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UKInd: US Says It Will Act to Overthrow Saddam
In a major policy shift, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, declared yesterday that there should be a "regime change" in Iraq and that Washington was prepared to pursue that goal alone if necessary.
US says it will act to overthrow Saddam
By Rupert Cornwell and David Usborne
07 February 2002
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=118662
In a major policy shift, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, declared yesterday that there should be a "regime change" in Iraq and that Washington was prepared to pursue that goal alone if necessary.
America is spoiling as never before for action to settle its unfinished business with Iraq, the country singled out by President George Bush as the most menacing member of his "axis of evil". Whatever he means, and whatever the obstacles, the name of the game is clear – "regime change". But just how this will be achieved remains clouded in uncertainty. General Powell told Congress that Mr Bush was considering "a full range of options".
<snip - see link for full article>
By Rupert Cornwell and David Usborne
07 February 2002
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=118662
In a major policy shift, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, declared yesterday that there should be a "regime change" in Iraq and that Washington was prepared to pursue that goal alone if necessary.
America is spoiling as never before for action to settle its unfinished business with Iraq, the country singled out by President George Bush as the most menacing member of his "axis of evil". Whatever he means, and whatever the obstacles, the name of the game is clear – "regime change". But just how this will be achieved remains clouded in uncertainty. General Powell told Congress that Mr Bush was considering "a full range of options".
<snip - see link for full article>
For more information:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...
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Things might not have been pretty politically in 1990, but Iraq was fairly prosperous; standards of medical care and nutrition were high.
This reminds me of the general "free trade in the third world" pattern. Flood a country with cheap food; everyone "voluntarily" buys the cheaper food; the local farms "voluntarily" are unable to sell food and go under; the farmers and farm workers "voluntarily" go the cities to try to find a way to support themselves; they and the existing urban working class "voluntarily" accept lower wages because of greatly increased labor supply. Now, despite the cheap food, the workers are worse off.
In this situation, a US company comes in and sets up sweatshops, saying, "but they choose to work for us" and sometimes "we're paying an above-average wage". So they are, in a sense, improving things, but that's only after the situation was worsened.
In any event, I find it sad and narrow minded that extremists blame the US for the plight of Iraq. The United Nations sanctions are there for a reason. Saddam Hussein has ADMITTED pursuing weapons of mass destruction after years of LYING to inspectors. What has changed that we should no trust him implicitly when he says they have no more weapons of mass destruction??
Iraq brutalized the Kuwaiti people during the occupation, and they were routed by an international force. Now, Saddam's regime refuses inspectors, and continues to spend billions on military buildup at the expense of the Iraqi people-- the sanctions could end next month if inspectors were allowed to return. Why is this the USA's fault?
Is the USA putting "unreasonable" demands that Saddam comply with the terms of his defeat-- which he signed???
You should stop putting the blame of children dying of starvation on anyone other than the single person who can stop the sanctions-- Saddam Hussein.
Let's define terrorism: terrorism is "the systematic use of terror or unpredictable violence against governments, publics, or individuals to attain a political objective".
The US is systematically bombing Iraq, destroying its civilian infrastructure - things like clean water systems and power plants. Through the UN, it is blocking adequate food and medicine from reaching the country.
Thus the Iraqi civilian population - with little political control - is being subject to violence by the US in order to gain a political objective - a change in the head of state.
The US and the UN are terrorizing the Iraqi people. Plain and simple.
I guess it is pointless for us to tell you these things since the United States is infallible.
For those people, I offer you this quote-- from the most celebrated "defector":
Sept 3, 1998:
"Once effective inspection regimes have been terminated, Iraq will be able to reconstitute entirely its former nuclear, chemical and ballistic missiel delivery system capabilities within a period of six months."
December 1998:
"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like Anthrax, Botulinium toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents...and Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical production."
Clearly the Scott Ritter of 1998 would have some fierce debates with the Scott Ritter of 2001.
Scott has received over $500,000 to create a documentary film on Iraq-- from Saddam'sregime. He is now a part of the Iraqi propaganda machine-- trabelling to Iraq on Saddam's dollar, to attend conferences-- virtually every international arms expert disagrees with his new found assessment of Iraq's program.
Plus, it just shows that you can't make a valid argument against inspections in Iraq.
Can you justify the sanctions on Iraq which kill millions?
-----------------
"First I sold my television, then my furniture, then my car, then my house," said Mohammed Abdul Razaq, a retired office worker. "Everything that I built up over a lifetime is gone. A bomb is something you hear far away, or at worst, it kills you in a second. Sanctions kill you every day." -- from Smart Bombs, Dumb Sanctions January 3, 1999 New York Times Article
-----------------
"Iraq is being collectively tortured for its defiance of American and Israeli domination plans for the region. Even official U.N. reports document that nearly 1 million Iraqis -- mostly the young and the elderly -- have died in the past eight years as a direct result of American policies. Other expert estimates put the number at somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million -- half under the age of 5."
-----------------
"Stahl: "We have heard that a half a million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And--you know, is the price worth it?"
Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.""
-----------------
Do not believe the shit the media sells. Wake up. You think we went in there to protect Kuwait? Iraq asked US diplomats if they could invade Kuwait and got the ok from Washington. You think we give a shit about the Kurds? We are giving Turkey weapons for free so they can crush their Kurdish rebellions as brutually as possible.
Is he *in any way* responsible for what's going on?
On do you just lump the entire blame on the USA and forget about what is really the root cause here?
You all just keep spouting these statistics and claims of suffering of the Iraqi people.... fine! This does NOTHING to argue that the US is to blame for this situation.
You are right Philip. The US government is the purveyors of justice you win. Saddam is the Great Satan, United States for Great Justice!
We here at the Ministry of Fascism have been reading your posts with an insatiable hunger. We are truly impressed by your skills in selectively observing reality and in using doublethink, among others. As I am sure you already aware, our great nation has recently suffered an attack on its very foundations and we here at the Ministry of Fascism are helping to enforce arcane and macabre laws perpetrated on the American people. As you can imagine in such a time we have a huge backlog and we could use some talented men such as you working for us.
If you are interested you can help us purge all the leftists from this thread who dare not believe our propaganda. Whether what we say is true or not does not matter, all citiziens of Oceania are to have unwavering faith in the self evident goodnes of Oceania and its policies. Our goal is to see all dissenters killed so they can never spread their dissent to all those faithful citiziens. We would like you to silence at least one of these dissenters, once you have we will contact you with further info.
Sincerely,
the Ministry of Fascism
What I have not heard AT ALL is the idea that in some, small, minute way, Saddam Hussein might be part of the problem with Iraq. I have heard not a peep in that direction.
THAT is why all of these posts are so lopsided as to be non-credible diatribes, or mindless rhetoric with only one possible goal in mind-- to improperly place the blame of the plight of the Iraqi people squarely on the shoulders of the USA (not the UN, not the coalition, not the Iraqi Regime-- the USA). If one were to label these comments as "un-American", I am sure one would be assailed as a fascist, radical right winger-- when in reality...this would be a very moderate view of the world.
I hope I did not disturb your fantasy world-- where Iraq, a former 1st world country (it's hard to type that without laughing), has been maligned by the USA for no good reason, and the people are starving and suffering as a direct and singular result of the actions of the United States of America. Please resume your hallucinations-- and I ask your forgiveness for questioning your one-track mind.
You can begin by discussing US foreign policy over the course of the last hundred years with reference to Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Phillipines, Vietnam, South Africa, Israel, Chile, and Iran. This is a massively abbreviated list, but for these purposes, it'll suffice.
Next, you can explain to us why the US supported Saddam Hussein throughout the 80s, up until and after he used chemical weapons on the Kurds.
You can finalize this assignment with an exegesis on why the US deliberately kept Hussein in power after the Desert Storm slaughter and then proceeded to pursue a policy that killed up to a million Iraqi's while strengthening his hold on power.
I am sure Philip did not notice this but, there is a group called the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). This group is the most magical group in the history of American media propaganda. They were simulatenously terrorists and freedom fighters during the Gulf War.
During the Gulf War, America's depisicable ally Turkey was killing thousands of Kurds and attacking Kurdish villages. They were fighting with the PKK guerillas, whom Washington and Ankara both considered as terrorists. Meanwhile a few kilometers in nearby Iraqi Kurdistan, the PKK was hailed by Washington as freedom fighters for fighting Saddam Husssein. The same group, but while in our ally's country they were the devil, and in our enemy's territory they were angels.
The media disseminates information and it easy for them to just not report the bad things the PKK does in Iraq and to demonize them in Turkey but not reporting the good things they do. The media can present the facts how it wants to. The press is owned by wealthy people who only want certain things to reach the public.
Washington also encouraged the Kurdish seperatists to rebel when they were pulling out of Iraq. After they pulled out they knew that this rebellion may spread to nearby Turkey, so they let Saddam violently crush the Kurds once again.
Have you wondered why did they demonize Saddam so much, yet not take him out of power? It made no sense.
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REALPOLITIK- an expanionist national policy with the goal of advancing national interest
It has to do, I believe, with delivering "a fate worse than defeat", which could be code for nuclear attack, but could also be a broader term for general terrorizing and massacre of the civilian population.
Check out the "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence" which fairly cold-bloodedly explains why the US has always refused to forswear "first-strike" nuclear action - even though the USSR did.
http://www.nautilus.org/nukestrat/USA/Advisory/essentials95.html
One chilling gem:
"The fact that some elements [of the US power elite] may appear to be potentially 'out of control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts in the minds of an adversary's decision makers. This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence. That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be part of the national persona we project to all adversaries."
Check the FOIA'd PDF document. You won't find a lot of namby-pamby talk about human rights, freedom, and democracy in there. Just "US interests", meaning military and financial.
>But there is a small country that wags America like a tail. It’s England, the real “Evil Empire.”
Nessie, do you hang out at the LaRouche pub? :)
------
"The greatest threat from terrorism in the United States comes from people who are associated with a British Church of England-run Pentecostalist movement inside the United States. It is this apparatus which has structured the militias. Now, most people in the militia movement, or associated with it, have no part of the intentions of those who are behind it, particularly that section in the Episcopal Church, or Pat Robertson, who's part of this same movement, who are barking--authentically barking--Pentecostalists, who, with their connections with the military, deeply embedded in the military, including the ... corps of chaplains in the U.S. military, are largely controlled, presently, by outright barking Pentecostalists.... This is the ... main source of the internal threat of the potential for terrorism, and other kinds of treason inside the United States, today."
--Lyndon LaRouche, "EIR Talks," July 30, 1997.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1997/ahc.html
"In its Aug. 5 edition, Take a Break published an article under the banner headline, "Shut This Man's Mouth," with a large photo of LaRouche appearing next to these words. Written by one Katie Fraser, the piece characterized LaRouche as "dangerous," and claimed that Buckingham Palace has become "increasingly alarmed" at the fact that exposés by LaRouche-associated publications about the British monarchy, such as the alleged royal family's involvement in the death of Princess Diana, "are being spread around the globe," and are being read in places like China, the Middle East, South America, and Africa, thanks to their circulation, including over the Internet."
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1997/ahc.html
As it is, US military allocations constitutes 36% of military spending globally and is larger than the 15 next largest military budgets in the world put together.
France -Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$39.831 billion (FY97)
United Kingdom -Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$36.884 billion (FY97)
I have no idea why you think that increase is bigger than their budgets combined.
The American military budget is probably much higher than what we are told. The money that the US government pisses away buying weapons for Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Indonesia and their global gang of thugs should be added calculated in this figure.
Good lookin' out.