# The American Legacy in Iraq



## georgephillip (Jan 12, 2014)

"BARRY LANDO is a former producer for 60 Minutes who now lives in Paris. He is the author of The Watchmans File. He can be reached at: barrylando@gmail.com or through his website."

*Barry's recent post at CounterPunch alleges the US legacy in Iraq involves genocide more than democracy, and a carefully choreographed cover-up/revisionist spin on the actual events of the last decade.*

"The last thing the U.S. should do is become militarily embroiled in the conflict raging again in Iraq. But for Americans to shake their heads in lofty disdain and turn away, as if they have no responsibility for the continued bloodletting, is outrageous. 

"Why? 

"Because America bears a large part of the blame for turning Iraq into the basket case its become.

"The great majority of Americans dont realize that fact. 

"They never did. 

"So much of what the U.S. did to Iraq has been consigned by America to a black hole of history. 

"Iraqis, however, can never forget.

"In 1990, for instance, during the first Gulf War, George H.W. Bush, called on the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. 

"But when they finally did, after Saddams forces were driven from Kuwait, President Bush refused any gesture of support, even permitted Saddams pilots to keep flying their deadly helicopter gunships. 

"*Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered.*"

The American Legacy in Iraq » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


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## georgephillip (Jan 12, 2014)

"By 1999 a UNICEF study concluded that half a million Iraqi children perished in the previous eight years because of the sanctionsand that was four years before they ended. Another American expert in 2003 estimated that the sanctions killed between 343,900 and 529,000 young children and infants*certainly more young people than were ever killed by Saddam Hussein.*"

The American Legacy in Iraq » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


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## JWBooth (Jan 12, 2014)

Carnage, instability, radiation sickness, poverty and a government with declining/little influence or control outside of Baghdad


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## georgephillip (Jan 12, 2014)

JWBooth said:


> Carnage, instability, radiation sickness, poverty and a government with declining/little influence or control outside of Baghdad


There's a "conspiracy" theory that holds Iraq has been destined for destruction since the mid-1950s, at least. The last twenty years seem to bear out the possibility that Baghdad will soon be a city-state sitting between a Sh'ia enclave alongside Iran, and a Sunni state along the border with Syria.

There may well be a "Free" Kurdistan positioned between the three sub-states and Turkey.

Then it's on to Sudan, Somalia, and Iran...(and Russia???)


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## JWBooth (Jan 12, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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I don't think it is a conspiracy so much as Iraq, like many other places, is the victim of policies (some well intentioned, most not so much) carried out by the blind, bumbling, retarded giant that is US foreign policy.


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## rdean (Jan 12, 2014)

That's what happens when Republicans are in charge.  They don't like to read so the only history they know is the one they rewrite.  In fact, if they don't care about the middle class and the poor here in this country, the ONLY reason they would be interested in Iraq is for oil and profit.


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## JWBooth (Jan 12, 2014)

rdean said:


> That's what happens when Republicans are in charge.  They don't like to read so the only history they know is the one they rewrite.  In fact, if they don't care about the middle class and the poor here in this country, the ONLY reason they would be interested in Iraq is for oil and profit.


Oh bullshit. This crap is the product of administrations of both major parties going back to Truman.


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## georgephillip (Jan 12, 2014)

JWBooth said:


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*I don't know how much credibility you assign the views of Ramsey Clark; however, he was in Baghdad during the '91 campaign, and he's researched the roots of US designs on Iraqi oil:*

"Iraq has been a target of covert activity by the United States since at least 1958, when British influence in the region began to wane. 

"On July 14 of that year, a popular, nationalist revolution in Iraq led by Abdel Karim Kassem overthrew the Hashemite monarchy, which had been installed by the British in 1921. The new government helped foind the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which was formed in 1960 to resist the power of Western oil monopolies. 

"Kassem said: 'We are not combating the oil companies for another 7 million dinars a year. We are fighting for the industrialization of our republic and an end to our dependence on the sale of crude oil.'(3)

"Kassem challenged the absolute stranglehold Western oil companies then held on the marketing of Arb oil. 

"Washington had little tolerance for this challenge to its long-standing intention to succeed colonial Britain and France as the dominant power in the Middle East. 

"*Ever since, the United States has planned to weaken Iraq and control its oil.*

"Shortly after the 1958 revolution, the CIA formed a 'health alterations committee' to plot Kassem's assassination. 

"At the same time, U.S. generals in Turkey devised a military plan, code-named Canonbone, for invading northern Iraq and seizing the oil fields there (4). 

"In 1963, Kassem and thousands of his supporters were massacred in a bloody CIA-backed coup."

*Most Americans probably don't know or care about how Saddam and his party came to power, and many Iraqis can't forget or forgive.*

The Fire This Time - U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf. Book by Ramsey Clark - Radio Islam


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## TheOldSchool (Jan 12, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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My only problem with your post is that we went into Iraq, spent years doing whatever, and then we ended up not bothering with any of their oil.  China is who's benefiting from Iraq's oil right now.


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## georgephillip (Jan 12, 2014)

rdean said:


> That's what happens when Republicans are in charge.  They don't like to read so the only history they know is the one they rewrite.  In fact, if they don't care about the middle class and the poor here in this country, the ONLY reason they would be interested in Iraq is for oil and profit.


*US designs on Iraqi oil go back to 1944, at least:*

"The Red Line Agreement had been "part of a network of agreements made in the 1920s to restrict supply of petroleum and ensure that the major [mostly American] companiescould control oil prices on world markets".[5] 

"The Red Line agreement governed the development of Middle East oil for the next two decades. 

"The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement of 1944 was based on negotiations between the United States and Britain over the control of Middle Eastern oil. 

"Below is shown what the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had in mind for to a British Ambassador in 1944:

"*Persian oil is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, its ours.*[6]"

American intervention in the Middle East - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*As I recall, the US was the world's leading oil exporter when FDR carved up Middle Eastern oil for the benefit of western oil companies.*


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## georgephillip (Jan 12, 2014)

TheOldSchool said:


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*China and Russia are competing; however, western oil companies are doing better in Iraq than they have since 1972:*

"'Western producers like BP, Exxon Mobil, and Shell are enjoying their
best access to Iraqs southern oil fields since 1972,' Business Week
noted in its issue of March 4th of last year. {2011} (1972 was the year
Saddam Hussein nationalized Iraqs oil fields.)

"Business Week quotes Andy Inglis, BPs chief executive for exploration
and production as saying, 'We see this as the beginning of a long-term
relationship with Iraq and will continue to look for further
opportunities.'"

Western Oil Firms Big Winners In Iraq By Sherwood Ross


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## Kosh (Jan 12, 2014)

The far left will do their best to make sure Iraq is a failure.


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## rdean (Jan 12, 2014)

TheOldSchool said:


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That underlines GOP incompetence.


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## rdean (Jan 12, 2014)

Kosh said:


> The far left will do their best to make sure Iraq is a failure.



Iraq became a failure when Republicans did nothing to stop the slaughter of Christians,  and waved goodbye as most of the rest left their homeland.


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## Kosh (Jan 13, 2014)

rdean said:


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More proof that the far left will do what ever it takes to make Iraq a failure and all for political purposes.


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## TheOldSchool (Jan 13, 2014)

Kosh said:


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Typical propaganda from a far right reince priebus drone


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## rdean (Jan 13, 2014)

Kosh said:


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Republicans were in charge of both houses, the presidency and the Supreme Court.  So how is it the Democrats "fault"?


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## georgephillip (Jan 13, 2014)

Kosh said:


> The far left will do their best to make sure Iraq is a failure.


IMHO, it's not about "left" or "right" or "Republican" or "Democrat" as much as it's about the money to be made from endless war and the eternal debt that's required to pay for the conflicts.

I also think you should consider how those who profit from war and private debt define "failure" in Iraq.

By their standards, the US invasion of Iraq, supported by most Rs & Ds alike has succeeded in dividing Iraq into three sub-states. A Sh'ia enclave aligned with Iran with a Baghdad citi-state and Sunni Iraq alongside Syria.

The goal of elites in both major US parties is to redraw the borders of a New Middle East by deliberately creating an "arc of instability stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.

Until US voters elect politicians who find ways to make peace more profitable than war, "failures" like Iraq will multiply, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans launch them.


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## longknife (Jan 13, 2014)

This thread openly carries a strong Anti-USA theme to it as if we were the only ones with eyes on Iraq and the Middle East in general.

Let's set the record straight - A lot of nations have had their eyes on this region before, during, and after WWI! Colonization created nations with false boundaries based upon European standards that had no similarity to religious and cultural differences. And, most of it was done WITHOUT US input. And yes, AFTER WWI, we became involved because there appeared to be threats to our national security. Was that effort correct? That's a matter of debate that will take another century to answer.


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## georgephillip (Jan 13, 2014)

longknife said:


> This thread openly carries a strong Anti-USA theme to it as if we were the only ones with eyes on Iraq and the Middle East in general.
> 
> Let's set the record straight - A lot of nations have had their eyes on this region before, during, and after WWI! Colonization created nations with false boundaries based upon European standards that had no similarity to religious and cultural differences. And, most of it was done WITHOUT US input. And yes, AFTER WWI, we became involved because there appeared to be threats to our national security. Was that effort correct? That's a matter of debate that will take another century to answer.


*Do you disagree with the following?*

"In 1990, for instance, during the first Gulf War, George H.W. Bush, called on the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. But when they finally did, after Saddams forces were driven from Kuwait, President Bush refused any gesture of support, even permitted Saddams pilots to keep flying their deadly helicopter gunships. *Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered.*"

The American Legacy in Iraq » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


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## JWBooth (Jan 13, 2014)

longknife said:


> This thread openly carries a strong Anti-USA theme to it as if we were the only ones with eyes on Iraq and the Middle East in general.
> 
> Let's set the record straight - A lot of nations have had their eyes on this region before, during, and after WWI! Colonization created nations with false boundaries based upon European standards that had no similarity to religious and cultural differences. And, most of it was done WITHOUT US input. And yes, AFTER WWI, we became involved because there appeared to be threats to our national security. Was that effort correct? That's a matter of debate that will take another century to answer.


The first step in correcting a problem is recognising that there is a problem.


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## georgephillip (Jan 14, 2014)

JWBooth said:


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*Recognition begins with assessing US goals in Iraq and the means used to achieve them:*

"There is no question that U.S. planners knew how awful the force of the sanctions would be.  

"In fact, the health calamity was coolly predicted and then meticulously tracked by the Pentagons Defense Intelligence Agency. 

"Its first study was entitled 'Iraqs Water Treatment Vulnerabilities.'

"Indeed, from the beginning, the intent of U.S. officials was to create such a catastrophic situation that the people of Iraqcivilians, but particularly the militarywould be forced to react. 

"As Denis Halliday, the former U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, put it to me, 'the U.S. theory behind the sanctions was that if you hurt the people of Iraq and *kill the children* particularly, theyll rise up with anger and overthrow Saddam.'

*It's telling how often the goals of government require killing other people's children. Possibly, that's because every government yet devised serves the interests of its richest citizens, and killing other people's children is a proven money maker?*

The American Legacy in Iraq » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


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## Kosh (Jan 14, 2014)

TheOldSchool said:


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Says the far left Obama drone that wants Iraq to be a failure just to make an (R) look bad.


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## Kosh (Jan 14, 2014)

rdean said:


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Ah the far left is very strong in this one.


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## Kosh (Jan 14, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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Again the far left wants failure in Iraq almost exclusively so they can make their propaganda come true. However notice how the anti-war camps packed up and left after Obama was elected, notice how the death counters disappeared, notice how after the far left took control of Congress in 2006 the Iraq far left propaganda almost came to a halt.

It is about the far left and their wanting Iraq to be a failure just so they can get their way. Just like there are claims that Hilary was against the surge in Iraq solely based on political purposes.


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## JWBooth (Jan 14, 2014)

TheOldSchool said:


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OldDrip and RDerp, you both want this to be about finding the spec in the eye of the GOPers while ignoring the mote in the eye of the Dims. History shows both of these groups of organised criminals have very dirty hands in spreading misery and death around the globe.


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## CrusaderFrank (Jan 14, 2014)

georgephillip said:


> "BARRY LANDO is a former producer for 60 Minutes who now lives in Paris. He is the author of The Watchmans File. He can be reached at: barrylando@gmail.com or through his website."
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> *Barry's recent post at CounterPunch alleges the US legacy in Iraq involves genocide more than democracy, and a carefully choreographed cover-up/revisionist spin on the actual events of the last decade.*
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It's just like after we inflicted a complete defeat on the North at the Tet Offensive and our media called it for the Communists. They LOVE Uncle Saddam the same way the LOVED Uncle Joe and Chairman Mao. Find a dictator and you'll find a LMSM hero


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## georgephillip (Jan 14, 2014)

CrusaderFrank said:


> georgephillip said:
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While Good Capitalists continue confusing attempts at state-building in an alien culture while sustaining domestic political support in a Long War against an irregular enemy with "spreading Democracy."


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## U2Edge (Jan 16, 2014)

georgephillip said:


> "By 1999 a UNICEF study concluded that half a million Iraqi children perished in the previous eight years because of the sanctionsand that was four years before they ended. Another American expert in 2003 estimated that the sanctions killed between 343,900 and 529,000 young children and infants*certainly more young people than were ever killed by Saddam Hussein.*"
> 
> The American Legacy in Iraq » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names



Saddam had the means to prevent any deaths in Iraq from sanctions. He didn't and instead, resold humanitarian aid meant for Iraqi's on the black market to make money for himself. The entire blame for Iraqi's misery in the 1990s begins and ends with SADDAM HUSSIEN.


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## U2Edge (Jan 16, 2014)

georgephillip said:


> "BARRY LANDO is a former producer for 60 Minutes who now lives in Paris. He is the author of The Watchmans File. He can be reached at: barrylando@gmail.com or through his website."
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I'm sure Barry Lando would call the US invasion of Normandy to free France from Hilter's rule, genocide. 

No wonder Saddam thought he could last forever in power, his fan club is still supporting him! LOL


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## TheOldSchool (Jan 16, 2014)

Kosh said:


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Says the poster with the hard-on for priebus


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## Kosh (Jan 16, 2014)

TheOldSchool said:


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More proof that the far left will do what ever it takes to make Iraq a failure and all for political purposes.


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## TheOldSchool (Jan 16, 2014)

Kosh said:


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He said while tucking his dick between his legs and clucking


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## Kosh (Jan 17, 2014)

TheOldSchool said:


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More proof that the far left will do what ever it takes to make Iraq a failure and all for political purposes.


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## georgephillip (Jan 17, 2014)

Kosh said:


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*The anti-war movement hasn't gone anywhere.
It has disappeared from MSM after Obama's election.*

"Military might is not what defines a superpower. You have to have super patience. You have to have super negotiating power and diplomatic resources. And you have to have super humanitarian aid where needed. We have the possibility of doing all of that.

Antiwar Mobilization Thwarts Syria Attack ? for now! | United For Peace and Justice


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## georgephillip (Jan 17, 2014)

U2Edge said:


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Only for those who believe Iraqi History began in 1991
Anyone paying attention knows how the CIA with Richard Helms as Director of Plans organized the 1963 military coup in Baghdad that first brought Saddam's Ba'ath Party to power.

Flash forward forty years and Iraq is once again a target of US "regime change", and very little being said in the corporate press bothered to mention how the CIA used political assassination, mass murder, and torture to bring Saddam to power in the first place.


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## dblack (Jan 17, 2014)

rdean said:


> That's what happens when Republicans are in charge.  They don't like to read so the only history they know is the one they rewrite.  In fact, if they don't care about the middle class and the poor here in this country, the ONLY reason they would be interested in Iraq is for oil and profit.



Do you have anything in your brain that isn't partisan nonsense?


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## georgephillip (Jan 17, 2014)

U2Edge said:


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*I'm pretty sure Barry knows the history of Iraq at least as well as you*

"In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. 

"In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power for the first time. 

"Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. 

"The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. 

"Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq."

*Are you still clapping for the CIA?*

Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam&#39;s Party in Power


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## OldUSAFSniper (Jan 17, 2014)

Here's the problem that I have with your 'the United States is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.'  And as you say, 'probably far more than Saddam himself.'

Let's look at the Sudan for a second.  Do you know how much money is being sent to the Sudan in supplies and food?  And when those supplies and food get their, what is happening to that stuff?  The same thing that happens to the supplies and food that we sent and are sending to Somalia and Ethiopia.  It gets to the docks, gets loaded onto trucks and is promptly placed into a warehouse where a majority of it is STOLEN by warlords or corrupt government officials.  It happens time and time again.  And those children you see on TV?  They die in droves because the help is stolen.

And you are naïve enough to think that Saddam Hussien, who gassed thousands of his own people, was going to worry about what happens to the children of his nation?  The thing that kills me is that YOU NEVER LEARN... EVER. You demonstrated when Reagan put missiles into Europe in response to the SS-20's.  Nuclear Armageddon, you cried!  How horrible of the US you whined, never once screaming about the SS-20's in Poland and Czechoslavakia.  Your allies in Hollywood even made a scare movie about nuclear war and showed it on prime time. Sit down with the Soviets you whined.  They're not that bad, you can talk to them you pleaded.  Give them what they want, we don't want to die!  Reagan didn't listen and the end result?  START II and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  You cannot sit down and deal with tyrants, despots and psychotic regimes.  You have to deal with them from a position of STRENGTH.  I don't expect you to actually read, but there are several good books from the old Soviet point of view about what Reagan did and why it threw them into such a fit.  He didn't buckle and they knew they were in trouble.  You remember JFK?  Same as he did during the Cuban missile crisis.    

Naturally, everything that the US does in the middle east is because we WANT THEIR OIL.  Course, if it was, we should be rolling in it?  You and rdean, who doesn't have a glimmer of common sense, should look at the export totals for Iraqi oil, the import break down of oil imported into the US, and tell me where all this oil we went to war for, is going. Less and less oil from the middle east is making its way to the US because of the new finds.  The Saudi's are nervous about it too.

You think for a second that if the embargo was lifted that Saddam would have allowed tons of supplies to immediately go to children?  Then you are as idiotic as rdean.  It would have went to him and his family and then sold on the black market to finance his personal empire.  I just don't understand the idiocy of people trying to say that these type of tyrants will act like normal people.  They won't...


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## georgephillip (Jan 17, 2014)

OldUSAFSniper said:


> Here's the problem that I have with your 'the United States is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.'  And as you say, 'probably far more than Saddam himself.'
> 
> Let's look at the Sudan for a second.  Do you know how much money is being sent to the Sudan in supplies and food?  And when those supplies and food get their, what is happening to that stuff?  The same thing that happens to the supplies and food that we sent and are sending to Somalia and Ethiopia.  It gets to the docks, gets loaded onto trucks and is promptly placed into a warehouse where a majority of it is STOLEN by warlords or corrupt government officials.  It happens time and time again.  And those children you see on TV?  They die in droves because the help is stolen.
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Iraq, Sudan, and Somalia along with Libya, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran were all slated for regime change within weeks of 911. Most of those who profit the most from starving thousands of children don't live in any of those states.

They live in the USA.

Likewise those in the USA who get rich from war could care less about acquiring ME oil for the American consumer than they do about controlling who receives the oil elsewhere on the planet, and how much they pay for it. FDR set this in motion in 1944 when the US was the world's leading oil exporter.

Your conservative crocodile tears for the "thousands of his own people" gassed by Saddam would be a lot more believable if you were to equally condemn the role the CIA played in bringing Saddam to power in the first place, along with other butchers from Indonesia to the Philippines, to Guatemala.

As far as the Gipper and the Russians are concerned, the last thing Russia needed at the end of WWII was a Cold War with a global superpower whose homeland infrastructure was untouched by the war. Had countries like Greece, Palestine, Korea, and Vietnam been allowed to decide their own fates at the ballot box at that time, those SS-20s would not have been needed in Poland and Czechoslavakia, and neither would US missiles in Turkey.

I'm guessing we both started school in the 1950s.
One of the most common discussions of political economy I remember hearing at that time was a fear of another Great Depression without wartime spending.
Cold War spending might have made our childhoods more comfortable; however, it came at huge price in places like Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.


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## U2Edge (Jan 17, 2014)

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Saddam and the Ba'ath Party went with the SOVIETS, not the United States.


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## U2Edge (Jan 17, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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I clap for all the men and women that have honorably served in the United States military and intelligence services in some capacity over the past 70 years helping to defeat the axis powers, containing and fighting the spread of Soviet Communism around the world, preventing WORLD WAR III, protecting Persian Gulf Security and helping make the world the most prosperous and developed it has ever been in the history of this PLANET!


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## U2Edge (Jan 17, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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Oh yes, because a retired general had a conversation with some unnamed employee at the Pentagon, it must definitely be true! LOL Absolute RUBISH!



> Likewise those in the USA who get rich from war could care less about acquiring ME oil for the American consumer than they do about controlling who receives the oil elsewhere on the planet, and how much they pay for it. FDR set this in motion in 1944 when the US was the world's leading oil exporter.



           It does not matter whether someone in the United States is getting rich from middle east oil or not! THE PLANET benefits when global oil supplies keeps up with demand because that keeps the price of oil from damaging the global economy!*The People of PLANET earth depend on the free flow of oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf. Anything that helps and secure that is good and helps the citizens of earth. Anything that threatens or cuts it off is bad and is a threat to the world!*



> Your conservative crocodile tears for the "thousands of his own people" gassed by Saddam would be a lot more believable if you were to equally condemn the role the CIA played in bringing Saddam to power in the first place, along with other butchers from Indonesia to the Philippines, to Guatemala.



           Unfortunately, you don't now how to distinguish between actions that are good for humanity and those that are not. *With your logic, we would have to condemn any aid and help for the Soviet Union during World War II which was necessary to help defeat the Axis powers and save the planet!*



> As far as the Gipper and the Russians are concerned, the last thing Russia needed at the end of WWII was a Cold War with a global superpower whose homeland infrastructure was untouched by the war. Had countries like Greece, Palestine, Korea, and Vietnam been allowed to decide their own fates at the ballot box at that time, those SS-20s would not have been needed in Poland and Czechoslavakia, and neither would US missiles in Turkey.



       Wow, a defender of SADDAM now a defender of the SOVIET UNION! LOL

   Stalin and the Soviet leadership at the end of World War II were interested in one thing, expanding their POWER. Its the Soviets that murdered and butchered the democracy movement in Eastern Europe before the war was even over and reneged on all their promises to allow free elections in Poland, Czechloslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, etc. Only one party was allowed in government in those countries, THE COMMUNIST PARTY. Then you have the stationing of hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in these countries to keep them in line. 

         The Soviets then tried to force the United States out of Berlin by blockading it. The United States and the West had no choice but take measures to defend itself.


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## georgephillip (Jan 17, 2014)

U2Edge said:


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*The CIA brought Saddam to power:*

"In early 1963, Saddam had more important things to worry about than his outstanding bill at the Andiana Cafe. On February 8, a military coup in Baghdad, in which the Baath Party played a leading role, overthrew Qassim. 

"Support for the conspirators was limited. In the first hours of fighting, they had only nine tanks under their control. The Baath Party had just 850 active members. 

"But Qassim ignored warnings about the impending coup. 

"What tipped the balance against him was the involvement of the United States. 

"He had taken Iraq out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. 

"In 1961, he threatened to occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the foreign oil consortium that exploited Iraq's oil. In retrospect, it was the ClAs favorite coup. We really had the ts crossed on what was happening, James Critchfield, then head of the CIA in the Middle East, told us. 

"We regarded it as a great victory. Iraqi participants later confirmed American involvement. We came to power on a CIA train, admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general who was about to institute an unprecedented reign of terror. 

"CIA assistance reportedly included coordination of the coup plotters from the agency's station inside the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as well as a clandestine radio station in Kuwait and solicitation of advice from around the Middle East on who on the left should be eliminated once the coup was successful."

Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam&#39;s Party in Power

*Saddam moved left into the Soviet camp in the 70s, and was rewarded with being placed on a US list of nations that support terrorism.

All that changed with the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s when the Gipper provided Saddam with many of the means to gas his own people, for example.*


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## U2Edge (Jan 18, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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The United States and the United Kingdom did have a role in helping overthrow Qasim from power in 1963 which brought Abdul Salam Arif to power. Arif put the Bath Party members in jail at the end of 1963. He died in plane crash in 1966 and then his brother came to power. The Bath Party and Saddam did not succeed in coming to power until the summer of 1968, which is over 5 years after CIA involvement in the removal of Qasim. 

So yes, the CIA had been involved in removing what it felt were pro-communist leadership in Iraq, but that did not put Saddam in power. In fact, Saddam was put in jail after that. 

 Iraq was a client state of the Soviet Union by the start of the 1980s. It was the Soviet Union the provided Iraq with nearly all of its weapon systems. The United States aid provided to Iraq in the 1980s was limited and only constituted 5% of the total. The United States did not supply Iraq with weapon systems. It did supply Iraq with loans for food, trucks, transport helicopters, standard trade relations and intelligence on Iranian military movements. 

      But it was the Soviets who were neck deep involved in Iraq supplying thousands of weapons systems and stationing over 1,000 Soviet military advisors in the country every year from 1980 all the way up to just before the start of the 1991 Gulf War!

       The United States did not supply Iraq any weapon systems, but we did supply Iran with over 1,000 TOW missiles during the Iran-Iraq war.


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## georgephillip (Jan 18, 2014)

U2Edge said:


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*Saddam's party would not have come to power in Iraq absent the 1963 coup which the CIA played a major role:*

"Qasim was overthrown by the Ba'athist coup of February 8, 1963, motivated by fear of communist influence and state control over the petroleum sector. 

"This coup was allegedly carried out with the backing of the British government and the American CIA.[33][34][35] The best direct evidence that the U.S. was complicit is the memo from NSC staff member Robert Komer to President John F. Kennedy on the night of the coup, February 8, 1963. The last paragraph reads:

"'We will make informal friendly noises as soon as we can find out whom to talk with, and ought to recognize as soon as were sure these guys are firmly in the saddle. CIA had excellent reports on the plotting, but I doubt either they or UK should claim much credit for it.'"

Abd al-Karim Qasim - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*Saddam's path to the presidency detoured through prison, but his fate, and that of his family, was all due to the CIA and the US military/industrial complex, as was that of Abdul Salam Arif:*

"On December 13, 2004, Arif's daughter, Sana Abdul Salam, and her husband, Wamith Abdul Razzak Said Alkadiry, were shot dead in their home in Baghdad by unknown assailants. Rafal Alkadiry, their 22-year-old son, was kidnapped,[12] and later killed."

Abdul Salam Arif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## U2Edge (Jan 18, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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SADDAM and the Bath Party came to power despite the events prior to the summer of 1968.

The US did NOT install 26 year old SADDAM as the leader of Iraq in 1963. The CIA helped to install Arif. Its not even clear that the CIA knew or cared who SADDAM was in 1963. 

       In addition, what SADDAM and the Bath party would become decades later did not exist in the 1960s. So all of these connections that are being drawn in this case are irrelevant.


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## georgephillip (Jan 19, 2014)

U2Edge said:


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*I never claimed the US installed 26 year-old Saddam as the leader of Iraq in 1963. At that time Saddam was deputy to Ahmed Hassan al_Bakr, who was appointed Prime Minister and later, Vice President of Iraq in the ba'ath-nasserist coalition government that came to power following the CIA-driven assassination of Qasim in 1963*

"Although he (Arif) was chosen as president, more power was held by the Ba'athist prime minister, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. 

"Following a Ba'athist-led coup in Syria in March 1963, Arif entered his country into reunification talks with Syria and Egypt (which had split from the UAR in 1961). 

"After a fallout with Nasser in July, the Ba'athist government of Iraq removed all non-Ba'athist members from the cabinet, despite Arif's support for Nasser.[3] 

"On November 18, Arif, with the support of disaffected elements in the military, took advantage of a split between the Ba'athwhich weakened the partyand ousted their members from the government. 

"Arif formed a new cabinet, retaining a few Ba'athists, but mostly made up of Nasserist army officers and technocrats. He maintained his presidency and appointed himself chief-of-staff."

Abdul Salam Arif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*The Ba'ath Party was the CIA's chosen instrument in toppling Kassem, and 25 year-old Saddam Hussein played a prominent role after returning from a Cairo exile where it's suspected he was trained by the CIA.*


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## U2Edge (Jan 19, 2014)

georgephillip said:


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Yes, you did! SADDAM and the Bath Party did not come to power in 1963. In fact, they were imprisoned. Saddam and the Bath Party's time is the summer of 1968, long after Qasim had been removed from power. 

      The links you draw between the CIA involvement in Iraq in 1963 and SADDAM don't exist in the way you have portrayed them. 

*SADDAM's rise to power in Iraq is the summer of 1968, long after the CIA intervention in Iraq in 1963. *

         26 year old SADDAM in 1963 was not the man he would become in 1979 or especially in 1990. He was soon imprisoned, far from being in power. He was a peasant who went on to exaggerate his role in Iraqi politics in the early 1960s once he was fully in power decades later. 

* CIA involvement in any country at a certain time period does NOT in of itself equate to automatic responsibility for all actions that occur in a country many years after that fact. There were things that the CIA did impact in Iraq especially in 1963, but there are many things that were impacted by the CIA and have no relation to the CIA in Iraq post 1963!  *


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## georgephillip (Jan 20, 2014)

U2Edge said:


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True or False:
1. After Qasim was overthrown in February of 1963, Ahmed Hassan al Bakr, a leader of Iraq's Ba'ath Party was appointed Prime Minister, and later, Vice President of Iraq in a ba'ath-nasserist coalition government?

2. Saddam was al-Bakr's deputy in 1963?

Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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