taken Americans hostage for 444 days and were enemies of the USA at the time. Geopolitical entanglements shift over the decades, and policies and allies will shift with them.

[ 03-09-2003, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

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From the United Kingdom Times Online:

quote:

Blix 'hid smoking gun' from Britain and US

From James Bone in New York

BRITAIN and the United States will today press the chief UN weapons inspector to admit that he has found a ÔÇ£smoking gunÔÇØ in Iraq. Such an admission could persuade swing voters on the Security Council to back the March 17 ultimatum.

The British and US ambassadors plan to demand that Hans Blix reveals more details of a huge undeclared Iraqi unmanned aircraft, the discovery of which he failed to mention in his oral report to Security Council foreign ministers on Friday. Its existence was only disclosed in a declassified 173-page document circulated by the inspectors at the end of the meeting ÔÇö an apparent attempt by Dr Blix to hide the revelation to avoid triggering a war.

The discovery of the drone, which has a wingspan of 7.45 metres, will make it much easier for waverers on the Security Council to accept US and British arguments that Iraq has failed to meet UN demands that it disarm.

ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs incredible,ÔÇØ a senior diplomat from a swing voter on the council said. ÔÇ£This report is going to have a clearly defined impact on the people who are wavering. ItÔÇÖs a biggie.ÔÇØ

An explicit report by Dr Blix of the discovery of an Iraqi violation would help the six swing voters ÔÇö Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan ÔÇö to explain a change of position to their publics.

Unlike the outlawed Al-Samoud 2 missile, which was declared as a purportedly legal weapon, the drone was not declared. It would be the first undeclared weapons programme found by the UN and is considered by British and US officials to be a ÔÇ£smoking gunÔÇØ.

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I shoulda said it yesterday or the day before. Blix can't make up his mind to save his life. Can't get his story straight. And that he's playing these inspections for all they all worth. To the detriment of the purpose of the inspections in the first place.

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quote:

I think that common sense has the final say on what is a material breach.


No you don't or you would side with the majority of the free world....who at this point have that market on lock.

Also, you should stop using arguments that claim ligitamicy via UN regulations. Your belief in America's imperial prirogative to dictate international law while being free from the same do not strengthen your position.

quote:

Personally, I think that the oil money isn't as tainted as the banking money (Robert Rubin of Citibank/Enron was Clinton's Treasury secretary) or the labor money (taken from union dues) or teacher money that went to Democrats (but that's a topic for another thread).

I'll disagree on this point...there's enough filth for both parties....that's why I am not a democrat.

Please don't lump the AFL-CIO in with corporations.

FEC in election 2000:

Labor gave a total of: 91,000,000

Business gave: 970,044,515

Just donÔÇÖt do it.

quote:

It's disengenuous to imply that Bush won because of money from the oil lobby, while ignoring how close Gore's lobby money got him to the White House

I have no illusions as to the "nobility" of the Democrats. But here are the facts:

Auto industry gave Bush 1,272,497 and Gore 114,790.

Oil and Gas gave Bush 1,889,206 and Gore got 139,514. When you factor in the dominating role oil personnel play in critical administration positions....the link is clear. This provides a solid foundation for blood for oil arguments.....sorry that CNN is too busy blabbering away about nothing to investigate, but that's what they're paid so well for.

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but Iran had taken Americans hostage for 444 days and were enemies of the USA at the time

Yeah and if the CIA hadn't knocked of the democratically elected president in '53 that never would have happened. Funny how the most expedient and "pure" imperialist actions never work out in the long run.

[ 03-11-2003, 12:28 AM: Message edited by: Lotharr ]

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quote:

No you don't or you would side with the majority of the free world....who at this point have that market on lock.

Also, you should stop using arguments that claim ligitamicy via UN regulations. Your belief in America's imperial prirogative to dictate international law while being free from the same do not strengthen your position.

Thank you. Next time, don't put words in my mouth. I can speak for myself.

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Please don't lump the AFL-CIO in with corporations.

Why not? Labor gives all their money to Democrats, whether their union members want them to or not. They made their members have to sue to earn the right to direct where their dues go.

Corporations split their money between both parties, playing both sides of the table.

I remember when the media was aghast that Bush raised $75MM so quickly. Bush raised most of his money from many small-time donations from average citizens. Also remember, the money we're talking about went to the RNC/DNC as soft-money, not to the candidates directly. It was all the average citizens in "fly-over" country that gave Bush his huge campaign warchest.

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Auto industry gave Bush 1,272,497 and Gore 114,790.

What would you expect? Gore wrote a book calling for an end to the combustion engine. If you were an auto manufacturer, whom would you give to?

quote:

Oil and Gas gave Bush 1,889,206 and Gore got 139,514. When you factor in the dominating role oil personnel play in critical administration positions....the link is clear. This provides a solid foundation for blood for oil arguments...

It provides a solid foundation for conspiracy theories.

Bush came from the business community (agriculture, oil [which he got out of in the mid-1980's], and baseball) before becoming Governor of Texas. Dick Cheney didn't enter the business community until after he was Secretary of Defense, working for an oil drilling and engineering firm -- not a refiner/producer/marketer. Gore was raised as a child to be a politician by a politician -- U.S Representative, U.S. Senator, VP. Gore is also oil-connected to Occidental Petroleum and Armand Hammer. Bush Sr., was an oil man, then U.S. Representative, ambassador to the U.N, ambassador to China, CIA chief, VP. Clinton was Arkansas Attorney General, then Governor, then President. Reagan was an actor, Governor of California, then President.

If you think Bush is beholden to the oil community, then you'd love the links that Clinton had to the lawyer community and tort-reform legislation.

quote:

Yeah and if the CIA hadn't knocked of the democratically elected president in '53 that never would have happened. Funny how the most expedient and "pure" imperialist actions never work out in the long run.

I had to research this to understand what you were referring to. They didn't knock him off, they caused him to flee (after two failed attempts) and installed the Shah who was later ousted by Khomeini. It was over Iranian nationalization of the oil fields fomented by the USSR after WWII. From Information Please Almanac:

quote:

At the Tehran Conference in 1943 the Tehran Declaration, signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the USSR, guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of Iran. However, the USSR, dissatisfied with the refusal of the Iranian government to grant it oil concessions, fomented a revolt in the north which led to the establishment (Dec., 1945) of the People's Republic of Azerbaijan and the Kurdish People's Republic, headed by Soviet-controlled leaders. When Soviet troops remained in Iran following the expiration (Jan., 1946) of a wartime treaty that also allowed the presence of American and British troops, Iran protested to the United Nations. The Soviets finally withdrew (May, 1946) after receiving a promise of oil concessions from Iran subject to approval by the parliament. The Soviet-established governments in the north, lacking popular support, were deposed by Iranian troops late in 1946, and the parliament subsequently rejected the oil concessions.

In 1951, the National Front movement, headed by Premier Mussadegh, a militant nationalist, forced the parliament to nationalize the oil industry and form the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Although a British blockade led to the virtual collapse of the oil industry and serious internal economic troubles, Mussadegh continued his nationalization policy. Openly opposed by the shah, Mussadegh was ousted in 1952 but quickly regained power. The shah fled Iran but returned when monarchist elements forced Mussadegh from office in Aug., 1953; covert U.S. activity was largely responsible for Mussadegh's ousting.

In 1954, Iran allowed an international consortium of British, American, French, and Dutch oil companies to operate its oil facilities, with profits shared equally between Iran and the consortium. After 1953 a succession of premiers restored a measure of order to Iran; in 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years in force. Iran established closer relations with the West, joining the Baghdad Pact (later called the Central Treaty Organization), and receiving large amounts of military and economic aid from the United States until the late 1960s.

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Ask Dr. Ridgley: What's the Post-War Left to Do?

quote:

Dear Dr. Ridgley:

Many of us newspaper columnists in the anti-war Left are worried about the upcoming war with Iraq and what its aftermath means for us professionally. It's apparent that nothing we anti-war columnists can do will stop the U.S. from its aggression against Iraq. War is inevitable. We're looking ahead, and many of us don't like what we see.

American troops are likely to be met in Baghdad by cheering thousands, similar to the welcome given allied troops in the liberation of Paris from the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators (no irony there, eh?).

Saddam Hussein's heinous crimes against humanity will be exposed when his torture chambers are opened to the media and thousands of prisoners released. Huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons will be captured and unearthed from their underground bunkers in Tikrit, Baghdad, and other cities.

Captured records will likely expose France and Germany as collaborators with Iraq in its chemical and nuclear weapons program. This will be a disaster for the Left of momentous proportions not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union. All of this presents us columnists on the anti-war Left with what could be an insurmountable problem.

What do we write about after this war demonstrates that Iraq is everything that the George Bush administration said it was? Must we eat crow for this obscene administration?

Worried in Washington, D.C.

Dear Worried:

I've received many letters from Leftist pundits on this topic: What do we write when we're proven wrong on Iraq? What can we possibly say in the aftermath of a great American victory? Should we join in the victory celebration or instead indulge in a sullen teeth-gnashing silence for at least a couple of days? Good questions, all.

Of one thing we can be certain-there will be a post-war, post-Saddam Iraq, and this situation will be on us within a month. Much of what this misbegotten administration has claimed will likely be proved true. How will the anti-war Left handle it?

Fortunately, there's no need for hand-wringing. We have a pool of experience developed over decades of being wrong on the facts but correct theoretically and morally.

Herewith is a primer for anti-war pundits and talking heads to help you navigate the treacherous shoals of a world without Saddam, without a bothersome U.N., without a France that anyone listens to, and with America triumphant.

Many old hands on the Left already know most of these chestnuts, but I'll review them for the benefit of journalists who came of age since the last imperialist gulf war in 1991 and are still feeling their way in the practice of liberation journalism. I'll also recommend who can best utilize the various techniques.

No mea culpa : The first thing you must realize is that we on the left never, ever admit we're wrong. Let this be your touchstone, so you can throw away all those "just in case" mea culpa columns you ginned-up in the event things went excessively bad for the Saddam team. Recommended: Everyone.

Blame Amerika for something (it's never out of fashion for you baby-boomers to spell America with a 'k.'). Don't get caught up in trying to explain yourself or why you defended a brutal dictator and his torture chambers and his chemical weapons and all of that. Instead, attack .

Do this obliquely. Don't write about what the facts show. Remember that reality is what you make of it, so speak vaguely. Use generalities. Mention the "Pentagon death machine." Talk about "killing fields." Work into your column "butchery," "slaughter" and "madmen."

Emphasize unintended civilian deaths while ignoring the atrocities committed by Saddam against his own people. Call this the first sad victory of the "new colonialism." Use words and phrases like "imperialism," "hegemony," and "the world's policeman." Recommended: Katha Pollitt. Foreigners such as Regis Debray will also find this useful.

Suggest that it's sinister. Intone ominously about "big oil interests" without ever really saying what you mean. Say that you're "disappointed in" and "deeply saddened by" displays of "patriotism bordering on jingoism." This war heralds a new "dark time." Mention a "conspiracy of shadowy economic interests."

You can even dust off "quagmire," although this one's wearing thin. I know that this is a favorite among anti-war types over 45, but use it sparingly. Recommended: Mary McGrory and Richard Cohen can get mileage here. Anthony Lewis and Helen Thomas, too.

Belittle/minimize the achievement. This is sneer-and-curled-lip territory. "What's to cheer about? This was only the Iraqi military, after all-a third-rate power. Hurrah." "The real question is why it took so long for the American steamroller to crush a fourth-rate power." "This was only the Iraqi military, a fifth-rate power; the real test will be [fill in the blank appropriately]." Recommended: Eric Alterman, Paul Begala.

The "New Crusades" motif. Note that Christians have a long history of tyrannizing the Middle East, and that this so-called victory is no different. Use terms like "Christian arrogance." Warn of the "dangers of religious fundamentalism of any sort." Mention "21st Century Crusaders." If you're feeling playful, refer to "our own Christian Taliban." Recommended: All anti-religious pundits.

Multicultural argument. This is related to the Christian - Muslim divide, and is used on campuses all the time. It's sophomoric and shopworn but you can whip this old dog to his feet a couple of times to help you weather the initial weeks after Iraq collapses.

Remember that "the imposition of western values on another civilization far older than our own is simply wrong." This one is strengthened considerably if you can work in "racism" and talk sweepingly of "wars against people of color." Recommended: Any Left-wing "pundit of color" or pundit with an exotic-sounding name can use this to good effect. Womyn can use this, but white males stay away.

Change the subject. This tactic is always worth a column or two. Instead of talking about the obvious topic-the victoriously concluded war-mention the ongoing "plight of the Palestinians" and wonder aloud if the U.S. will mount a similar operation to "liberate" the Palestinians from Israeli "occupation."

Likewise, wonder if the U.S. is ready to tackle the "much tougher task" of taking on North Korea. Venture afield and resurface the "evils" of "globalization" or of environmental doom. There's a lot of material here-remember global warming and the Kyoto Treaty?

Trot out a golden oldie: the "vanishing rain forest." Refer to this administration's "neglect of the domestic agenda." As a nice touch, revisit and describe in detail the many peace demonstrations; mention the "gorgeous mosaic" and the "joy of seeing millions marching for what's right." Recommended: Maureen Dowd, Eric Alterman, and Seymour Hersh.

Attack the "style" of the victors. Hector against "misplaced gloating" by those who favored military action from the start. Use terms like "bloodlust," "bullying," "zeal," "messianic," "evangelical," "missionary," "manifest destiny."

Strongly imply that there was something "unclean" about this war against a "tin-pot dictator." Mention your "deep sadness" at the images of dead and dismembered Iraqi soldiers who, after all, "were only defending their homeland." Express "fear for the future of our nation." Recommended: Maureen Dowd again, and Helen Thomas, especially.

Congratulate yourself and don't apologize. This should be a centerpiece column for you and should contain the words "peace" and "children" at least three times. Useful phrases: "It's never wrong to stand for peace." "How many Iraqi children would be alive today if peace had prevailed?" "Victory celebration? No, I'd rather pray for the children instead." (This last one has religious overtones, so use it sparingly and only if you feel comfortable)

Focus on what you, yourself, "feel." Work yourself and your emotions into the piece and talk about your reactions to the war. Talk of your own "shame." Couple with snide references to amorphous business interests: "Well, it looks like Bush and his cronies in the oil business are happy now."

Claim that you knew this would be the outcome all along and credit everyone but the administration with any positives-talk about "Chirac's bold stand against American megalomania," "The Clinton Administration's patience and restraint," "Hans Blix's crucial role in bringing Iraq to heel in spite of American bellicosity." Recommended: Eric Alterman, Robert Scheer, and Jonathan Schell are masters at this technique, but every pundit on the anti-war Left should develop at least a serviceable expertise with it. Call it "moral belligerence"

The Moral Lament. This workhorse is a favorite and trumps most anything. It's especially valuable because it can't be overused. Having remained silent on Saddam's crimes against humanity, you may think you're restricted from post-war moralizing, but you're limited in no such way.

Remember that piety and self-congratulation on our morally superior stances infuriate the right-wingers, especially when they incorporate some element of perceived hypocrisy. If you're looking for examples of how to use this technique with smug skill, see Katha Pollitt over at The Nation . It's her specialty.

The great thing about this technique is that you don't have to know the facts about any particular issue. You can always be right no matter the specifics. In fact, you can write this column now , without knowing anything .

Talk of how there are "no winners in war." Lament the many civilian casualties, and ignore celebrations by the Iraqi people that suggest they welcome Saddam's ouster. Talk vaguely about the "human cost" of this "immoral war." Lament the "loss of innocent life." Lament the crippling of the U.N., which heralds a new age of "unilateral aggression" by a "rogue America."

Ignore the broad international coalition that ousted Saddam; instead, focus on the "Coalition of the Moral" that opposed war, which includes France, Germany, Syria, Russia, Libya, Iran, and Cuba.

Immediately criticize any post-Saddam regime mercilessly. Describe it as "inauthentic." Hold it to an impossible moral standard, even as you now hold the Saddam regime to no moral standard at all. These things are, after all, relative and situational, and we're concerned with larger issues, not consistency.

Remember how we belittled the liberation of Grenada as the bullying of a postage-stamp-sized island? That technique is appropriate here and should get you through the initial onslaught of smug right-wingers whining "I told you so."

Feel free to nit-pick the military victory and belittle it. Sharp-shoot the military occupation government as not being "democratic" enough. Focus on the "inhumane" treatment of prisoners of war, and insist that their "rights be respected" as they were "only defending their homeland" against a "foreign invader."

Preempt calls for war crimes trials for Saddam's henchmen by suggesting that the U.S. ought to put its own generals and politicians on trial for waging a "brutal war of aggression." Mention Kissinger and Pinochet.Recommended: All anti-war Left pundits.

As you write your pieces (and I suggest you begin now), ignore or dismiss the larger positive ramifications of one of the most important civilizing actions of our age-the liberation of Iraq and the attendant coming transformation of the Middle East.

Instead, combine several of the forgoing techniques in this fashion: "All this gloating and these so-called 'victory' celebrations are equivalent to dancing on the graves of Iraqi children, killed in the Christian onslaught on this devoutly Muslim nation."

Or try this: "This so-called religious man unleashed a brutal killing machine on a country that attacked no one, threatened no one, and was working within the framework of civilized nations to achieve a peaceful resolution to an international dispute. Who is the dictator and who is the diplomat? Who is civilized and who is not?"

Or this: "I have no stomach for victory celebrations that praise the killing of women and children, that honor the Pentagon's death machine for slaughtering draftees defending their homeland, and that serve none but the big oil interests."

When Iraq goes down and this cause has been closed out, I know you'll be disheartened and tempted to put away the cheap poster paint, to closet the signs, to shelve the Peter, Paul, and Mary songbook, to slide the bongos under the bed, and to sigh about what might been; the destruction of Israel, Saddam's hegemony in the Middle East, greatly diminished American power and influence, and weekly terrorist attacks in the U.S. But remember that creativity and boldness can carry the day in those first precious weeks after Iraq falls.

A flurry of columns sporting the above techniques will see you through another civilizational loss, just as they did after Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War.

Always remember that the only real alternative is to congratulate the Bush administration for being right all along.

And that's just not an option.

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Sorry been out gaming

quote:

What would you expect? Gore wrote a book calling for an end to the combustion engine. If you were an auto manufacturer, whom would you give to?

Yup....and our elected officials should always go to the highest bidder right?

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Corporations split their money between both parties, playing both sides of the table.


Owning the table you mean. Sorry I don't think our elected officials should deal in one dollar one vote politics...it tends to devalue the typical citizen and ruin a country....but I realize that in the conservative analysis the country is only as strong as its weakest business partner.

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If you think Bush is beholden to the oil community, then you'd love the links that Clinton had to the lawyer community and tort-reform legislation.


I never supported Clinton....and I won't support anyone who is the lesser of two losers....sorry my vote is going to mean something....at least to me. People can only pick between the worst this country has to offer for so long before they want something better....only bad things can happen when a system makes the crap rise to the top.

The rest only proved the point that business and politics don't mix.

quote:

They didn't knock him off, they caused him to flee (after two failed attempts) and installed the Shah who was later ousted by Khomeini. It was over Iranian nationalization of the oil fields fomented by the USSR after WWII.

Why are you quibbling? The point is clear. We have been involved in this region for one reason. It is as clear today as yesterday.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Welcome to Anglo-Saxon reality by Mark Steyn.

An excerpt:

quote:

France, Germany, Russia, Belgium and Canada are not on the side of peace or morality or the Iraqi people. The pictures from the streets of Baghdad make that plain. But we are on the side of TotalFinaElf. Twice in recent columns, Diane Francis has mentioned, almost en passant, a curious little fact:

The Western oil company with the closest ties to the late Saddam is France's TotalFinaElf. That's not the curious fact, that's just business as usual in the Fifth Republic. This is the curious fact: As Diane wrote in February and again last week, "Total's biggest shareholder is Montreal's Paul Desmarais, whose youngest son is married to Prime Minister Jean Chr├®tien's daughter."

Let's see if I've got this straight: TotalFinaElf's largest shareholder is a subsidiary of Montreal's Power Corp, whose co-chief executive is Jean Chr├®tien's son-in-law, Andre Desmarais. Mr. Desmarais' brother, Paul Desmarais Jr., sits on the Total board.

For months, the anti-war crowd has insisted that "it's all about oil," that the only reason the Iraqi people were being "liberated" was so that the second biggest oil reserves in the world could be annexed in perpetuity by Dick Cheney and Halliburton and the rest of Bush's Texas oilpatch gang. Instead, it turns out that, if it is all about oil, then the principal North American beneficiary of the continued enslavement of the Iraqi people is the family of the Canadian Prime Minister -- that's to say, his daughter, France Chr├®tien, and his grandchildren.

What a delightful footnote to the Chr├®tien-Chiraquiste war effort. This is a victory not just for the Iraqi people but for "Anglo-Saxon" reality over Franco-Canadian postmodern cynicism.

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Here's another good column, Who Armed Iraq: Myth vs. Fact.

quote:

Who Armed Iraq?

Charles R. Smith

Monday, March 17, 2003

Myth vs. Fact

Name one weapon in the Iraqi arsenal that was made in the United States.

I have offered that challenge to dozens of so-called anti-war activists who claim that the U.S. armed Iraq. According to these protesters for "peace," George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan supplied Iraq with tons of weapons.

None have been able to name the specific weapon ÔÇô missile, bomb, fighter, tank or shell ÔÇô that is U.S.-made or has U.S. equipment installed in it. None have been able to name any specific weapon system.

All of them have failed the challenge, providing no more than allegations that U.S. parts are in Iraqi missiles or U.S. electronics are being used by the Iraqi military. One protester even claimed that Iraq was armed with U.S.-made trucks.

Since when is a truck a weapon? Are the Iraqis going to drive backwards, fuel tank first, into the U.S. Army?

Time to separate the myth from the reality. The propaganda spun by the far left is false. The facts show that Iraq is armed with a wide range of weapons ÔÇô none of which came from the U.S.

Iraqi Air Force

The Iraqi air force does not fly Falcons or Eagles. The majority of the Iraqi air force is made in Russia. The Russian MiG and Sukhoi design bureaus supplied Iraq with hundreds of advanced strike-fighters and the Mach 3 Foxbat interceptor.

Saddam could field a force of advanced MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters if they had not chickened out of combat during the Gulf War, flying to Iran for asylum. The Iranians, who love Saddam even less than we do, never returned the MiGs.

The remainder of the Iraqi air force comes from France and China. The Chinese supplied Saddam with the Chengdu F-7, a copy of the Russian MiG-21. The F-7 can fly from unimproved runways and is known to be a vicious in-close dog fighter.

However, the French Mirage F-1 is reportedly the best jet fighter in Iraqi hands. You can view an Iraqi F-1 in action on the State Department Web site, testing a chemical spraying system.

If you still believe that the Iraqis have no chemical weapons, think again. Iraq did not modify its best multimillion-dollar fighter jet to spray for fruit flies.

Anyone with half of a brain knows that you cannot keep a modern jet fighter in the air without spare parts. Thus the Russian, Chinese and French jets should be museum pieces after 12 years of a so-called U.N. ban on weapons sales to Iraq. Yet somehow Saddam has his air force flying over 1,000 sorties a month.

Thanks to excellent reporting by Bill Gertz we now know that France has been supplying spare parts for Saddam's Mirage fighters. The French spare parts arrived in Baghdad not 20 years ago during the Cold War but last year, just in time to face our forces today.

Merci! With friends like, that who needs enemies?

Iraqi Missiles

Perhaps the Iraqi missile force has some U.S.-made weapons? Not. The primary Iraqi missile is the Russian-made Scud. Other missiles include the FROG-7 from Russia, the Exocet from France and the Silkworm from China.

The Iraqi air defense has plenty of missiles ... from Russia, China and France. The SA-2 Guideline, SA-3 Goa and SA-6 Gainful SAM missiles are all of Russian or Chinese manufacture. The French also supplied Baghdad with a number of Roland air defense missile systems.

Even the missile parts are from Chinese, German and French sources. Israeli authorities know full well what is inside Iraqi-made Scud missiles since many of them fell on Tel Aviv during the Gulf War. The Israelis found that the Scud warhead electronics were made in Germany ÔÇô not the U.S.A.

In addition, William Safire recently wrote a column noting that a Chinese chemical company had supplied rocket fuel to Iraq through a French front company. Safire identified the fuel, the companies and the Iraqi missile facility where it was mixed into new Iraqi rockets. Again, the missile fuel sale was made within the last year, just in time to make new Iraqi missiles pointed at Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saddam sends his love to Paris and Beijing. Without your help he certainly could not threaten his neighbors with nerve gas and anthrax.

Iraqi Army

Okay, if not jet fighters and missiles, then how about tanks? Certainly the biggest weapons seller in the world, the U.S.A., sold tanks to Iraq.

The Iraqi armor force is made up of Chinese and Russian models familiar to any "cold" warrior. The Iraqi T-72 and T-55 tanks are all of Russian manufacture. The Iraqis also have a large number of Type-59 Chinese tanks and Russian-made BMP armored troop carriers. No M-1 Abrams here.

How about attack helicopters? The Iraqis have a number of choppers they used against the Kurds and Shiites.

So sorry, the Iraqi attack chopper force is Russian and French. The Russians supplied Iraq with a large number of the Mil-24 Hind attack helicopters, armed to the teeth with cannon, missiles and even chemical weapon sprayers.

The French supplied Saddam with a large number of Gazelle attack helicopters. The same French also managed to keep Saddam's attack helicopter force flying today with spare parts.

Guns, then? Surely the U.S. supplied Saddam with guns?

Nope. The main Iraqi artillery is the French 155mm howitzer. The remainder of Iraq's artillery is 122mm Russian-made cannons and Russian-made short-range rocket launchers. Even the Iraqi foot soldier is armed with the venerable AK-47 of Russian and Chinese make.

Iran-Iraq War

The facts are that during the Iran-Iraq war the U.S. supplied Iraq with something much more valuable than guns: satellite information on when and where the Iranians were going to attack.

Of course, current anti-war activists seize this piece of information without putting it into historical context. The information was supplied during the height of the Cold War. The main threat to America was the Soviet Union and the biggest fear in the Gulf was the Ayatollah Khomeini.

You remember the chant "death to America"? It almost seems that the ayatollah invented it. Ironically, the Ayatollah made his way to Tehran from his home in exile ÔÇô Paris.

The Reagan administration, aware that the Iranian ayatollah had threatened to turn the Gulf into a sea of fire, assisted Saddam so that he would not lose the war. The assistance stopped short of helping Saddam win the war.

In fact, when it appeared the Iraqis were on the verge of victory, the Reagan administration transferred real weapons to the Iranians. The infamous Iran-Contra scandal involved a large number of badly needed U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles that were sold to Iran.

The U.S. missiles proved to be critical to the Iranian defense against Iraq's superior Russian tank force. The result was a stalemate and the war ended.

France/Russia/China

The fact is that Saddam owes billions to France, Russia and China for weapons purchases. Clearly, Iraq is buying more weapons from Paris and Beijing despite a U.N. arms embargo. Perhaps one reason why Paris, Moscow and Beijing oppose a war in Iraq is because they would lose their best customer.

The propaganda spun by the far left that the U.S. armed Iraq is false and backed by no facts. The so-called anti-war types are more interested in slamming Bush than stopping a war. None have been able to name one American-made weapon in the Iraqi arsenal.

More importantly, none of them can give one good reason why Saddam should stay in power.


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It really is kind of amusing, the BIGGEST antiwar organization is of course A.N.S.W.E.R.

And guess where they get their backing, hmm, well let's find out, shall we?

quote:

Radical relativism and the war in Iraq

| April 05 2003 | Elizabeth Nickson

'Join the other superpower," said the bumper sticker on the back of the clapped out Chevy van on the ferry, "world opinion."

How I wish I could. Just walk right into that ocean of warmly felt righteousness until the waves were over my head, then breathe. But that would mean I had an IQ of twelve. That would mean I conflated Bush and Saddam. That I was somehow convinced that Saddam, causing the death of an estimated 300,000 children, not to mention the brutal torture or murder of unnumbered Iraqi adults over the past 10 years, is somehow equal to this transparent, painstaking invasion that counts and publishes every wound and loss on both sides. And that the hatred and ill will towards the West in the Middle East propagated by their intelligentsia, religious figures, media and leadership is less depraved than, say, the corporate malfeasance that has been so thoroughly investigated, criticized and punished for the past 10 months in the West. That this viciously expensive war has been undertaken by the Americans and British so that Dick Cheney and Haliburton can rebuild the Iraqi oil fields and profit. And that a Jewish cabal in New York is pulling Bush's strings.

We are finally reaping the rewards of postmodernism. Thirty years of radical relativism propagated by my addled and destructive generation in the universities, seemingly unchallenged by parents or university regents adds up to this: People believe that there is no objective truth. Truth has become something to be invented, rather than pursued. Reasoned argument is a tool of white males so has no value. If you feel it, only then can it be true. War feels bad, therefore in every case is bad, and any argument against it will do. Make it up. Exaggerate. Blow conspiracy theories hard. It doesn't matter. People unashamedly complain in the same breath about the Americans not invading Iraq in 1991 to rescue the Kurds, and invading Iraq today. They complain about the Americans not insisting that Kuwaiti women receive the vote after the first Gulf War and that Americans are now planning to seed the principles of democracy in Iraq. If one points out that since 1979, Iraqi median annual income has dropped from a respectable $12,000 a year to less than $3,000, that when Saddam took Iraq in 1979, it had a surplus of $50-billion, and now has a debt of $100-billion solely based on his arms build-up, they waffle and fade, still convinced they are right. This tyrant is on the side of right, the Bush team always wrong. Why? Don't know. Just feel it.

We are living within Vaclav Havel's lie. All the things that we think are true, say the people we pay to teach our treasured youth, are merely the constructs of dominant groups, the creations of the powerful. Last weekend, at an anti-war teach-in, Columbia anthropology professor Nicholas De Genova told 3,000 students and faculty, "Peace is subversive, because peace anticipates a very different world than the one in which we live -- a world where the U.S. would have no place." De Genova continued: "the only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S.military. I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus. If we really [believe] that this war is criminal ... then we have to believe in the victory of the Iraqi people and the defeat of the U.S. war machine." Was De Genova reprimanded? Guess. What would have happened to him had he said the same thing that same weekend in Baghdad? He would have been skinned, dropped in boiling oil, fed through a meat grinder, then plopped down on his family's front lawn with a bill for the grinding attached to the twist tie on the garbage bag.

So what is the difference between Nicholas De Genova, or say, Michael Moore or Martin Sheen's hate-filled, militant, purpose-filled, bourgeois-baiting language and that of Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein? It's merely a matter of degree, since its purpose is fundamentally undemocratic.

Martin Sheen has been arrested 70 times for protesting various things. One might well ask about his associations.
Until now, the largest organization behind the "peace" movement has been International ANSWER, which has been revealed as front for a Marxist-Leninist party with ties to the Communist regime in North Korea. According to a comprehensive, sympathetic report in The New York Times, factions on the left became disturbed that the overtly radical slogans of the International ANSWER protests were "counter-productive." Last fall, they met in the offices of People For The American Way to create a new umbrella organization called United for Peace and Justice that would present a more palatable face to the American public.
The associated Not in Our Name campaign onto which actors and writers piled in huge numbers last month, pays for, almost exclusively the appeals of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, and is organized by a member of the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party. This outfit is closely associated with another which supports the brutal confiscatory dictatorship that is Fidel Castro's.

I followed that Chevy van onto the Vancouver ferry to listen to Mike Harris articulate a new common-sense foreign policy for Canada. It was like having oil poured on an over-heated forehead. Harris described a simple, clear, humane, based-in-history set of ideas that would point us towards a better, saner world. Don't get too excited. Adopting it would mean we still knew how to think.


Did you all see the bold in the article, ANSWER is nothing but a front for Marxists and a propaganda arm of North Korea, HOW INTERESTING, but it is the truth.

There are plenty more where this came from, so if you are so gung ho anti war that you actually go to one of these anti war rallies, guess who you're supporting?

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quote:

There are plenty more where this came from, so if you are so gung ho anti war that you actually go to one of these anti war rallies, guess who you're supporting?


A little behind the power curve on this one. Every left source that I have read about the anti-war position acknowledges this and pretty much agree that these people have a different agenda.

Only a tiny fraction of the millions who oppose this war support the WWP. But I know youÔÇÖre not concerned with this reality.

Funny thing is that all those in the administration who pushed for this war all stand to make huge revenues from the many documented business political relationships....it's hard for me to say someone working in the WWP is any worse than the chicken hawk war profiteers who claim to love profit...er....freedom so much. But go on and wave the flag and disseminate half truths.thats the name of the game with grand ole petroleum.

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