This is an AP report that came out back in November, I thoought in light of yesterday's activities, it would be interesting to see what your thoughts are. Saddam Praises Peace Protests Iraqi dictator hopes public outcry will end U.S.-British alliance Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said in a rare interview that he believed the American and British determination to make war on Iraq could collapse under the weight of anti-war sentiment in the two countries. "Time is in our favor, and we have to buy more time hoping that the U.S.-British alliance might disintegrate because of ... the pressure of public opinion on American and British streets," Saddam told the Egyptian weekly Al-Osboa in the interview published Sunday. "The demonstrations in the Arab and Western world include hundreds of thousands of peace-loving people who are protesting the war and aggression on Iraq," he said, apparently referring to protests in the United States and around the world last month. Pointing to Arab public opinion as a force in Iraq's favor, Saddam also appealed to Arab leaders to defend Iraq. Arguing that Washington's goal was to control Mideast oil, he said that after attacking Iraq, U.S. forces could strike at other Arab countries and Iran. "Iraq is not like Afghanistan. This does not mean that we are stronger than the U.S., which has fleets and long-range missiles, but we possess faith in God, the country and the Iraqi people and, just as significant, the Arab nation," the Iraqi leader said. "We will never make it a picnic for the American and British soldiers," he told the pro-Iraqi newspaper. Most of Saddam's statements were standard Iraqi rhetoric -- he blamed "Zionist schemes" for Iraq's troubles and said invading Iraq would not be "a picnic" for American and British forces. But his references to anti-war demonstrations in the West were the first signal he believed protests could undermine President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the chief advocates of attacking Iraq. Al-Osboa published two pictures of its reporter Sayed Nassar with Saddam -- one of the interview and the other of the two shaking hands. The newspaper said the interview took just over two hours and was conducted at one of Saddam's presidential palaces on the outskirts of Baghdad, with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz present. While the United States has said it wants to oust Saddam to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the Iraqi president maintained in the interview that America's real design is to take control of Middle East oil to serve the interests of its ally, Israel. "The Arab oil will be under the U.S. control and the region, especially where oil flows, will be under full American hegemony. All this serves Israel's interest with the aim of turning it to a vast empire in the region," Saddam said.
Perhaps he's not as stupid as people want to think.... He's going to make a mistake sooner or later -- let's hope this time is it.
He's clearly not stupid. He <i>knows</i> that if he can just stall long enough the word community will lose interest and simply forget the reasons why they massed up against him in the first place (which is he invaded Kuwait and then agreed to surrender terms that left him in power provided he disarm - which he hasn't). He's playing France and Germany and most of the peace protesters like a fine musical instrument by preying on people's desire for peace at all cost (which is ironic as he's not a very "peaceful" guy) or their hatred for Bush. He knows exactly what he's doing. And there are a lot of people who are falling for his plan hook, line and sinker...
Without a doubt that is what is going on here. Think about how every time pressure builds due to findings that may sway the people away from supporting him, he does something to extinguish it. When it looked as thought troops were going to be sent in, he suddenly came out and said he would allow inspectors. Easing the pressure, keeping the protests alive. When the UN wanted access to specific areas he resisted until the pressure rose again, then he said he would allow access and again the pressure eased. Same thing a week or so ago with letting the UN speak to the scientists. This is not only a cat & mouse game, it’s a game of chicken. I was happy to see Powell lay it out again on Friday. The language in 1441 is about compliance and it has not happened. France and Germany are not likely to ever throw support behind this as they have a lot at stake with their relationships with Iraq. I hate to say this, but I think the UN has actually waited too long and the longer they wait the more the general public will actually believe this can actually be solved in this manner and it can't.
anything saddam praises can't be good. i wonder how the civilians in his country feel after all those antiwar protests. they are probably feeling pretty crappy right about now thinking that the prospects of democracy and no saddam have been cut.
anything saddam praises can't be good. i wonder how the civilians in his country feel after all those antiwar protests. they are probably feeling pretty crappy right about now thinking that the prospects of democracy and no saddam have been cut. Up until 1991, Iraq had one of the most advanced education and economic systems in the Middle East, and was culturally a centerpiece of the area. Life wasn't all that terrible in Iraq and if Hussein has convinced his people that its OUR fault (sanctions) that things fell apart, he may not be as hated as we like to believe. Keep in mind, this is an area that's never experienced democracy so their desire for it may not be as great as we'd like to believe.
give me a break...i think the people know who's fault it is. don't give propaganda that much credit. people have common sense. if they are educated then they can draw their own conclusions through the propaganda. they know that things were good before saddam chose to go to war and now they are bad after he got his butt kicked in war. remember saddam's government is not popular so people are not likely to believe what he says. also just because an area has never experience democracy does not mean that they do not have a drive for it. they may not know how to achieve, but that does not mean they don't want freedom and democracy. one more thing....wasn't saddam still torturing and killing his own people then? so don't say life wasn't that bad.
You are, of course, assuming that all young people in Iraq are educated outside of religious training, which is simply not the case. There are many things our government has told us that were considred propoganda by other countries and millions of Americans fell all over themselves to believe it at the time. Dozens of secrets have emerged from our past demonstrating that our government doesn't always behave properly, yet, in some instances, a majority of Americans defended our actions even when later we whinced at the prospect of our country doing those things. Half of our nation once fought and died for the right to continue, among other things, the practice of OWNING human beings. Prior to that, most of the country supported the practice. We had people believing that diving under their desks would protect them from a nuclear bomb. And it isn't just us. Germans supported Hitler. Italians supported Mussolini. Japanese pilots committed suicide in the name of their country. Nationalism can be a powerful motivator despite our ability to spot the propoganda from the outside.
Great post Jeff. Incidentally, the 'terror' in terrorism was coined during the French Revolution, the granddaddy of Nationalism (France was a world power then, America wasn't.). I think the people in general have fallen to a degree of complacency to the standards our media and government is held (I'm also guilty of it as well). Whether or not we're fully aware of how things are turning out to be, our passive complicity is probably the most alarming aspect to me.
Hmmm...where to start... First, I think you are talking about something other than what I was talking about. You are talking about people supporting their nation and that have a strong nationalist feeling. Iraq lacks that nationalist sentiment and popular will to fight and die for Iraq and Saddam. That could clearly be seen in the Gulf War with the massive defections and weak resistance. I am willing to bet that the other people who did not defect were mainly afraid of the consequences they would face if Saddam was not removed, kind of like that story that was posted on the BBS about some woman who talked about how Bush I told them to rise up against Saddam, but never helped out and they got slaughtered. Anyhow, Iraq is a splintered nation that is lead by a small minority faction. I don't have statistics but I am just going to assume a large percentage of the country has been or had someone close to them terrorized by Saddam's ruling party. With that being said I think the people are more likely to understand that it is not the rest of the world causing all the problems in Iraq, but Saddam himself. Major is right that Iraq was relatively well off compared to other Arab nations before the Gulf War, and the people in Iraq can see that things have gotten much worse for them after the Gulf War and Saddam's expansionist aggression. Most of the people in Iraq are not going to believe what Saddam and his government says, but they have to obey or face serious consequences. So my point is Iraq obviously lacks the nationalism you were talking about with those other nations. When you talk about all those other things they are not really relavent to Iraq since those countries had national unity and Iraq simply does not. Iraq has a warlord holding it together through fear and terror. And even when there is strong government propaganda and control you will see people still criticizing the government if they don't see a goal that they are fighting for and if things are going badly. However, they are usually dealt with quickly in those regimes and either locked up or killed. I'm reading a book called Prisoner of Mao about a guy locked up in thought reform prison and even there the people obey and change because they have incentives of early release and whatnot, not because they come to believe everything the government says. I dunno...I am rambling but there is so much that I am trying to say. Thats all for now....so if Saddam is praising something then you know it has to be bad since it means he knows its a way for him to maintain his power.
I'm certainly not going to defend Sadaam. The guy is a freakin' nutjob and you make good points about nationalism in general. My point was more about propoganda in general, not so much about Sadaam and his dictatorship.
Not popular???? What the hell, I thought he recently won an election by receiving 100% of the votes of his countrymen.
yeah, and their choices were 'saddam yes' and 'saddam no', and it was pretty much an open ballot. you know exactly what the american media tells you. which is sad. dont listen to our media...if you dont think the govt has influences on them, then you are living in your own little world, where the millions of people who protested against the war are wrong, and you are right. where the only support we have is england and australia (and the british people are very against this war) and the rest of the world is wrong too, im guessing? wake up.
Yeah well, the British were all for the Munich Accord, too, and look how that turned out. Of course, that's sort of the problem I see in any conflict. There really isn't any right answer. Certainly a war could have bad consequences, but we've seen in our past that delaying war can also have dire consequences. It's a no-win situation, precisely because we can't know the full consequences of our actions until after the fact. That's why I couldn't ever come out and say that I was anti-war because there certainly comes a time and place where war is the best solution of a whole bunch of bad solutions. Have I been convinced that time has come? Not really, but then again, I'm too busy not watching the news, reading newspapers (I only to the crossword), etc. to really know what it is that military and political leaders know about the true threat in Iraq or elsewhere in the world. If it were up to me, we'd probably just pack up our things and stay out of the Middle East, but there's a better than average chance that would have dire consequences of its own.
it was probably more like "Yes for Saddam" "No for Death" what exactly is this little rant about? i don't get it.
Specifically what relationship? I hear the ambiguous "contracts" with Iraq stuff but let's hear some specifics. I saw a French reporter state that less than 1% of France's foreign business dealings were with Iraq. That sounds pretty insignificant if true.
I second that, please elaborate. Do you think France's foreign business is between 4-5 trillion dollars? I have several stories that mention these contracts, many of them are from international sources in addition to the American media sources. Try this one out and if you wish for some additional stories, I will provide them to you: Fri 14 Feb 2003 A senior Pentagon adviser accused France of striking a deal with Saddam Hussein to oppose military action in return for a lucrative oil contract. Richard Perle, a former US Assistant Defense Secretary, said economic interests drove the French anti-war stance. French oil giant TotalFinaElf has exclusive exploration contracts worth $US40-50 billion to develop the massive Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields in southern Iraq, he said. "What's distinctive about the Total contract is that it's not favorable to Iraq, it's favorable to Total," Mr Perle, the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, said during an address in New York. "One can suspect that there's some arbitrage there, that in between the real value of that contract and the cash value of that contract there's a certain amount of political support. "It's entirely possible that Saddam negotiated that deal because that along with the revenues ... he could get something else." He said oil experts who had analyzed the deal described it as "extraordinarily lopsided" in favor of the French company. "This is not your normal oil exploration contract." Total is currently barred from working on the oil fields because of the economic sanctions against Iraq. If Saddam is overthrown the new regime is likely to nullify existing contracts and invite oil companies from around the globe to compete for new deals. "The French interest in the propagation of contracts that will only go forward with this regime is perfectly obvious." Mr Perle also said the dispute over whether to invade Iraq had exposed France's determination to shape the European Union as a "counterweight" to the US. French president Jacques Chirac saw the role of the EU to neutralize America rather than to work with it, he said. "A relationship that can be described in terms of a counterweight is not a relationship of alliance." Mr Perle said the "extremity" of the German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the "petulance" of Mr Chirac in their stance on Iraq could alter the US-European partnership forever. "I think that's going to cause a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic to rethink the post-war alliance. "It may well be the case that we are witnessing history in the making in this transatlantic relationship."
Do you think France's foreign business is between 4-5 trillion dollars? I have several stories that mention these contracts, many of them are from international sources in addition to the American media sources. I won't argue the details of the contract, but your numbers are flawed. When they say $40-$50B, they aren't talking in one year - that's the total value of the contract. If it's a 20 yr contract (just a random guess), that's $2 billion a year, and France's foreign business could very well be $200B (I have no idea). More likely, I would think it's a far longer-term than that if its an oil exploration contract.
Nonetheless, I can imagine Total putting the pressure on the government. It's not everyday that you get a $40-50 billion dollar deal that's "extraordinarily lopsided," regardless of the time frame of the contract.
Omigod, I am such a pawn of Saddam! I have been so stupid! I just thought I was protesting this administration's WWF-style "diplomacy," when actually I was working for an Evil tyrant! Shucks. At least this explains that check I got in the mail from the Iraqi goverment. Oh, and one more thing...
