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COMMENTS:
Even if the reasons given by US politians are strewn, this country needed a change now. I'm in Baghdad now. This place needed a facelift 20 years ago. Ashame it wasn't anyone's problem and the world ignored it.
If you really are an American soldier in iraq, shame on you! You have no business being there. Iraqis don't need or want you to be there. You are not there to "free" anyone, you're there to oppress them and take their natural resources. Take a look at other similar polls to read more. I hope you will get killed. People like you deserve it.
by SAS on Tue Jan 13, 04 5:07pm
[+]
American_soldier..You're a straight fucking liar and you know it. There's no way in hell that the Army would let you visit an "unsecure" site like BestandWorst while stationed in Bagdad. You're most likely not even aloud to check your yahoo mail. You're not fooling anyone poser.
SAS, you're just as fucking bad wishing someone dead. Enough said asshole
By the way. Why are you putting shame on soldiers anyway? Last I checked, soldiers go where they go due to a little thing called orders which they get paid to follow. Don't forget about all the other countries foward deployed to Iraq.
"SAS, you're just as fucking bad wishing someone dead. Enough said asshole"
I'm not occupying another country and killing their people. Noboby forced them to join the army. If they get killed, it's because they were brainwashed morons. And I haven't forget troops from other countries. I wish them the same.
Free Iraq!
by SAS on Wed Jan 14, 04 6:16am
[+]
SAS, oh yes I'm here to oppress Iraqis, that's why we're turning over control of Iraq to the Iraqi Governing Council on July 1st. Somebody give you a gold star you are full of bright ideas. Grow up and think on your own, not what's popular at the moment and not what will get you the most attention.
Oh yeah and Dingleberry
In the Army we have separate networks for different sensitivities. Unclassified, classified, etc.
lol, the weapons of mass destuction??? read comment #1
A network administrator for the Army...What's your military occupational specialty? What do you mean when you say you have a private IP? You mean the Army issued it. That doesn't mean it can't be seen by anyone who wants to. Including the moderator of this website. So you say you have picture on yahoo? Well, I would go and look but being stationed in Germany, websense blocks us from sites like that.(while on work computers) That's why I can't understand how someone stationed in Bagdad is allowed on sites other than AKO.
Doesn't that sound a bit weird to you american_soldier?
By the way. I'm a communications specialist in the Army so save that different networks have different sensitivities bullshit. There's no such thing. Be aware that I'm not trying to make enemys with you being we're both apart of the same brotherhood. Just honest debate. Bitch Hahehe
Anyone against the war is fucking absurd. I can understand not wanting to see innocent lives being taken but Jesus Christ! Did you people see what that man was doing to Iraq!? Get over the goddamn issue on how we want oil and power! IF America and Britain never went in there, the number ofinnocent lives taken would exceed the number taken in the war by far. Stop being selfish anfd think outside the fucking border you scum.
By the way.. SAS, you're definetly at the top of the pansy list on this website. Just thought I'd let you know!
ah, websense is a bitch. I'm a 74B. Here's a tip for websense. Go to megaproxy dot com.
Websense cannot deny a secure socket link, but if you don't put in the S in https websense will pick up the site as "Proxy Avoidance"
What I mean by a private IP is that, yes the moderator of this website cannot see it. The moderator of this website cannot see past my firewall where the NAT (network address translator) sits. There is a public IP for the world. Inside our network though we all have private IPs. IPs you cannot reach. When I make a internet request only the public IP is shown. I have 4 routers in between me and the NAT.
LOL, and the different classes of networks, sorry but there is. Heard of Niprnet, Siprnet, and the Trojan network? What kind of commo you work? SEN or LEN? Heard of a Sectera or NES box? That's all for different classes of networks.
Where are you stationed in Germany? I'm out of Weisbaden.
Innocent lives being taken?
Please! Don't open your mouth when you don't have anything intelligent to say. Saddam gassed and killed 5,000 Kurds. Where was your bleeding heart then? Uday used to pick up young girls, rape them and kill them, including one of his govenor's daughters. Where was the outcry then? Simple fact is you don't know what you're talking about. I go on convoys all the time. I see Iraqis carrying AK-47s, which they are allowed to. I don't shoot at them, they don't at me. We restrain ourselves to protect Iraqis even when being attacked by those few who don't want us here.
Guest_0a2d9
once again if you don't know what you are talking about please don't mark yourself as an easy target by commenting.
The United States is not a 3rd world country and is a recognized state, ALLOWED to have WMDs. Funny how oil prices are at an all tme high in the States, maybe it's because we aren't stealing Iraqi oil for ourselves.
Besides North Korea, what other dictatorship poses an immediate threat to the US? Personally I feel we should have gone to North Korea before Iraq, but N Korea is more stabilze because they have China sitting beside them, ready to kick their ass if they even blink wrong towards them.
A fact: The Big 5
The five recognized nuclear countries. USA, Russia, China, England, France.
Also they are the 5 permanent voting members of the UN. There are other countries with nukes, but they aren't recongized by the UN as legit. i.e. Pakistan and India
Ofcourse I've heard of niprnet and siprnet. That's secure and non secure. We weren't allowed nipr while deployed even in Kuwait. While in Iraq, I didn't even have access to a computer and I'm commo(31u) the dirty dawgs. I was in V CORP, but now I'm in Katterbach with 1ID gearing up for another tour to the sandbox once again eventhough I was already there for the initial war.
damn man that sucks you'll be right back out here. Do must have re-enlisted to stay in Germany? Yeah luckily things are much better here and you can get on Nipr. It was slow at first but we've done a lot of streamlining to the satellite and the network. My boy who is in 1 CAV just got to Kuwait. It'll be interesting to see how Iraqis will handle governing themselves. Almost wish I'd be here when they transfer power to the Iraqis.
Oh yeah, I'm in 1st Armored G6 Automation.
Been in Baghdad since April.
I like the nation lives by the sword quote.
Let me add that all nations are born by the sword.
May God Bless Us All
He who has no sin cast the first stone.
nationalreview dot com slash
goldberg slash
goldberg033103 dot asp
This article is old, yet it's still up-to-date as to where we're at with Iraq.
Why don't we ever hold the people responsible for arming Iraq?
Leading the honor roll of chemical agents and production equipment suppliers (in this case nerve gas precursors and manufacturing) to Iraq is the German firm Preussag, now a subsidiary of Europe's largest travel agent and tour operator TUI - happy holidays! And Preussag has long been a firm dear to Schroeder's heart. In early 1998, when Schroeder was running for re-election as prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony which he had governed for eight years, he had the state buy 51 percent of Preussag's troubled steel division to the tune of US$500 million, claiming that 12,000 jobs were at stake. It was a characteristic Schroeder move: he knew that the Social Democrats would appoint him chancellor's candidate if he won in Lower Saxony. Win he did - first in Hannover, later in 1998 at the federal level to become chancellor. What did he know about the Preussag conglomerate's Iraq poison gas dealings? Don't ask.
Dude, I didn't reenlist. I'm stop lossed. You probably will be soon too. I was supposed to get out Spet 11th of 04.
Yep, I just was stop-lossed too. I was getting out April 2004. I was going back to Germany on Jan 13th. Oh well so much for that.
I smell a "draft" man. I used to like Bush and all but it seems like he's paying us extra for for something later on in the near future. Voteing for Bush is like voteing for a draft. Do you agree? What the fuck is up with all this moon mars shit? What happened to the war on terror? Plus, what's up with the immigration bullshit? Seems like he's doing it just for the Mexican communitys vote.. I sense Bush cares very little about his GI Joes. How do you feel about it?
A draft? I don't know man. What I do see is soldiers who ETS getting called back into service. I think if they do that a lot, then they don't need to draft. That little writing in the contract that says 8 years obligatory service. I hate that. I should have read the contract better.
Me too. Shoulda brought a lawyer
Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy.
American soldier, you are seriously naive. USA isn't turning the control over to the Iraqis. Why don't they can't have a democratic election? Instead, the power remains in the hands of the US and few corrupted puppets who are willing to obey the US orders. The usual story. Halliburton now owns Iraq. How can you "liberate" people with bombs? Don't make me laugh. Iraqis are still dying, aren't they. And the resistance continues. I know people who are living in Iraq, and they can confirm that you're full of shit. What the hell do you know about their country? You're an occupier - if you are a soldier in Iraq like you claim to be - an enemy of the Iraqis, they do not want you there. The Iraqis were one of the best educated people in the Middle East before your sanctions destroyed their lives.
Why did America support? Saddam when he was gassing the Kurds? Why did they gave him weapons when he attacked Iran? If you came to "liberate" Iraq, why did you support Laurest Kabila, a ruthless tyrant, instead of liberating Congo? Why did you support the Shah of Iran? Why did you support Batista of Cuba? Why did you support the dictator Idi Amin? How about Pinnochet? Why did you support Suharto? Syngman Khee? Chun Doo Hwan? I could go on, but the point is, USA usually supports dictators and overthrows democratically elected governments all the time when it suits their goals. So don't give me that crap about liberation. You complitely lack the understanding about global politics of the US. They are not liberators, they are murderers.
Funny how you think that USA should have WMD, but not someone else. Your explanation for this is one of the weakest I have come across. USA is still the only country that has used nuclear weapons against civilians. By the way, where are Iraq's WMD? Where is the link to Al-Qaeda?
by SAS on Thu Jan 22, 04 2:16pm
[+]
Bush Drops the Mask
They Died for Halliburton
By DAVID VEST
The mask came off this week. George "No More Beating Around The" Bush came right out and admitted it, on camera no less. American soldiers have died in Iraq, and are still dying, said the Commander-in-Chief, so that Halliburton, Bechtel and other corporate contributors to his campaign can make money.
When it came down to money, Bush dropped all pretense. He blatantly didn't care whether he looked like a villain or a weeping clown.
"It makes sense," said the Selected One, for "countries that have risked lives" to "have the benefit" from the contracts to rebuild Iraq.
Countries that did not support Bush's plan for an unprovoked, shoot-first preemptive strike on Iraq, including countries that merely asked him to hold off for 30 days before invading unilaterally, need not apply.
"Friendly coalition folks risked their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that, and that's what the US taxpayers expect," Bush said.
(No, Mr. President. What US taxpayers expect is a legitimately elected government, a president with some integrity and intelligence, a congress with some courage, clean air to breath and water to drink, a functioning economy, a foreign policy that doesn't make us cringe when we think about it ....)
The naked admission of the war's profit motive is but the most recent example of a new trend in Washington: officials coming right out and admitting the obvious. Recently Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, for example, confessed openly that the entire invasion of Iraq was probably illegal.
Apparently no one in DC sees any need to fear repercussions. This is an administration that no longer cares what anyone thinks about what it thinks. The more it gets away with, the more it wants. If Bush had the slightest apprehension that he might not get his way, he would speak in a different tone with us.
Nevertheless, judging by the initial response to this latest policy pronouncement (it has been met with immediate and overwhelming international condemnation), the plan needs a little tweaking. With the following minor changes, we could perhaps cut the president a little slack and get behind him on this.
ONE, No American company that did business with Saddam Hussein while he was brutalizing his own people should get a contract. This clause would exclude most of the cronies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
TWO, The managers and directors of any company that is found to have overcharged the American people under these contracts should go to jail. (The Pentagon says that Halliburton has already overcharged them by $61 million for gasoline.) If Ashcroft still wants to hold anybody without benefit or trial or counsel, he could start with these folks.
THREE, Since the plan is based on consideration of "those who risked their lives," all profits beyond reasonable and necessary expenses (subject to rigorous independent auditing) should be divided among the families of coalition soldiers who lost their lives in the invasion or suffered long-lasting disabilities. Or is the president under the impression that the lives of Halliburton, Bechtel, Fluor etc. executives were at risk?
FOUR, Since Iraq is pre-eminent among "countries that have risked lives" in this conflict, an amount equal to the total value of all contracts should first be set aside for direct reparations to the families of Iraqi civilians killed or maimed by coalition forces.
FIVE, Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety should be paramount, meaning that the administration of Iraq's natural resources should be turned over at once to the United Nations.
I know, I know, it's nuts. The very sight of Bush on TV these days is enough to drive us crazy. Nothing he says or does can surprise us anymore. His shamelessness knows no limit. Increasingly we simply can't bear to look at him.
David Vest writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He and his band, The Willing Victims, just released a scorching new CD, Way Down Here.
by SAS on Thu Jan 22, 04 2:17pm
[+]
Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
June 27, 2003
"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."
? George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.
There is a small somber box that appears in the New York Times every day. Titled simply "Killed in Iraq," it lists the names and military affiliations of those who most recently died on tour of duty. Wednesday's edition listed just one name: Orenthial J. Smith, age 21, of Allendale, South Carolina.
The young, late O.J. Smith was almost certainly named after the legendary running back, Orenthal J. Simpson, before that dashing American hero was charged for a double-murder. Now his namesake has died in far-off Mesopotamia in a noble mission to, as our president put it on March 19, "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war and nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in the field.
The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth.
What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody:
LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." ? President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
FACT: This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie."
LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." ? President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly."
LIE #3: "We believe has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." ? Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."
FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
LIE #4: " solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." ? CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.
FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested.
LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." ? President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq. To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes.
LIE #6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." ? President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a "manned aerial vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"?
LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." ? President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address.
FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war.
LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." ? Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks ? if they existed ? were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder.
LIE #9: "We know where are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." ? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise.
LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." ? President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts ? including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week ? have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.
So, months after the war, we are once again where we started ? with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger" for which O.J. Smith died. The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was fine; it was their abuse of it that was "faulty."
Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based on impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering his resignation, our sly madman in the White House is starting to sound more like that other O.J. Like the man who cheerfully played golf while promising to pursue "the real killers," Bush is now vowing to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes."
On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. "I said, 'But ? I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.'"
And neither did we.
by SAS on Thu Jan 22, 04 2:18pm
[+]
"By the way.. SAS, you're definetly at the top of the pansy list on this website. Just thought I'd let you know!"
Who cares, Dingleberry. Only someone as immature as you would want to play tough guy in the internet.
by SAS on Thu Jan 22, 04 2:21pm
[+]
Resulted in loss of freedoms, over-intense scrutiny. It will only get worse with Paul Martin in power(yank-appeaser)
Wow, a lot of stuff to respond to today. Well SAS, let me feelings out of the way first.
First off, you don't know shit about being here, and I'm calling you out on your lie, you don't know anyone here. Don't try to act like you do either. No one takes that seriously. My Iraqi friends laugh at people like you who hate us for being here. When you mention Saddam, well don't mention Saddam around them unless you want to hear them curse in Arabic and show true frightened, angry faces. You think that just because a few Sunni Muslims that make up less than 20% of the population are upset that the whole country is upset. You forget that 60% of the Shiite population lived under oppresion by the Sunni Baath Party, and so did the 20% or more Kurds.
Firstly, I do know some Iraqi people, not very closely though. Believe it or not, it doesn't matter to me. Why don't you stop pretenting to be a soldier in Iraq. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you're just saying that to gain credibility about a subject you really know nothing about. If you really were who you say you are, you'd keep your mouth shut about it. Anyway, most people know that internet braggers are fakes, but suit yourself.
Secondly, did I say that Saddam Hussein is a good leader? No, I didn't. He was a tyrant, supported by America. They helped him to get the power, they gave him weapons, they supported him when he gassed the Kurds. He was an ally of the US as long as he danced the American tune. By the way, it was the American ambassador who gave him the green light to attack Kuwait. There are tapes to proove this.
Yes, Saddam was indeed a bad man. An undemocratic tyrant. That's why you supported him because you didn't - and still don't - want democracy to Iraq. The next leader of Iraq will be just as bad as Saddam.
by SAS on Fri Jan 23, 04 11:30am
[+]
Oh, by the way, Baath Party wasn't "Sunni". Most of the Baathists were Sunnis, but they had nothing to do with Sunni Islam. Baath Party was a secular, socialist party.
by SAS on Fri Jan 23, 04 11:39am
[+]
Fake? Nice try, but stop copying me. If you don't believe me go look at my yahoo profile, it has a picture of me. I'll even add in a note for you on recent news. If you still don't believe, then give me an email addy and I'll send you an email from my military account. I'll even send you a pic of me and one of my Iraqi friends.
I hate to be mean, but are you retarded or blinded by hate towards America?
To say we gave the green light to attack Kuwait, LOL, there is no tape for this. We led an attack to push him out of Kuwait, LOL.
I would answer everything else, but as you were busy last week, alas I am busy this week. Really though, I don't want to be mean and I enjoy agruing with you, but keep bringing things worth talking about not stories like that last one. I will get around to thourghly reading all over your arguments and countering them when I can give them the time they deserve. I'll deflect the stupid ones now like that hilarious story.
yahoo profile: swank_777
"To say we gave the green light to attack Kuwait, LOL, there is no tape for this. We led an attack to push him out of Kuwait, LOL."
Goddamn you are ignorant and stupid. The transcript of the tape is available to read if you're willing to do a google search. I tried to paste the transcript here but this website doesn't allow "too long words".
Anyway, it's funny how you just simply ignore all the points I make and move on to the next hot air station.
by SAS on Sat Jan 24, 04 4:35pm
[+]
"Fake? Nice try, but stop copying me."
Copying you? You really ARE pathetic. Try to stand up with your own two feet rather than lying to get some respect.
by SAS on Sat Jan 24, 04 4:39pm
[+]
"If you don't believe me go look at my yahoo profile, it has a picture of me."
I don't give a shit what you look like. All I care if you speak the truth, and you have failed regardng that.
by SAS on Sat Jan 24, 04 4:43pm
[+]
You are a moronic copycat.
American Soldier "First off, you don't know shit about being here, and I'm calling you out on your lie"
SAS "Why don't you stop pretenting to be a soldier in Iraq."
American Soldier "Grow up and think on your own, not what's popular at the moment and not what will get you the most attention."
SAS "Try to stand up with your own two feet rather than lying to get some respect."
Who is copying who? Doesn't take a genius to see you're biting off of what I say to you.
El Camino has a reminder that U.S. Ambassador April C. Glaspie did not tell Saddam Hussein in 1990 that his plans to take over Kuwait were fine with the United States.
Saddam sent the Iraqi army into Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. A coalition led by the United States chased out the Iraqis on Feb. 26, 1991.
The subject of what Glaspie said to Saddam was raised in a broadcast early this month by Alistair Cooke, who said her July 25, 1990, discussion with Saddam was never explained. But Cooke is mistaken.
In fact, Glaspie gave Saddam no consent to a violent settlement of his land dispute with the Kuwaitis. She later was faulted for not insisting more strongly that Saddam not invade Kuwait, but an invasion probably was unthinkable to her at the time.
At one point in her meeting, Glaspie apparently told Saddam, "We dont interfere," referring to a complaint that Saddam had presented to the Arab League about the Kuwait land problem.
Saying the United States would not interfere with an Iraqi-Kuwaiti land dispute was not the same as saying, go ahead, Saddam, invade and annex Kuwait, its no great concern to the United States if you do. Saddam hadn't mentioned attacking Kuwait. He implied he was seeking a peaceful solution.
In May 1991, Iraqs then-deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz confirmed that Glaspie hadn't given Saddam the green light for an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Aziz, who was at the infamous Saddam-Glaspie meeting, said, "She didn't give a green light, and she didn't mention a red light because the question of our presence in Kuwait was not raised."
Now who's the idiot?
Now to answer as many comments you made as I can. We are turning over control to a commitee elected through caucus. We are currently working on an election. It's not a one day deal to turn over a country, whether you'd like to think so or not.
Once again I'm here you aren't how could you possibly know what people think here and how things are going???
You mispelled US Sanctions, I hope it's a typo, because it's UN Sanctions that crippled Iraq and it's Saddam they have to thank. I guess in part we are responsible for building the education back since we removed Saddam and pleaded to the UN to lift sanctions.
The Reagan administration did what many countries do in war, they gave support to their lesser enenmy. Iran was a bigger threat to the world at that time. Fear of an Iraqi collapse lead the US to support Iraq temporarily. US did not support Iraq after 1984. Iraq gassed the Kurds weel after that. We did not support gassing the Kurds, we condemned it.
This is really getting old pick apart your facts mixed with lies.
Too many to give you an opposite for each but here's a couple.
Batista "The conservative President Dwight D. Eisenhower recognized the Batista government on March 27, 1952, clearly that it was not as much interested in democracy as having a docile, pro-American government.
Batista suspended the constitution; replaced Congress with an 80-man consultative council; and dissolved all political parties."
We recognized, never supported, he looked good at the beginning, obviously that didn't last.
Idi Amin
Sorry that was British support. All America did was train a few police officers that worked for Amin in 1973. A note to take is that the CIA Academy trained police officers from all over the world. No favoritism was shown to Amin. That academy closed in 1975.
Need I go on? Everyone you wrote has a similar story.
***Funny how you think that USA should have WMD, but not someone else. Your explanation for this is one of the weakest I have come across. USA is still the only country that has used nuclear weapons against civilians.***
Must I explain this further to a child like intelligence?
There a 5 countries in the modern world that are recongized. We developed such weapons when they were new, the US being the first. Now the UN is primarily ran by these 5 countries. Each of these countries recognize each other and their stability to own such weapons. Unless those 5 nations who have to power to own and govern such weapons decide to disarm among each other, and disarm the world, this will always remain the case. It is not up to you, me, or anyone else to say "disarm". It is up to these 5 countries. It's just the way it is, there is no case for such a thing. They are the world powers. They decide on such things between themselves.
More importantly, they keep rogue, unstable nations from having these weapons for fear of an "avalanche effect". The 5 countries know the other 4 won't use them unless used upon. If a rogue nation gets a hold of these weapons and uses them, especially against one of these 5, then they will use them back. Then if allies are affected, they will use them too, and so on and so on.
In a perfect world WMDs wouldn't exist, but this isn't a perfect world, wake up.
The US had a new weapon and was looking to end a costly and deadly war with Japan. We dropped two on two small cities. They ended a deadly war, Japan only surrendered on the thought we had more, which we did not. The world recognized the horrific power of this weapon and its deterrent effect. Not one has been used in war since, but many produced that have prevented wars. They are a necessary evil.
My turn to copy and paste. This is something to smile about Americans.
1. This is good news that hasn't been fit to print or report on TV.
2. It is much easier to point out the errors a man makes when he makes the tough decisions, rarely is the positive as aggressively pursued.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...
... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.
... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.
... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
... doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to Iraq's children.
... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
... there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end.
... the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
... the central bank is fully independent.
... Iraq has one of the worlds most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
... satellite TV dishes are legal.
... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.
... there is no Ministry of Information.
... there are more than 170 newspapers.
... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
... foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does.
... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
... the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.
... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
... Saudis will hold municipal elections.
... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian - a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.
... Saddam is gone.
... Iraq is free.
... President Bush has not faltered or failed.
... Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the Press corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important.
Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany did
in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths
from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.
It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.
Now, take into account that Congress fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure.
Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our brothers and sisters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and the Bush administration in so short a period of time?
These are things worth writing about. Get the word out. Write to someone you think may be able to influence our Congress or the press to tell the story.
In my final conclusion, I have come to the assumption that you are an idiot.
You spray Anti American hate whenever you have the chance.
You look past the truth and dearly hold onto fanatical opinions from others that fancy your imagination. This is even applies to the Stalin theory from your holocaust posts.
You have no true thoughts or ideas.
You want no one elses opinion.
I gather that much from the fact you haven't posted your own poll. You don't want to hear anyone else's side of things.
You just find a subject that's controversial, find the Anti American theme in it and run with little or no support behind you.
You say your a dude, but call yourself SAS.
You a sassy, idiotic, moron who likes to stir things up and mis inform those around you.
I tell you I'm in Baghdad and to look at a picture to see yourself, you say, I don't care.
You lie about knowing Iraqis and still give no proof you know anyone here.
If you know some Iraqis what are their tribal names?
Since you don't know this, yes all Iraqis do have tribal names, even Saddam.
I hope one day you decide to use your brain on your own.
Open your eyes to how the REAL world operates.
Come home from fantasyland soon.
Yours truly,
American Soldier
Batista:
- Many important sectors of the Cuban economy were owned by American businesses.
- Used US dollars in lavish bribes for his supporters.
- Later, in the Bay of Pigs, some of his supporters along with other anti-Communists tried to invade Cuba after being trained and supported by the CIA.
Idi Amin:
- US played a part in overthrowing Obete's government and helped to get Amin in power.
- US allowed him to refuge in US friendy Saudi Arabia.
To read more about USA's support for dictators:
. better worldlinks . org / book 73e .
(add the three Ws and put H and T and M in the end)
by SAS on Sun Jan 25, 04 11:53am
[+]
Almost all dictators in the Middle East are supported by America.
- Morocco: they have pro USA corrupted king. All the resources in the hand of few people, on the other hand 70% of people have no education or decent life. They are secular country and they encouraging free relations. Only the charitable Islamic organizations are active to save those 70% of the nation by providing free education and medical services inside the mosques.
- Algeria: USA and France gave complete support to the army to kick out the democratic government in 1991, after the Islamic parties won the election. Most of the army leaders are responsible about war crimes (murdering of 100000 civilians).
- Tunisia: one of the worst dictatorships in the world. Many people are suffering in their jails because they voiced their opinion. This government gets complete support from France, Italy and USA since 55 years of dictatorship.
- Libya: Qaddafi is a crazy dictator who is worse than Saddam. He succeeded to secure his future by paying money to Bush and to be "good dictator".
- Mauritania: The dictator of this country has agreement with USA and Israel to protect him for letting the Israeli to burry the nuclear wastes in the Mauritanian desert.
- Kuwait: The dictators of this country get complete protection and support from USA. They do not give any rights for 25% of their nation because they are from other tribes. They are mistreating the foreign workers from south Asia. They are encouraging the sex slavery, also they do not let the people to say their opinion.
- Qatar : This small country is ruled by corrupted prince who kicked out his father by force.
- Bahrain: 85% of people are Shia and have no rights. (worse than Saddam)
- Israel: Theocratic State, created by terrorism and by destroying other nation. They claim that God gave them this land, so they have the rights to kick out the non Jews and to steal their land, homes and crops. While any Jews can get the right to live in Israel/Palestine, they do not let 4 million Palestinian refugees to return back to their homes. Even those non Jews (Muslims and Christian) who have Israeli nationality are treated as 2 class people... They elected war criminal to be their president. Sharon, the Israeli prime Minister, was kicked out from the government in 1982 by an Israeli court for his responsibility about murdering of 3000 civilians in the Palestinian refugees camps.
by SAS on Sun Jan 25, 04 11:59am
[+]
"El Camino has a reminder that U.S. Ambassador April C. Glaspie did not tell Saddam Hussein in 1990 that his plans to take over Kuwait were fine with the United States."
Have you read the transcript? The ambassador made it quite clear that if Saddam would invade Kuwait, USA would have no problem with it.
"We are turning over control to a commitee elected through caucus. We are currently working on an election."
So they are saying. You are really naive. If there will be an election, it will be a complete farce. America doesn't want a democracy in Iraq because it's against their interests. You think elections quarantee democracy? Saddam had elections too and he got 100% of the votes.
"You mispelled US Sanctions, I hope it's a typo, because it's UN Sanctions that crippled Iraq and it's Saddam they have to thank."
UN is just a lapdog of the US. Without America, UN is nothing and is good only for making ineffective statements.
"US did not support Iraq after 1984."
They did support him until 1990. That's a fact.
"There a 5 countries in the modern world that are recongized. We developed such weapons when they were new, the US being the first."
You still fail to give a decent explanation why only these 5 should have WMD. The only reason for this seems to be "might is right". USA is very much a rogue state itself, always invading other countries that don't agree with US. America is a terrorist state and needs to be destroyed.
"The US had a new weapon and was looking to end a costly and deadly war with Japan. We dropped two on two small cities. They ended a deadly war, Japan only surrendered on the thought we had more, which we did not."
It is now a commonly known fact that Japan was about to surrender before you used nukes, but then you wouldn't have anyone to test your new weapon so you used Japanese civilians as guinea pigs.
You're a pretty boring fellow to debate with. All you do is just simply deny the facts and spew some patriotic propaganda. All the things I said can be verified if you're willing to some work, but obviously you don't want to accept the truth or you're just simply a lazy brainwashed dork.
by SAS on Sun Jan 25, 04 2:11pm
[+]
You are stupid.
**They did support him until 1990. That's a fact***
Sorry, but no it is not. The Reagan administration was the only one to recognize Iraq in support. We just kept up tabs on Saddam after that.
***It is now a commonly known fact that Japan was about to surrender before you used nukes, but then you wouldn't have anyone to test your new weapon so you used Japanese civilians as guinea pigs.***
Now that is the biggest crock of shit I've ever read in my entire life.
Just the opposite is widely known. The Japanese do not know the word "surrender". When losing they fight to the bitter end. They were arming women and children with spears on the mainland. They were using "kamikaze" sucicidal tatics in warfare. They would not surrender. We carefully chose the cities we drop nukes on. Take notice we just didn't drop one on Tokyo. We chose cities that wouldn't damage population or culture severely. You are so stupid.
***You still fail to give a decent explanation why only these 5 should have WMD.
Why are you the only person in the world to fail to see the reality of this situation. Who is going to disarm nuclear countries? Non-nuclear ones? Yes in this case might is right. Sad but true. America a terrorist state? Now I'm done talking to you. I hope others read this to see how hatefully stupid you really are.
I figured this deserved another posting.
In my final conclusion, I have come to the assumption that you are an idiot.
You spray Anti American hate whenever you have the chance.
You look past the truth and dearly hold onto fanatical opinions from others that fancy your imagination.
This is even applies to the Stalin theory from your holocaust posts.
You have no true thoughts or ideas.
You want no one elses opinion.
I gather that much from the fact you haven't posted your own poll.
You don't want to hear anyone else's side of things.
You just find a subject that's controversial, find the Anti American theme in it and run with little or no support behind you.
You say your a dude, but call yourself SAS.
You a sassy, idiotic, moron who likes to stir things up and mis inform those around you.
I tell you I'm in Baghdad and to look at a picture to see yourself, you say, I don't care.
You lie about knowing Iraqis and still give no proof you know anyone here.
If you know some Iraqis what are their tribal names?
Since you don't know this, yes all Iraqis do have tribal names, even Saddam.
I hope one day you decide to use your brain on your own.
Open your eyes to how the REAL world operates.
Come home from fantasyland soon.
Yours truly,
American Soldier
ps Where's those tribal names?
An example of common stupidity from SAS.
"We are turning over control to a commitee elected through caucus. We are currently working on an election." SAS-So they are saying. You are really naive. If there will be an election, it will be a complete farce. America doesn't want a democracy in Iraq because it's against their interests. You think elections quarantee democracy? Saddam had elections too and he got 100% of the votes.
Well now Mr SAS how in your grand thinking did you become the definitive source for elections in Iraq. How did you know they'll be farce? Are you part of the committee arranging them?
When did you become the spokeperson for the American interest in Iraq? How do you figure Saddam got elected 100% every time? Not one person in the entire country wanted someone different? Even with 60% Shiites who were religously oppresed under Saddam?
You are so stupid it's funny, LOL
SAS- post all you want but I'm done with you. You waste my time. I don't respect your opinions because you don't mine or anyone for that matter. You find American hate websites to produce your mis information. I give documents from cnn and government archives. I show you that the deputy minister of Iraq says himself there was no green light, and you say un-uh read the transcript. I have and there is no mention of invading or annexing Kuwait! Saddam speaks of a peaceful solution, not war.
Iraq deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz confirmed that Glaspie hadn't given Saddam the green light for an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Aziz, who was at the infamous Saddam-Glaspie meeting, said, "She didn't give a green light, and she didn't mention a red light because the question of our presence in Kuwait was not raised."
This is a prime example of why I'm no longer interested in debating with you. In an obvious case like the one above, you will not admit you are wrong. You would like to continue to believe in the American hate you spew even when it's false.
January 21, 2004
Rigged Votes and Puppet Governments
By Dave Lindorff
With Iowa just having dramatically demonstrated to us the
unpredictability of the democratic process, you start to understand
what's motivating all those Shiite demonstrators in Iraq .
They see how Bush and his viceroy, L. Paul Bremer, and their handpicked
quisling officials in the provisional authority, are trying to rig the
summer "sovereignty" exercise by running elections through open ballot
caucuses, and are demanding instead an election by universal suffrage .
Of course, if there were a real open one-person, one-vote election in
Iraq, odds are that the outcome would be a government that would
promptly demand that the U.S. pull out, immediately, lock, stock and
barrel .
That's why Bremer is running back and forth between his Baghdad palace
and Washington, and inviting in the UN, trying to come up with some
kind of a scheme in which the government could be somehow elected, but
would have to agree in advance not to order the US to leave. Some
kinda "sovereignty! "
I checked my dictionary, and the definition of the term sovereignty was
"supreme and unrestricted power." That's pretty unambiguous wording .
Clearly if you have a government, but it can't tell an occupying army to
scram, you don't have a sovereign government .
Although the corporate media is still content to repeat uncritically the
White House's use of the term sovereignty, the dictionary definition of
the word is rather hard to get around, and it makes a joke of the so
called "handover of sovereignty" being planned by Washington for Iraq
for this June or July. In fact, contemplating Iraq's future
administration, the term "puppet government" comes most readily to mind.
My dictionary defines that as "a state that appears independent but is
controlled by another. "
At least in Hong Kong, when they talked about the handover of
sovereignty in 1997, the British and the Chinese didn't play games.
Everyone knew were talking about handing the sovereignty over Hong Kong
from the British to the Chinese, not a handover of sovereignty to the
people of Hong Kong .
In the current instance, what we're talking about is the handover of
sovereignty in Iraq from the U.S. tothe U.S .
No wonder tens of thousands of angry people are marching in the streets
of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities demanding a real election .
What they need to remember, though, is that we have a president here in
the Land of the Free and the Brave who has every reason to fear such a
process, not just in Iraq, but at home in America.
Bush knows he himself would not be president today if the U.S.
presidential election in 2000 had been conducted by universal suffrage
rules. He lost the popular election by over half a million votes .
No wonder he favors a rigged system in Iraq .
Meanwhile, beware the blowback of American imperialist election fraud
overseas .
The same folks who are busy trying to limit, restrict and manipulate the
operation of democracy in Iraq, such as it is, are also busy here at
home trying to do the same thing .
While the Democrats busily play the preliminary game of democracy in the
primaries, the Bush election juggernaut is hard at work rigging the real
game that will be played next November .
Hence the gerrymandering of congressional districts in key states like
Pennsylvania and Texas, which will virtually ensure that the next
congress will be Republican, whoever is president. Hence the effort to
pack as many conservatives onto federal and state benches as possible
before then. And hence the push to get all states to buy into electronic
voting, which will mean using computers made by companies owned and run
by Republican campaign backers, which are demonstrably easy to hack and
cheat with, and which leave no paper trial .
Americans, and the Democratic presidential candidate, whomever he may be
come next July, should watch Iraq carefully this spring and early
summer. It may indeed turn out to be a dry run for the November election
here in the U.S. Watch for massive fraud, courtesy of the likes of
Diebold Corp's voting machines, and the mysterious disenfranchisement of
a majority of the Shiite electorate .
What, by the way, do you call a democracy where the people no longer
have sovereignty ?
My dictionary suggests the term dictatorship: "a system of government
where the ruler is not bound by a constitution or laws ."
by SAS on Mon Jan 26, 04 5:32am
[+]
The role of Saddam Hussain in serving the aims of America in the Middle East
In order to appreciate the role of Saddam Hussain in serving the American aims in the Middle East, it is imperative to outline the international struggle over that particular region and specifically over the Gulf region during the second half of this century. Despite the fact that the international struggle over the Gulf is part of the struggle over the whole region, it is however important to lend it special attention due to the extreme importance that this particular region enjoys vis-a-vis those countries who are seeking to exploit the Islamic world, due to what its lands contain in terms of huge reserves of oil that are practically unmatchable up until now.
Despite the fact that as a substance, oil has been used by man for thousands of years, its importance however did not come to light until this century. The means of life in all its various aspects, be it military or civilian, have increasingly become more and more dependent on this commodity. It would be also right to say that no country in the world today could do away with oil for one single moment, and the more advanced and industrialised the country, the greater its dependence on this commodity and the more vital to its progress it becomes. Oil has become the main source of energy in the whole world and an economically viable substitute is not expected to be discovered in the foreseeable future despite all the research and the experiments undertaken by the industrial countries in this field. The Western Oil companies which worked in the Gulf region in the wake of the First World War, viewed oil at first as a mere commercial commodity. They competed for it in terms of exploration and production, due to its lucrative profits. However, in the wake of the Second World War, this competition soon turned into a struggle between the states to which these companies belonged.
One of the paradoxes is that all the oil companies that used to work in the oilfields of the Middle East were European at first until Britain deemed it fit to attract the American companies to the region with the aim of making the United States of America share the burden of defending the region from the communist threat that started to be imminent at that time. Due to the expansion in the use of oil as a source of energy in the various means of transport be it land, sea or air and in the industrial plants in their various types and in both military and civilian fields, this strategic commodity was no longer a mere commercial commodity but a vital substance of extreme importance. This led to the competition changing from a mere commercial competition between the Western oil companies to a struggle between the states to which these companies belonged in order to dominate all the oilfields. And with the emergence of certain studies during the 1970s indicating the possibility of the oil wells drying up within a few decades, the international struggle intensified over oil and the control of its rich wells, especially in the region of the Gulf, which contains huge reserves. This struggle becomes a vital issue for most of the influential countries in the world.
In the Middle East, which the Gulf region is a part of, this struggle coincided with the American attempts to evict Britain from the region and Britains own attempts to cling to her influence in the region through her response to the American attempts. It can be said that one of the greatest successes of America with regard to this struggle was achieved in the fifties, when she took control of Egypt in 1952 and set about building the leadership of Jamal Abdul-Nasser over all the Arabs. She used the gravity of Egypt in the region and the popularity of Jamal Abdul-Nasser amongst the people of the Middle East in an attempt to eradicate the British influence in the whole region. In an attempt to confront this American expansion in the region Britain did not remain idle but tried to cling to every single country that was under her dominance and also endeavoured to regain what she had lost. She also concentrated her efforts in attempting to eliminate Jamal Abdul-Nasser both from within and outside of Egypt. Therefore she exploited the animosity between Jamal Abdul-Nasser and Al-Ikhwaan Al-Muslimeen and the party of Al-Wafd. She also conspired with France and Israel in order to stage an attack on Egypt in 1956. Then she conspired with Israel in 1967 in the war known as the Six Day War which also targeted the eradication of Jamal Abdul-Nasser. Britain nearly succeeded in doing so. The Suez crisis, in which Britain openly took part, was the first war that London had staged in the Middle East since the Second World War in order to defend her influence and her interests. However America in her first open intervention in the region since the 1940s foiled this attack and forced France, Britain and Israel to withdraw completely from the lands and the territorial waters of Egypt. Part of the pressure exerted on Britain specifically in order to force her to withdraw from Egypt was the instruction that America gave to the oil tankers not to offload their oil in the British seaports unless Britain complied with the American demands.
Britain learnt from this experience a very harsh lesson that she did not forget in a hurry. She also concluded two things from this experience: First she must under all circumstances secure her oil supplies. Secondly, she must convulse America's dominion over the oil markets of the world and regain the initiative from her if she could.
The American dominance over the oil markets at that time was reflected in the Seven Sisters. The Seven Sisters were the seven oil companies, most of them American that dominated the oil markets up until 1970. They controlled about 90 % of the world's oil reserves. They also controlled about 80 % of the world's overall oil production and about 80% of global oil refining capacity. The Seven Sisters dominated also the oil markets in a virtually absolute manner. They also owned about 50 % of the oil and gas tankers in the world. These companies used to buy oil from the countries and the companies that produced it in addition to what they also produced themselves and undertake to market it all throughout the world which made them have the final say in deciding the price of oil and also in production levels. The control of these huge operations used to be and still is undertaken by the Seven Sisters' board of directors, based in one of Dallas's skyscrapers.
In order to put an end to this American dominance over oil and its marketing, Britain laid down a long-term plan and started implementing in the late fifties. She inspired her agents in oil-producing countries to form an organisation that would have a worldwide presence in all the oil-producing countries so that these countries, through this organisation, would have say in oil policies including both production and marketing. Therefore OPEC come into being in 1960 and it soon set about manoeuvring in order to influence and dominate oil policies, and since most of the member states were under the British influence, the dominance of Britain over the oil markets started to increase significantly at the expense of the American dominance, especially in the wake of the OPEC's establishment i.e. the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. In terms of securing her oil needs, Britain started to explore and drill for oil in her lands and in the seas which surround the British Isles and she was not successful in finding any oil except in the North Sea and due to the bad weather in that region, the extraction of oil was very expensive. In order to guarantee the financing of this vital project, according to the estimation of the British politicians at that time, London inspired her agents from amongst the rulers of the oil-producing countries to nationalise their oil companies and most of these companies were British. Hence, she was able to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand she received huge amounts of money as a compensationfor her coand on the other hand she put an end to the dominance of the American companies over the production of oil in those countries.
This resulted in Britain becoming an oil exporting country and she was no longer at the mercy of anyone in terms of guaranteeing her needs of this vital commodity. The dominance of the British agents over the oil markets started to show in the wake of the nationalisation process because these oil-producing countries started to export oil themselves and even established their own tanker fleets to transport oil and gas, as was the case with most of the Gulf countries. Therefore the influence of the Seven Sisters over the oil markets diminished a great deal because they lost most of the marketing operations in the countries that were under British influence. The dominance of the British agents over the oil markets became apparent in the wake of the 1973 war between the Arabs and Israel because the British agents at that time, lead by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, raised the banner of the oil weapon and started controlling the oil market by giving it to the countries deemed as friendly whilst denying it to countries deemed hostile to the Arabs. Additionally they started to take charge of oil prices and raised them to levels which damaged most of the oil-importing countries especially the western industrial countries and Japan. It is true that America herself is an oil exporting country, and that her companies were amongst the first to benefit from the rise of the price of oil and they even played a leading role in raising these prices but the issue for America was not an issue of profit and loss but rather an issue of dominating the oil market and what this dominance means in terms of political influence; therefore it did not take too long before America started to lay down the plans in order to regain her dominance over the oil markets.
America started by launching a successful propaganda campaign amongst oil-importing countries that suffered due to the rise in oil prices. One of the most prominent features of this campaign was to portray the oil sheikhs as being ignorant and primitive and imply that the civilised world should not allow them to control this vital commodity and exploit it for their own purposes. As a direct response, the industrial countries started to raise the prices of manufactured goods under the pretext that the cost of production had also increased due to the increase in oil prices, despite the fact that the rise in the prices of manufactured goods was not commensurate with the relatively small increase in the cost of production caused by the increase in oil prices. Furthermore, Washington set about working secretly towards toppling the British agents and replace them with her own agents especially in the Gulf region. The campaign started with the assassination of King Faisal so that her agent Fahad, the heir apparent, could take control of Saudi. In Iraq, America started to consolidate the position of Saddam Hussain by instructing him to end the Kurdish rebellion led by Mullah Mustafa Biarazi in northern Iraq. He complied thanks to the Algiers Agreement of 1975 which ended the struggle between Iran and Iraq over the Shatt-al Arab waterway by splitting it in half between the two countries. One of the main conditions of this particular agreement was that Iran, in the days of the Shah, would also work towards ending the Kurdish rebellion and indeed this rebellion was ended and Al-Barazi spent the rest of his life in Florida.
Washington also worked towards igniting the Iranian revolution in 1978 through exploiting the popularity of Khomeini who used to live in Iraq and was very popular in Iran both amongst the people and the mullahs. Once Saddam Hussain became the strong man in Baghdad, he managed to discard al-Bakr and replace him as President of Iraq in 1978. Therefore America dominated three of the most important countries in the Gulf region - Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. The only countries left for her to dominate were the other Gulf States ruled by Emirs and Sheikhs their position was entrenched due to their affiliation to certain tribes. These tiny states had huge amounts of oil riches at their disposal and America deemed that the ideal method to subjugate these rulers was to frighten them and drive them to embrace her as their protector. The execution of this plan involved several schemes so that each time a scheme failed she would augment it with another scheme. The first plan was to inspire Iran, once Khomeini has become the undisputed leader in 1979, to promote the banner of exporting the revolution. This took into account the presence of huge numbers of Iranians in the most of the Gulf States and also exploited the fact that a significant proportion of citizens in these states were followers of the Jaafari Math'hab. Most of these people identified with Khomeini as the leader of the only Shiite country in the region and the supporters of Khomeini carried out numerous political activities in these countries. These activities caused a great deal of concern amongst the leaders of these countries, especially in Kuwait, and it would have been only natural for them to seek American help after these events, but the regimes managed to contain the situation and put a stop to Iranian movements inside their countries.
Americas other plan was to encourage the Soviet Union to occupy its neighbour Afghanistan in 1979. The American agent Babrak Carmel was living in exile in Czechoslovakia when suddenly he turned up in Kabul to lead a military coup in the name of Communism and this coup led to a situation of strife which engulfed the whole of Afghanistan. This in turn led the Soviet Union to invade. America denied any knowledge about the huge military presence on the Afghan borders despite the fact that the spy satellites can detect something the size of a cigarette packet on the ground. Therefore they could not have made a mistake about the presence of huge territorial armies numbering about 80,000. This confirmed the knowledge of Washington and her consent to this operation was reflected in the statement she made few days after the invasion, namely that Russia had some vital interests in Afghanistan.
Washington also exaggerated the dangers of this operation over the Indian sub continent and the Gulf region and she called the countries which were under the threat of the Soviet Union as the "Trucial States"
Meanwhile Carter, the American President, declared the Gulf as being a strategic area for the security of the United States and this declaration became known as the Carter Doctrine. He also dispatched Bzrezinski, his National Security Advisor, to Pakistan on an emergency mission. Bzrezinski spoke of the imminent communist threat and of old Russian plans to reach the warm waters and he also highlighted the importance of resisting such a threat. The American agents in the region started to send the "Mujahideen to Pakistan so that they could go from there to Afghanistan and participate in confronting the disbelieving communists and putting a stop to the danger of atheism in the Muslim lands as if Capitalism, led by America, is not a disbelieving creed and as if America was concerned about Islam and the Muslims. American officials made several trips to the Gulf States, exaggerated the communist threat and proposed American protection. The Gulf States rulers, all British agents at the time, were not fooled by this scheme and refused to accept Washington's proposals.
Therefore, these American planners came up with a very devious plan which involved starting a war between Iraq and Iran in a manner that which would make fear creep into the hearts of the Gulf rulers. Tension started to escalate between Iraq and Iran in response to Washingtons designs until the matter reached the level of an explosion and Saddam Hussain attacked Iran. He concentrated his territorial attack on what we call Arabstan, which is situated in the southwest of Iran. The ruler of Iraq gave the impression that his war against Iran was preventive because Iran had tried to export her revolution and some Iraqi weretrying to destabilise Iraq. Therefore a ferocious war broke out between the two Muslim countries which lasted 8 years and led to enormous devastation - especially in Iraq. A few days after the outbreak of hostilities the American Secretary of State, Edmond Maskey, and the Russian Foreign Secretary, Andrei Gromyko, held a meeting, which lasted an hour and a half, whilst they were attending the ordinary session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York. They talked about the Iran-Iraq war and issued a statement that they were both going to be neutral in this war and called upon other countries to also remain neutral and not to supply any of the two parties with weapons. The joint statement did obviously include an appeal to the two warring countries to put an end to the hostilities between them. This statement also indicated in a explicit manner that the two supposed super powers were happy about the continuation of the war. Therefore these two countries ignored their role, stipulated by the United Nations charter, of maintaining peace and security in the world in their quality as permanent members of the Security Council. As for the British agents in the region, they were forced to side with Iraq, finance her and even supply her with fighters in order to prevent what they deemed as their frontline ditch from crumbling in the face of the Iranian threat. What is remarkable is that during the eight-year war, the conflict was concentrated around Basra. This gives us a clear indication of the aim of this particular war since Basra is near the Kuwaiti border and Kuwait was then the Leading Gulf State. Therefore intimidating Kuwait and forcing her to accept American protection would also lead to other Gulf States seeking American protection. It is true that Kuwait was very alarmed every time Iran achieved some military advantage in the Basra region but this particular fear did not lead her to seek American protection. Her reaction was to merely supply Iraq with funds to buy weapons. As a means of tightening her grip around the Gulf States as a whole and Kuwait in particular, America inspired Saddam to extend the scope of the war to the Gulf waters as well. Therefore Iraqi war planes started to bomb Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and Iran retaliated by attacking any oil tankers sailing in the Gulf, especially those heading towards Kuwait because she used to supply money and logistic help to Saddam Hussain. At this moment the fears of the Gulf States, including Kuwait, intensified which led her to accept the concept of allowing American flags to be placed on her oil tankers especially over the commercial ships which were sailing to and from her seaports. America deemed this initiative as encouraging but not sufficient. Therefore she planned a host of other initiatives in order to increase the fear of Kuwait in the hope that she would surrender to America completely. These measures undertaken by America were reflected in Saddam Hussain's surrendering of Al-Faw to Iran in a lightening military operation that lasted one single night. America's aim was to give Iran a platform from which she could launch her Chinese Silk Worm missiles over Kuwait because the range of those missiles did not exceed one hundred miles, but if launched from Al-Faw, the range was enough to reach Kuwaiti lands. Even a brief scrutiny of Irans occupation of Al-Faw would indicate clearly that Al-Faw has no strategic importance with regard to the Iraq-Iran war because this particular peninsula is separated from the rest of the Iraqi lands by a host of natural obstacles, namely the swamps and the soft ground which separate the peninsula from Basra. Besides, the war continued after the occupation of Al-Faw for a relatively long time. However Iran did not benefit at all from this operation, the only benefit that arose from occupying Al-Faw was Irans ability to hit Kuwait with the missiles and scare her rulers and her inhabitants. Another proof that the occupation of Al-Faw was aimed at scaring Kuwait is the statement made by the Iranian ambassador to Kuwait on the morning that Al-Faw was occupied. He contacted the Amir of Kuwait and said to him that they had become now neighbours. In order to conceal the fact that Saddam Hussain surrendered Al-Faw, he executed a host of senior officers who were stationed around Al-Faw region accusing them of negligence and treason and in order to divert attention from the fact that he surrendered Al-Faw the Iraqi Leader mobilised three divisions in a confrontation with Iran around Al-Faw region pretending that he was determined to regain Al-Faw. After a while he withdrew those divisions under the pretext that there were so many natural obstacles and that any attack on Al-Faw would be too costly. Once Saddam had withdrawn those divisions he said that they could stay where they were and we could stay where we were.
Once again the American officials went to Kuwait and offered the protection of America to Kuwait and they also suggested having military bases in Kuwait so that they would be able to protect and defend Kuwait if there was any immediate danger and if the Iranians were to attack Kuwait. However the Amir of Kuwait proposed to America instead to establish an artificial island in the sea which would be used to stockpile American supplies and weapons, under the pretext that giving Washington a military base on Kuwaiti land would make the people angry. Naturally America rejected this proposal because her real aim was to have a foothold on Kuwaiti soil. Once America realised that she had failed in achieving her objective through the Iran-Iraq war, despite the fact that it lasted several years, and in the light of the medical reports concerning the deteriorating of the health of Khomeini, she started to take certain measures to order to end the war. She wanted to end the war before Khomeini died because it is well known that if Khomeini had died before it had ended his successor would not dare to end this war until the aim of this war had been achieved. This aim, determined by Khomeini himself, was to topple the regime of Saddam and establish an Islamic Republic in Iraq.
Despite the fact that the financial burden of this war was financed initially by Saudi Arabia and then Kuwait, America granted Iraq a host of agricultural loans totalling about $5 billion. This was deposited in "Internationale" Bank in Atlanta, from where it was transferred to purchase military equipment from the United States. One of the most important items that Iraq purchased from the American market at the time was a huge computer which played a very significant part in the development of Iraqi missiles and their control systems. Additionally, this technology allowed the Iraqis to decipher and decode satellite images.
Therefore America decided to end the war and she procured UN resolution 598 from the Security Council. The resolution demanded the two countries suspend military operations as a prelude to ending the war and forging a peace treaty. However, Iran refused to accept a resolution at first under the pretext that Iraq should be held responsible for staring the war in the first place whilst Iraq immediately declared her acceptance of this resolution and her readiness to execute it as soon as the other party accepted this particular resolution.
A few months after this resolution, America caused Khomeini to end the war but it was important for America to stage a scenario where Khomeini would not lose face. Therefore a decision was taken to assign to the American agent Rafsanjani responsibility for supervising the war as a deputy to Khomeini. Rafsanjani took several measures and withdrew Iranian forces from Al-Faw and from the area of Majnoun Islands. This allowed the Iraqi forces to occupy these areas in a lightning strike lasting less than two days and the Iraqi forces started to cross into Iranian lands as if there was nobody there to defend these lands. Rafsanjani submitted a report about the situation to Khomeini, which made him declare an end to the war in a dramatic fashion. He said that it waeasier for him drink poison rather than to declare acceptance of the Security Council resolution 598, however, continued pursuance of the war, according to the understanding of those in charge, would lead to the destruction of the country and the people.
Therefore the war came to an end and Saddam Hussain emerged as a hero despite the fact that this war which he ignited in order to serve American designs had cost Iraq and Iran over 2 million lives between them. The war cost Iraq tens of billions of dollars in debts, devalued the Iraqi Dinar to about a tenth of its value (or even less) and left every single Iraqi household with a victim in the form of a dead person, a prisoner, someone maimed or injured.
It is also known that countries that have vital interests will never cease to design plans and schemes in order to achieve their objectives. Each time a plan fails they put another plan in motion in order to achieve these objectives. A country that ceases to design plans and schemes in order to achieve her objectives is a country destined to lose her standing, even if she was a super power.
As for the Superpower of the world, whether she is single-handedly running the world or superior to her competitors, each time a plan fails she will concoct another plan until she achieves what she is aiming for. The last American plan for dominating the Gulf region and even the whole of the Middle East was to inspire Iraq to occupy Kuwait without harming the ruling family. The restoration of this family to its ruling status served as a lesson to the other Gulf States to accept the embrace of Washington, and indeed this has taken place. In any case America would have never allowed an Islamic country to annex another country by force in case it set a precedent which will awaken hope in the hearts of the Muslims of the possibility of achieving their union even by force once they are freed from the yoke of Kufr and once they establish the Khilafah.
The operation in Kuwait resulted in the capitulation of the Kuwaiti ruling family, together with the rest of the Gulf rulers. Hence, the American dominance over the Gulf was complete. The rulers of the Gulf states established a series of military and security agreements with Washington and they consented to the US airforce, the infantry and the navy being stationed in their lands and their territorial waters. America acquired total dominance over these countries and she had the final say over these countries in terms of political, economic and military decisions and she has also dominated all the Gulf oil starting from Iran and ending by the United Arab Emirates, passing by Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain and Qatar. This dominance enabled America to control the oil prices and production in the Gulf and use this whenever she deemed fit against Japan and the other Western States and this obviously was dependent on her continued dominance over the Gulf States. In order to guarantee her dominance over the whole region America adopted the policy of dual containment. This theory is on the surface aimed at protecting the Gulf States from the two dangers - namely the Iraqi and Iranian dangers - but in essence it is aimed at seeking the help of Iraq and Iran in consolidating the dominance of America over the rest of the Gulf States. Saddam Hussain has played, and still plays, a very ugly role in this policy through maintaining the embargo over his own country and starving his own subjects and depriving them from the basic needs of sustenance. Saddam Hussain does not stop causing problems with the inspection team of the United Nations, UNSCOM, working in Iraq in order to ensure that Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. The United States uses this as an excuse in order to mobilise her forces in the Gulf region and strike Iraq in order to keep her at bay. Meanwhile the Gulf states are terrified that Saddam Hussain might attack them in order to retaliate against the American forces. This causes these countries to acquiesce to America wishes - namely that American forces should continue to be stationed in their lands and the cost be borne by the Gulf states. As for Iran she continues to raise the banner of confronting the forces of the great Satan in the Gulf and she always undertakes manoeuvres in the Gulf waters and its coastlines which also provokes the fear of the Gulf States over a potential confrontation between America and the Iranian forces which may lead to an air of instability in the region, where the American forces are deployed. In addition to this, Iran always causes tension between her and the United Arab Emirates over the three islands which Iran had occupied in the Gulf during the Shahs reign.
The aims of this theory of dual containment are not a secret to anyone, including the rulers of the Gulf themselves. However, perceiving matters is one thing and taking a stance on the basis of these perceptions is something else - especially if this stance means confronting the worlds only Super Power capable of harming any country who thinks about confronting her. The role which Saddam Hussain has undertaken in serving the American purposes did not confine itself to the Gulf region alone but its has also a host of regional effects which are of greater dimension in addition to the international effects. At the international level America has exploited the occupation of Kuwait to generate an international alliance in order to expel Iraq from Kuwait and this alliance has included major countries such as Britain, France and also other countries of less importance including some Arab states and others from the Islamic world as well. America has made this alliance implicitly and explicitly ackowledge her international position and her unilateral dominance over world politics especially since the Kuwait incident coincided with the demise of the Soviet Union. As for the regional plane, Saddam Hussain has bombed Tel Aviv and sent an American message to Israel with the aim of making the Israeli people and the Israeli government understand that to rely solely on military superiority over the Arabs is a myth and that the secure borders are not established on a geographical basis. Therefore Israel was prepared for what Bush had declared immediately after the Gulf War that he will start to solve the Middle Eastern crisis according to a specific basis and Israel as a result entered in to the Madrid talks. These are the most important aims which Saddam Hussain has enabled Washington to achieve in the Gulf, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the International Situation. All of this has been achieved and is still being achieved at the expense of the skulls of the people in Iraq and at the expense of the starvation of the people in Iraq and by allowing them to be deprived of the basic means of sustenance. However, Saddam does not care, all that he is concerned about is pleasing his paymasters, thinking that this pleasing of his masters will be enough to keep him in power. Little do the agents of America, and agents of countries other than America, realise that what they provide to their masters in terms of services will not prevent them from being thrown away and discarded like an old pair of shoes is discarded. They will be thrown in the dustbin of history when the vital interests of these countries are served elsewhere or when their removal is convenient whilst taking no account of their previous services as agents. What is also very painful is that Saddams war with Iran and his occupation of Kuwait has harmed the whole of the Islamic Ummah. He has destroyed the Islamic values, the values of fraternity and unity between the Muslims and the sanctity of their blood amongst themselves. This has caused a great deal of damage with regard the serious and sincere work towards reviving the Ummah and resuming the Islamic way of life. The collaboration of Saddam Hussain with America is old and the Party has in the past exposed it in 1975 before and after the agreement of Shatt-al-Arab in Algiers and it has also confirmed this in the leaflet which it issued regarding the visit of Fahd to Iraq which was dated 13th 1975 in which the Party hthat this visit and the meetings which took place during this visit between Saddam and Fahd, the two agents of America, indicated that America wanted to give Iraq a role in the Gulf. It is very likely that the collaboration of Saddam with America started when he lived in Cairo for a few years in the mid sixties after he fled Iraq in the wake of his participation in an attempt by the Baath party to assassinate Abdul Kareem Kassim in 1961. It is true that the Baathists did collaborate with the British agents in the coup détat of t 17th July 1968, but they soon got rid of the British agents in another coup on the 30th of the same month. They then took power single-handedly and aligned themselves with Jamal Abdul-Nasser of Egypt. Despite the fact that Ahmed Hussain al-Bakr who remained President of the republic was a British agent, most of his associates in power were with Jamal Abdul-Nasser - especially Salih Mahdi Ammash, Taha al-Jazrawi and Saddam Hussain. Those three people were like a Mafia within the authority itself and they took their opportunity when Saddam Hussain assumed the leadership of the Iraqi intelligence body. They took this opportunity to launch a campaign, lasting several years, to eliminate British agents within Iraq and on several occasions hanged the British agents having accused them of treason in military courts. The British agents deserved to die because of the treason they perpetrated against their Ummah, and those who executed them also deserved to be hanged because they were agents of America and they were traitors to their Ummah. What is worth mentioning in this context is that Taha al-Jazrawi was one of the most prominent military judges at the time, and he played a major part in eliminating British agents. Taha al-Jazrawi is the same man who is now called Taha Yasin Ramadhan, who at present assumes the role of Saddams deputy.
Once their influence in Iraq shrunk as a result of Saddam Hussains consolidation of power, the British agents have attempted to overthrow the Baath movement in Iraq and they concocted a plan in collaboration with al-Bakr, who was still President of the Republic, to stage a coup led by Hardan at Tikriti who had previously been forced to flee iraq by the American agents. Hardam came to Kuwait and he started to prepare himself in order to move to Baghdad. At the 11th hour however, the Americans found out about the reasons of his presence in Kuwait and while Hardan was undergoing medical tests in one of the hospitals in Kuwait, an Iraqi assassination squad intercepted him , killed him and fled to the Iraqi Embassy. The rules of diplomatic immunity meant that that the Kuwaitis could not arrest the assassins. Ironically the killers of Al-Tikriti accompanied his coffin in the same plane that took him to Baghdad without the Kuwaiti authorities being able to touch them at all despite the diplomatic humiliation they had just inflicted upon Kuwait.
This is Saddam Hussain,and this is the role that he played in serving his masters the Americans at the expense of this Ummah's children and at the expense of his country, without taking any heed from other collaborators before him and without realising that the role of the collaborators - no matter how long it takes - will come to an end either at the hands of his masters or at the hands of others. The story of Saddam Hussain serves as a lesson to the Ummah and America should realise that despite all her might she would not have succeeded in achieving her aims in the Muslim lands had it not been for the presence of the likes of Saddam as rulers in these countries. The Islamic Ummah should also realise that these rulers, if they stay in power, it is because she is neglecting her duty. It is she who should decide whether she remains under the influence of the Kuffar or whether she wants to liberate herself by eradicating their agents from her lands.
by SAS on Mon Jan 26, 04 5:36am
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From Saddam to Osama, America Creates Its Own Nightmares
Monsters Of The Moment
by Sydney Schanberg
March 12 - 18, 2003
In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein was a U.S. ally, largely because he was at war with Iran, a U.S. enemy. Washington chose to see Hussein then as a potential force for good in the Middle East. Ronald Reagan thus took Iraq off the terrorism list. That made it possible for Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, to authorize American corporations to sell Hussein materials for his early chemical and biological weapons, such as the anthrax virus. Bush's son, George W. Bush, now says these weapons are among the prime reasons our armed forces must besiege and occupy Iraq.
Is it any wonder that so many Americans are confused about the second President Bush's call to war? Confusion, in fact, has become the dominant subtext of the campaign to convince Americans and the world of the war's necessity. Clarity and truth have been kept out of sight. It's a murky world, they whisper in the corridors of power, and sometimes we have to do business with dictators and madmen. But it wouldn't be wise to tell the people about it; that would only spread insomnia. Well, you didn't tell them and yet their anxiety is palpable. Let them eat duct tape, one patriot remarked .
We know that this man Hussein is an international outlaw, a certified bad guy, but wasn't he a bad guy back in the '80s, when President Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad as special Middle East envoy to tell Hussein we would do our darnedest to make sure that his country did not fall to Iran? And that's the way it stood until Hussein overran Kuwait in late 1990 and the first President Bush went to war to drive him out of that autocratic oil kingdom, purportedly to preserve its so-called democracy .
Next came Osama bin Laden and his followers, who have sworn themselves to lay waste to the United States of America and other "infidel" societies in the name of an Islam that many Muslims find unrecognizable and abhorrent. For a while, America thought that bin Laden, with his global terrorist network, was the primary enemy .
Washington retaliated appropriately for the terrorists' murder of 3000 souls on 9-11 by attacking bin Laden's Al Qaeda training camps and hideouts in Afghanistan and sweeping aside the fundamentalist Taliban government that had given bin Laden sanctuary. The American assault sent these legions into the country's mountainous regionsand also across the border into remote areas of Pakistan, a longtime backer of the Taliban with its own large and powerful bloc of Islamic extremists .
In Afghanistan, too, there is troubling history for those trying to understand Bush's call to war against Iraq. Back in the 1980s, the Russian army had invaded Afghanistan, and a guerrilla army, with mujahideen recruits from all corners of the globe, was fighting the occupation. The United States took the side of the Islamic guerrilla army, with the CIA supplying money and weapons. In the end, the bloodied Russians pulled out, and the Taliban emerged from the resistance as a new forceas did bin Laden and his Al Qaeda movement. Washington, still frozen in | |
