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How Western greed created Hussein's Iraq
Think the US is 100% at fault think again. Recently there has been an article in the Village Voice about an arms dealer who had connections with both American and Iraqi intelligence. This man prompted me to look into his past. That past is intertwined with not just the US but also other Western nations.
"The revelations and allegations made by Mr. Soghanalian are, and must be, extremely disturbing to every American. They are disturbing to Mr. Soghanalian. He gives a first-hand description of official and unofficial American involvement in the enormous buildup of arms to Saddam Hussein. Much of this buildup occurred after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. He gives chilling accounts of the cozy relationship among high past and present U.S. Government officials who permitted, and in some cases, actually assisted his sales of many of the lethal weapons Saddam Hussein is now using to bring death to American military personnel and civilians throughout the Middle East region." UNITED STATES ARMS SALES TO IRAQ: EXCERPTS OF RECENT CBS `60 MINUTES' BROADCAST (House of Representatives - January 31, 1991)
"German companies sold Saddam poison gas technology, and France, not only approved the sale of artillery to Iraq, but [also sold] armed helicopters and antiaircraft missile systems."
Entered into the Congressional Record(site b) was a more complete transcript than the one above on January 31, 1991 and is from an episode of 60 Minutes implicating Western nations in the middle of the First Gulf War.
Even stranger still is how Argentina figures into the Iraqi development of the Condor missle which is based on the Pershing:
"France, however, could not keep up with the Germans when it came to the really dangerous stuff. German firms sold an entire poison-gas industry, complete with chemical ingredients and the machinery to make them. The famous Messerschmidt (sic) firm, still in business under the name MBB, became Saddam Hussein's main missile technology supplier. What MBB learned from the Pentagon about the US Pershing 2 missile it could pass along to Saddam for his new Condor 2 missile, which had the same range and configuration. Other German firms gave Saddam vital help in the difficult process of making nuclear weapons material." How Western greed created Hussein's Iraq By Gary Milhollin, a review of (12-22-91) THE DEATH LOBBY How the West Armed Iraq By Kenneth Timmerman.
grrrr...fucking PC cut off my other part
I don't think it was completely western greed, I think they thought it was a good idea before it Saddam really took that country over.
Read it fully, I think you are misinformed. Better yet look for yourself on the individual URL's.
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave"
Fredrick Douglass
Because of the recent news about an intelligence shortfalls concerning Iraq with American and foreign intelligencia, I hereby bump this.
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| Michael Moore made James Bath famous. A former National Guardsman in W's champagne unit in the '70s, the Houston-based Bath mysteriously became the U.S. representative for the bin Laden family shortly after the senior Bush became CIA head in 1976. Bath was also one of the initial investors in Arbusto, W's first energy company venture, in 1978, kicking in $50,000. What Moore didn't say, but Houston Post reporters John Mecklin and Pete Brewton "independently confirmed," was that Bath himself "had some connections to the CIA." In his only known interview on the subject, Bath "equivocated" with Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, saying there are "all sorts of degrees of civilian participation in the CIA" and those that do it don't talk about it. A former Bath business partner says Bath told him he was CIA. Bath also became the U.S. representative of Khalid bin Mahfouz, the largest shareholder in the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the biggest bank fraud in history and springboard for the Islamic terrorist nightmare of today. Countless news stories and books have documented the myriad of connections between Harken Energy and the Saudi-dominated BCCI, which was also pivotal in financing illegal arms sales to Saddam. |
Echoes of the 80's haunt my memories of BCCI.
What a tangled web we weave...
20/20 hindsight is child's play
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| Originally posted by tiesto14 20/20 hindsight is child's play |
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| Originally posted by tiesto14 20/20 hindsight is child's play |
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 What a tangled web we weave... |
Re: How Western greed created Hussein's Iraq
The Village Voice article:
Bush's Courting of Saddam
An '80s business overture that fits a lifetime 'W' pattern of CIA dealings
by Wayne Barrett With Special Reporting by Nathan Deuel
October 26th, 2004 10:20 AM
Sarkis Soghanalian, the international arms dealer who bought billions in weapons for Saddam Hussein, says he was approached at a Newark airport luncheon meeting in the early '80s by a representative of then Texas oil entrepreneur George W. Bush, who was seeking to do business in Iraq.
Featured in lengthy interviews on 60 Minutes, 20/20, and PBS's Frontline over the years, the twice-convicted Soghanalian was dubbed the "Merchant of Death." He was released from prison at the request of federal prosecutors who, as recently as 2001, cited his "substantial assistance to law enforcement." Justice Department officials questioned him in Washington this year about an ongoing case in Peru involving the sale of 10,000 assault rifles to Colombian guerrillas, but they did not extradite him though he is facing a possible 15-year jail sentence there for brokering the deal.
Soghanalian recalled in half a dozen phone interviews with the Voice that he met with a business associate of W's whose full name he cannot recall but who, like Soghanalian, was Armenian. The meeting was arranged, he says, by a friend who was a leader in Armenian charity circles. Soghanalian recalls that the business associate told him: "George W. Bush wants to do business in Iraq."
"Unfortunately, I was pretty high-profile at the time," says Soghanalian, "and everyone was trying to get close to me. Why would I want their business? I knew his father. What did I need him for?" Soghanalian, who had a stopover in Newark on his way to Baghdad, says he can't remember any specifics about the suggested business. The businessman, he said, "was sent on behalf of Bush" and "said to me, 'This is an important man.' " Soghanalian claims that the man told him that W had "a lot of contacts overseas" and that Soghanalian replied: "I have contacts too. I don't need more contacts." Soghanalian says he has known the senior Bush since at least 1976, when Bush was CIA director. Soghanalian has had such a long-standing CIA relationship that David Armstrong of the National Security News Service calls him the agency's "arms dealer of choice."
Soghanalian says Bush's representative continued to "chase me around" after the airport meeting. Living in an overseas location he did not want disclosed, the 300-pound, 75-year-old legendary dealer said: "I am not where I am and have never been where I was." Though he volunteered the story of the Newark solicitation, he expressed concerns about "angering" the Bushes and repeatedly cut off later interviews, citing health concerns.
It's widely known that prior to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations maintained friendly ties with Hussein, but there has never before been any indication that the current president was seeking business deals with him. In the '80s, the younger Bush managed a series of struggling Texas-based oil companies, one of which, Harken Energy, did secure a major oil deal in Bahrain that caused a public furor, since it appeared to have been awarded to earn favor with the Bush administration. Bush's storefront start-up Arbusto (later renamed Bush Exploration) was in deep trouble in the '83-'84 period when Soghanalian says the approach occurred.
The Soghanalian overture is only one of several Bush business intertwinings with the dark side, starting way back in 1974, when he was 28 years old. Like the Soghanalian adventure, each of these tales has CIA ties, which touch virtually every Bush business venture until 1990.
A mysterious Alaska summer
Neil Bergt, The New York Times' "richest man in Alaska" in the '80s, gave W a summer job in 1974, when he was in between years at Harvard Business School. Bergt says he doesn't know why the young Bush—still living, by his own account, the "wild and woolly days"—wanted to come to Fairbanks, where the company was based. But a Houston construction executive contacted him and asked him to hire Bush, who has been described by professors and friends as an out-to-lunch business student. Bush's father was then the chairman of the Republican National Committee, installed by President Nixon, and Bush Sr. would wind up that summer appearing on the White House lawn when Nixon resigned, waved farewell, and climbed aboard the presidential helicopter for the last time. Bergt concedes that the Bush job was "a political hire."
In several wide-ranging interviews, Bergt oscillated between demands that the Voice pay him $250,000 for "the real story" that "only I can tell" about Bush and insisting that there was "no story here" and that Bush spent a quiet summer preparing a business plan for him. Asked why Bush preferred a summer in Alaska to Wall Street or Houston, Bergt suggested that the motive was nefarious, and that a full account could affect the election, adding: "I'm not talking without money."
Bergt's company, Alaska International Air, certainly has a checkered history. In 1979, it sold a coveted military cargo plane, a Hercules C-130, to Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, despite a U.S. ban that specifically barred the delivery of that particular plane. Bergt contends he was tricked by the middleman on the $8.6 million transaction —none other than Sarkis Soghanalian. Soghanalian, who claims to have never done an arms deal that wasn't covertly sanctioned by the CIA, says Bergt, who also has a plethora of CIA ties, was fully aware that Qaddafi was getting the plane and participated "voluntarily."
Ironically, the Bergt plane and two others illicitly sold to Libya were soon used to invade neighboring Chad and to fly enriched uranium from Niger for Qaddafi's fledgling nuclear development program. Bush has claimed credit recently for convincing Qaddafi to abandon his nuclear program, and once claimed that Saddam Hussein had received uranium from Niger as a justification for the war. While another top AIA executive, Gary White, says he met Soghanalian in Geneva on a couple occasions and even stayed in his Florida mansion, Bergt just had lunch with him in San Diego.
"Gosh, to find out later that he was an arms merchant," Bergt now says. "We had several incidents where we dealt with people and later we'd read about the things they did in Time magazine," which was then exposing CIA covert operations. "We were doing a lot of wild stuff all over the place," recalls Bergt, specifically including the period that W worked there.
Indeed, in September 1975, Bergt says, "I sold a Herc to Idi Amin for $10 million," celebrating decades later that he made the African despot "pay through the nose." Bergt acknowledged that there were "some CIA guys surrounding the deal with Idi," just as he acknowledges that AIA, under its prior incarnation as Interior Airways, was doing CIA-tied business back to 1968–69. "I wasn't a CIA proxy company," says Bergt, referring to airlines that were actually no more than fronts for the agency. "I just wished I was." One of his pilots recalled that Bergt actually bought planes from CIA firms like Southern Air Transport.
The very summer that W worked at the company, it was participating in the most secret and expensive CIA venture ever, the Glomar Explorer. The agency spent a half- billion dollars on what congressional critics called a boondoggle for billionaire Howard Hughes: the construction of a ship the length of three football fields with a giant clawed arm designed to dive 17,000 feet to bring a sunk Soviet sub to the surface. In early August, the Glomar dropped the sub and shattered it on the ocean floor off the Alaskan coast. White remembers doing an airdrop to supply the Glomar, and Bergt says that W "may have made some runs with us"—though he adds that he didn't even know Bush was a pilot.
When the senior Bush was vice president in 1986 and his aides were deeply involved in supplying the Contras in Nicaragua, Bergt's airline, renamed MarkAir, did at least a half-dozen runs to a dirt strip in Honduras hauling aid, some of it in sealed containers, for the rebels. "If it's guns and ammunition, I could care less," Bergt told reporters at the time. Again, Soghanalian and the CIA were also deeply involved in the Contra traffic. The Anchorage Daily News reported that at least two of the flights were not registered with customs, avoiding the requirement of "an export declaration of everything" aboard.
Bergt even offered to regale the Voice with stories of "drug running and Iran-Contra." A day later, he called his own offer "absolute bullshit," though he insisted that the Anchorage paper already intimated both in connection with his company. He branded the stories, which a Voice search of years of the Anchorage paper's clips could not locate, as "claptrap" and "yellow journalism." Coincidentally, when Bush answered questions about his own alleged cocaine involvement during the 2000 campaign, he implicitly suggested that 1974 might be the last year he did drugs, claiming that he could've filled out a federal questionnaire about illegal drugs going back 15 years prior to his father's presidency.
Bergt recalls the senior Bush calling him after his son's summer there at least once, and says Neil Bush attended a 1988 fundraiser he hosted in his Anchorage home for the Bush presidential campaign. A check of federal election records indicates that Bergt, who's also contributed lesser amounts to W's campaign, raised at least $6,500 for the 1988 campaign. One of Bergt's brothers works for the Federal Aviation Administration and his son-in-law is the Interior Department official in charge of overseeing the Alaska pipeline. There is no indication that political influence was involved with obtaining either job.
A couple of weeks before the 2000 election, the Times first reported about W's Alaska summer, calling it a chapter that "has largely escaped attention," omitted, unlike five other summer jobs, from his autobiography. Bergt said then that his CIA reputation was undeserved, but in fact, even though Bush's summer there precedes by 18 months his father's rise to CIA director, the company has a legion of agency ties. That would become a W pattern.
The Texas CIA connections
Michael Moore made James Bath famous. A former National Guardsman in W's champagne unit in the '70s, the Houston-based Bath mysteriously became the U.S. representative for the bin Laden family shortly after the senior Bush became CIA head in 1976. Bath was also one of the initial investors in Arbusto, W's first energy company venture, in 1978, kicking in $50,000. What Moore didn't say, but Houston Post reporters John Mecklin and Pete Brewton "independently confirmed," was that Bath himself "had some connections to the CIA." In his only known interview on the subject, Bath "equivocated" with Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, saying there are "all sorts of degrees of civilian participation in the CIA" and those that do it don't talk about it. A former Bath business partner says Bath told him he was CIA.
Bath also became the U.S. representative of Khalid bin Mahfouz, the largest shareholder in the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the biggest bank fraud in history and springboard for the Islamic terrorist nightmare of today. Countless news stories and books have documented the myriad of connections between Harken Energy and the Saudi-dominated BCCI, which was also pivotal in financing illegal arms sales to Saddam.
Bush helped arrange a $25 million cash infusion for Harken in 1987 through Arkansas investment banker Jackson Stephens, who'd helped guide BCCI's acquisitions in America, to secure financing for Harken, which had acquired Bush's failed company and made him a six-figure director. Stephens arranged for two BCCI-tied investors to bail the company out: the Union Bank of Switzerland, a BCCI partner in a third bank; and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, whose Saudi Finance Co. was partly controlled by BCCI shareholders.
When BCCI exploded in scandal in 1991, the senior Bush tried to distance himself from any knowledge of the bank or its principals, even though a top White House aide, Ed Rogers, was put on a $600,000 retainer by one of the bank's founders, Kamel Adham. Bush denied even knowing Adham, who was the head of Saudi intelligence when Bush ran the CIA. But Soghanalian told the Voice that the two "were friends a long time ago," adding that George H.W. Bush "can say whatever he wants." Soghanalian says he "escorted" Adham to a 1976 meeting with Bush at the Waldorf Astoria, where Adham had a whole floor for five days. "This is when they were organizing the BCCI bank stuff," says Soghanalian, refusing to discuss it any further.
When Bush Sr. said, "I don't know anything about this man (Adham) except I've read bad stuff about him," Time reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne wrote in their book, The Outlaw Bank, that they were sure the president had told "a certifiable lie" and got White House reporters to ask the press office about it. They were "incredulous" when the press office confirmed the disavowal. Adham himself said: "It is not possible for the president to say that," insisting that Bush had indicated a day later that he did know Adham but that the newspapers refused to print it. Adham wound up pleading guilty on BCCI charges, as did Mahfouz, who paid $225 million in restitution and penalties.
Papa Bush's direct links to BCCI—noted CIA historian Joe Trento, also of the National Security News Service, wrote that as CIA director, he "joined a Saudi prince to create" it—apparently explain the bank's willingness to throw money at Harken shortly after it bought out Junior's busted Arbusto. The Harken bailout is the last in a series of business ties between W and his father's onetime agency, though biographers have noted that W's campaigns, like his father's, have attracted ex-CIA types. When Jimmy Carter replaced the senior Bush at the CIA in 1977, the new director, Stansfield Turner, forced hundreds of agents out, and many joined forces with Bush as a kind of out-of-power CIA clique. That group continued to function unofficially for years, even rising to the fore in the Iran-Contra days of the late '80s.
As W has dallied for months with the CIA reformation promised after the 9-11 Commission report, his own historic ties to the agency may assume greater importance, should he get a second term.
Research assistance: Eric Cantor, Deborah S. Esquenazi, Emily Keller, Eric Magnuson, and Ben Reiter
Copyright © 2005 Village Voice Media, Inc., 36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003 The Village Voice and Voice are registered trademarks. All rights reserved.
End of article
Here comes another one back from the memory hole.
Russia intends to sell 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems capable of downing cruise missiles and air bombs to Iran, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote with reference to an anonymous manager of a defense enterprise. According to the newspaper, the contract on the matter has already been signed.
Tor is a solely defensive weapon, which intercepts cruise missiles. Journalists contacted the management of the Kupol (Dome) enterprise, which manufactures Tor anti-missile systems, although they failed to obtain a confirmation of the above-mentioned transaction.
A source from the air defense industry said that it goes about the sale of 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile complexes on the base of the Greek order. Greece purchased 21 systems and was intended to acquire 29 more. The country turned the order down at the end of the nineties. Experts evaluate the Iranian contact in the sum of $700 million.
Mikhail Barabanov, an editor with Export of Arms magazine, said that the contract to sell 29 Tor M-1 air defense systems to Iran became the largest transaction in Russia since 2000. In 2000, Russia pulled out from the secret agreement with the USA about restricted arms deliveries to Iran. The document was known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin Protocol. Moscow undertook not to strike any defense deals with Iran. In return, the USA promised to help Russia enter the international market of defense technologies. The promise was not kept, though. �When Russia pulled out from the secret agreement with the USA, we expected Iran to become Russia's largest importer after China and India. However, the weapons, which Iran purchased from Russia during the following five years, were evaluated in the sum of $300-400 million. To all appearance, the Iranian administration thought that Russia would not be able to run US-independent defense policy after the story with the Gore-Chernomyrdin Protocol,� Mikhail Barabanov said.
�The transaction is not supposed to raise concerns with the US administration. Tor systems are tactical weapons. The deal should therefore be perceived as a commercial operation first and foremost,� Vagif Guseinov, the Director of the Institute of Strategic Estimations and Analysis said. Iran needs to defend the atomic power plant in Bushehr, which is currently being built with Russia's participation. Israel may strike a preventive blow on Iran's nuclear object in Bushehr: Israeli officials have confirmed such a possibility on several occasions.
Russia to sell 29 air defense systems to Iran
The 700-million-dollar transaction is said to become Russia's largest deal since 2000
BOO!!
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 "...The German government reportedly 'actively encouraged' weapons co-operation and assistance was allegedly given to Iraq in developing poison gas used against Kurds..." And: "..The Security Council agreed to US requests to censor 8000 pages -- including sections naming western businesses which aided Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme." Sunday Herald - 23 February 2003, Revealed: 17 British firms armed Saddam with his weapons, Investigation: By Neil Mackay Home Affairs Editor Mr. Boortz is not making an accurate statement by leaving out the two other agents in those vials. Soman and VX. "..Sarin originally was developed in 1938 in Germany as a pesticide." CDC: Facts about Sarin "..Soman was originally developed as an insecticide in Germany in 1944." CDC: Facts about Soman "..VX was originally developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1950s." CDC: Facts about Vx |
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/24725.php
None of this is new though.
It was very well known that the U.S. had dealings with the Saddam/Iraq during the cold war because it was a very different time then and for a very different reason.
Sure we can argue that the U.S. were securing their energy investments but that's nothing new either.
As for the other countries, like France, they were merely taking advantage of the situation by selling arms to whomever had a cheque book...
Ok maybe not, but they also had (and have) a LOT of foriegn investment there.
Why cough it all up to the Commies?
Come to Canada!
Didn't you know we have more oil than the Saudis? 
you don't even need an army here...
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r None of this is new though. It was very well known that the U.S. had dealings with the Saddam/Iraq during the Iran / Iraq war. |
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| Copied from the web: While arms were flowing to Iran and profits heading toward the Contras, there were also elements within the Reagan administration, most notably VP Bush, who viewed Saddam Hussein as the lesser of the evils of the region. BNL-Atlanta, relying on government-backed loans, provided some $5 billion in assistance to Iraq between 1985-1989. This money purchased agricultural supplies, but also machinery and notably dual-use technology. Bush, Schultz, and Weinberger pressured the CCC and the Ex-IM bank to extend credit and materials to Iraq. The full story here is yet to be uncovered. Cast of Characters Now:
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| November of 1989: Congress passed economic sanctions against Iraq due to Human Rights abuses. Among the issues discussed were Iraq�s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. |
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| Early 1990: President Bush issues an executive order waiving economic sanctions against Iraq. |
Bush Administration Critics May Be Too Generous
By Devin Nordberg
October 2002
A growing number of critics accuse the Bush administration of inciting war against Iraq to divert attention from our economic woes and the administration's attacks on environmental protections and our personal freedoms. After all, we call several other brutal dictatorships our allies, including Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan, so why is Bush so determined to topple Saddam Hussein?
But perhaps the critics are too generous to suspect merely political gamesmanship or settling a score for dad, for the allies and enemies that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney choose are exactly those of the oil industry they still serve.
Iraq crossed western oil corporations 30 years ago, and the oil executives have long memories. In 1972, Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party nationalized the oil holdings of the Iraq Petroleum Company, which actually was owned by a group of western oil companies including Royal Dutch and American and French firms.
The U.S. and Britain launched an embargo of Iraq in an attempt to persuade Hussein to re-privatize oil -- a tactic that succeeded for the U.S. when it embargoed Iran in retaliation for nationalizing its oil industry in 1951. In that case the economic squeeze was topped off with a CIA-assisted coup and "regime change," which instituted the Shah as the new leader in 1953. Obediently, the Shah agreed to let British and American oil companies take over oil production again.
But when the U.S. instigated an embargo against Iraq, Hussein simply found a new customer-- the Soviet Union. Good timing also helped Iraq "get away" with nationalization. A year after Iraq nationalized its oil, the eleven members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to pricing solidarity and forced oil importing countries to pay dramatically more for oil. The OPEC cartel gained the upper hand in negotiating with western oil companies and insulated Iraq from economic attack.
Near the time of Iraq's oil nationalization, Hussein made a peace offer to the dissident Kurds in Iraq, who were warring against his regime. The Kurds were about to accept his offer, but President Nixon offered them $16 million in weapons as incentive to keep fighting--and they did (with additional help from the Shah of Iran).
During the subsequent Iran-Iraq war, U.S. officials facilitated arms sales to Iraq (while Israel sold arms to Iran) not so much to support Hussein, but to perpetuate the bloody war and punish Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who overthrew our hand-picked dictator, the Shah.
After Iraq won that devastating war, Hussein continued to pursue independent economic development rather than letting transnational corporations reap profit from his country's resources. He worked to form the Arab Cooperation Council to join Iraq with Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen in a regional trading bloc.
Not surprisingly, the Gulf War of 1991 was welcomed by President George Bush Sr. as an excuse to bring down Hussein. Just eight days before Iraq invaded Kuwait, U.S. ambassador April Glaspie told Hussein that the Administration had "no opinion" regarding Iraq's "border dispute" with Kuwait. U.S. intelligence learned of the invasion plans several days in advance, but no deterrence was attempted.
Although we don't know that Bush Sr. deliberately baited Iraq, skeptics should consider that President Carter's Secretary of State, Zbigniew Brzezinski, publicly bragged that the U.S. funded the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan six months before the Soviet Union invaded (in 1979) in an attempt to provoke the Soviets into an "unwinnable" war.
Western oil companies still aim to repossess Iraq's oil, and they need Hussein removed to do it. So it shouldn't surprise us that Bush's war drums haven't missed a beat even after Hussein conceded to the return of U.N. weapons inspectors in September.
Mr. Bush seems to continue our tendency to base alliances less on a nation's degree of democracy, peacefulness, or freedom than whether they open markets to transnational corporations. Thus, China gets friendly relations while Cuba gets sanctions and Iraq gets threats of annihilation.
It's a serious decision to send our soldiers to war to defend our national security; for Mr. Bush to send them into battle to serve corporate oil interests would be tantamount to treason.
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/article...rporations.html
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/ShalomIranIraq.html
Hey TX you should watch lord of war. thats a real good movie...hey you wanna know something TOP SECRET? My dad used to be a CIA agent
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| Originally posted by Trancer-X [color=#33ccff]Most people don't know that Saddam was a CIA asset and that the story, just like many others - is technically just another case of blowback. We seem to create a lot of bogeymen, don't we? |
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| Originally posted by Trancer-X Bush Administration Critics May Be Too Generous By Devin Nordberg October 2002 A growing number of critics accuse the Bush administration of inciting war against Iraq to divert attention from our economic woes and the administration's attacks on environmental protections and our personal freedoms. After all, we call several other brutal dictatorships our allies, including Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan, so why is Bush so determined to topple Saddam Hussein? But perhaps the critics are too generous to suspect merely political gamesmanship or settling a score for dad, for the allies and enemies that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney choose are exactly those of the oil industry they still serve. Iraq crossed western oil corporations 30 years ago, and the oil executives have long memories. In 1972, Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party nationalized the oil holdings of the Iraq Petroleum Company, which actually was owned by a group of western oil companies including Royal Dutch and American and French firms. The U.S. and Britain launched an embargo of Iraq in an attempt to persuade Hussein to re-privatize oil -- a tactic that succeeded for the U.S. when it embargoed Iran in retaliation for nationalizing its oil industry in 1951. In that case the economic squeeze was topped off with a CIA-assisted coup and "regime change," which instituted the Shah as the new leader in 1953. Obediently, the Shah agreed to let British and American oil companies take over oil production again. But when the U.S. instigated an embargo against Iraq, Hussein simply found a new customer-- the Soviet Union. Good timing also helped Iraq "get away" with nationalization. A year after Iraq nationalized its oil, the eleven members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to pricing solidarity and forced oil importing countries to pay dramatically more for oil. The OPEC cartel gained the upper hand in negotiating with western oil companies and insulated Iraq from economic attack. Near the time of Iraq's oil nationalization, Hussein made a peace offer to the dissident Kurds in Iraq, who were warring against his regime. The Kurds were about to accept his offer, but President Nixon offered them $16 million in weapons as incentive to keep fighting--and they did (with additional help from the Shah of Iran). During the subsequent Iran-Iraq war, U.S. officials facilitated arms sales to Iraq (while Israel sold arms to Iran) not so much to support Hussein, but to perpetuate the bloody war and punish Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who overthrew our hand-picked dictator, the Shah. After Iraq won that devastating war, Hussein continued to pursue independent economic development rather than letting transnational corporations reap profit from his country's resources. He worked to form the Arab Cooperation Council to join Iraq with Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen in a regional trading bloc. Not surprisingly, the Gulf War of 1991 was welcomed by President George Bush Sr. as an excuse to bring down Hussein. Just eight days before Iraq invaded Kuwait, U.S. ambassador April Glaspie told Hussein that the Administration had "no opinion" regarding Iraq's "border dispute" with Kuwait. U.S. intelligence learned of the invasion plans several days in advance, but no deterrence was attempted. Although we don't know that Bush Sr. deliberately baited Iraq, skeptics should consider that President Carter's Secretary of State, Zbigniew Brzezinski, publicly bragged that the U.S. funded the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan six months before the Soviet Union invaded (in 1979) in an attempt to provoke the Soviets into an "unwinnable" war. Western oil companies still aim to repossess Iraq's oil, and they need Hussein removed to do it. So it shouldn't surprise us that Bush's war drums haven't missed a beat even after Hussein conceded to the return of U.N. weapons inspectors in September. Mr. Bush seems to continue our tendency to base alliances less on a nation's degree of democracy, peacefulness, or freedom than whether they open markets to transnational corporations. Thus, China gets friendly relations while Cuba gets sanctions and Iraq gets threats of annihilation. It's a serious decision to send our soldiers to war to defend our national security; for Mr. Bush to send them into battle to serve corporate oil interests would be tantamount to treason. http://reclaimdemocracy.org/article...rporations.html |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r Yup, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, the power Saddam received broke a synapse in his brain and he thought he was, "it" and could do what he wanted. The dismantling of Saddam was really two-fold and a win/win for the Iraqis / Western world; a) they got rid of a tyrant with a history of human rights violations (a win for the Iraqis for sure) and b) the previous investments go back to their rightful owners (mostly the Western world). |
To say that the US was wholly responsible for creating the atmosphere in Iraq is a bit of an understatement.
There have been long range plans for Mesopotamia since around the beginning of the 20th century when Britain named a certain area Iraq.
Also, don't forget the breakup of Rockefeller owned Standard Oil where at the same time created oil cartel monopolies overseas.
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All Nine Nuclear Powers Are Violating Non-Proliferation Treaty By Scott Galindez t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 09 October 2006 As North Korea becomes the eighth confirmed nuclear power (Israel is not confirmed but considered the ninth) some of the blame has to go to the original five nuclear powers. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect in 1970, the five countries who had nuclear bombs - the US, France, China, Great Britain, and the USSR - agreed to work to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Now, 36 years later, no disarmament talks are taking place between those countries. North Korea has been a "threshold" country since the late 80s. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated shared security arrangements and prompted North Korea to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapon. The Clinton administration, recognizing the threat, entered into an agreement with North Korea to provide reactors for peaceful use in exchange for an end to the weapons program. In 2003, North Korea announced they were leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reconstituting its weapons program, citing US failure to deliver the reactors. North Korea's joining the list of nations with nuclear weapons is a sad day for our world. As was the day that the United States became the first nuclear power, and the Soviet Union the second, etc.� As long as one country possesses the ability to annihilate another it is only natural for those without that power to seek it. In the early 90s, during the lead-up to the extension of the treaty, the US and other nuclear powers agreed to stop testing nuclear weapons. It was widely believed that without that step many other "threshold" nations would not have remained in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has been a long time since the original five nuclear powers have made any progress in negotiating a reduction in their arsenals; in fact the Bush administration is building new lower-yield nukes with conventional uses that could spur a new arms race. If all of the nuclear powers that are condemning North Korea are serious about stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, perhaps they should read and come into compliance with the following section of the treaty they first signed in 1970 and extended in 1995: Article VI Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. It should also be noted that it is possible for countries to leave the nuclear club. North Korea would have been the 10th country if South Africa hadn't abolished their nuclear weapons. Iran May Not Be Next In 2003, during his winning presidential campaign in Brazil, candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty as unfair. "If someone asks me to disarm and keep a slingshot while he comes at me with a cannon, what good does that do?" da Silva asked in a speech. He later said Brazil has no intention to develop nuclear arms. That is a good thing; I support non-proliferation, but the sentiment that da Silva expressed will continue to grow as more and more nations feel they are being conned by the nuclear powers. Let us hope that North Korea is the last to build the bomb, but let's also hope that one day North Korea, France, Great Britain, Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, and the United States dismantle the bombs they have and eliminate the threat of nuclear annihilation. |
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