US Knew Iraq was Using Chemical Weapons Against Iran

That is an interesting statement. There has been talk of the US just assisting one of the many factions within Iraq that want Hussein gone. I'd be in favor of that.

 

I'll lay my money that either we take him out ourselves, or we build up such a force that his generals fold and take him out themselves.

Either way, that doesn't get the Iraqi Ba'ath Party out of power, and both scenarios would just lead to Qusay coming to power, with the Ba'athists still in control...

No, we're going to wipe the slate clean here. I'll lay heavy money on that. Clean wipe - Saddam, his family, and the higher Ba'ath officials all die or get captured. The new regime will be democratic. That is the goal.

Sorry for the"------------" deals, didn't realize that was a problem. Problem solved.

 

Another classic case of how our leaders support dictators, torturers, terrorists and whoever, if they are useful for foreign policy goals. When they cross us, we then label them as dictators, torturers, or terrorists and then insist that they should be removed at the expense of tax payers and the lives of working class young people.

Let's see, Sadam and , Noriega, our old CIA Agent come to mind. Can anyone think of more examples?

Of course many of the dictators, torturers and terrorists have never crossed us so we still support them. Sharon comes to mind.

 

Surely you are not suggesting we should have invaded Russia (Chechnya) or China (Tibet)?

You'll have to be more specific about West Africa. South Africa and Central and South America are old Cold War examples. The recent examples are decidedly different. And you should remember that Carter started the process of Pinochet's relinquishing power with the National Accords in Chile. Even Reagan followed Oscar Arias's lead with the expansion of democracy in Central and South America through the 80s as the Cold War came to a conclusion. It might be pointed out that the only DICTATOR left in Central or South America at one point was Castro, a dedicated opponent of the US. The US has removed a junta in Haiti. We intervened in Bosnia when the EUROPEANS failed to act for 10 years. We intervened in Somalia without strategic interest. And why is the US to blame for Rwanda. You called Russia and China 'superpowers' in another thread. Why aren't THEY to blame? Why isn't the UN to blame?

When you point to places we DID NOT intervene, that does nothing to the point that we HAVE INTERVENED in places without stategic interest, like Somalia, or Bosnia. The US does not have to intervene in EVERY situation to be able to say we act others interest. Remember we sat by 10 years while Europe twiddled their thumbs in Bosnia. The genocide in Rwanda did not develop overnight, but WAS relatively swift it action. Without ANY international mandate are you advocating UNILATERAL ACTION???

You could easily justify removing Saddam to stop genocide. Just like in Bosnia. You could justify intervention to stop starvation, just like Somalia. You could justify intervention to remove a military dictator, just like Haiti.

It takes John Wayne to stop Liberty Valance, Jimmy Stewart just got stomped on.

This is somewhat simplistic, and suprising from you Batman. What would have happened if Iran had rolled over Iraq? The choice was supporting a balance of power between a larger aggressor and a smaller country whose strategic goals (at the time) were consistent with our own, mainly to stop Iran from controlling the whole Middle East oil supply. It would have been US troops on the front line then so those proxy deals save US lives, on balance. We are much more able to deal with Iraq now then we were Iran then. Also, Scuds are not American. Saddam purchased weapons from many countries including China, Russia, the UK, and France. To assert that we are wholey responsible for his weapons program is false. Americans, I think, generally have a sense of moral superiority because when the **** hits the fan its the US they turn to for help first. Not the UN. Not China. Not Russia. Not the EU or the OAS. Or ASEAN or NATO. So we consider it natural for pretty much EVERY country in the world to BOTH ask for our aid and our help (whether it be dollars or influence or markets or military) AND dog us in public. Its the nature of being on top. The Arabs weren't squealing when Iraq stopped Iran. The won't be when we remove Saddam. THIS I guarantee: they will complain no matter what course we eventually take.

It is well documented that the regimes in the region funnel public dissent on most internal issues into anti-American directions. It is also well documented that the Arab ego is hurt upon reflection of their once great civilization which is now so backwardsass.

 

I don't really understand what the problem is with acting in conjunction with the UN. Acting with other countries of the world, instead of acting above them, seems like a smart way to do things. It will improve relations and hopefully decrease anti-American sentiment around the world. Acting with other countries instead of unilaterally would be cheaper, provide more support, and less resentment. It just seems like good diplomacy to me.

 

I'm astonished that no one seems to think it was immoral that we "apparently" gave Iraq battlefield intelligence knowing that Saddam would use it to deploy poison gas. Perhaps someone did and I missed it.

I would MUCH rather have sent in US forces to prevent an Iranian victory. I followed this conflict as closely as I could at the time (and a brutal conflict it was), and I was disturbed then that we were doing what has come out now. Had we militarily intervened, we could have been in a good position to influence Iraqi military brass who were eager to remove Saddam to take that step with our help. Those officers were executed with regularity if they so much as sneezed in Saddam's direction.

It was crucial to prevent the fall of Iraq. We didn't have to assist them in the use of poison gas to do it. We had other options.

 

HayesStreet: My basic point here IS simplistic. And Jeff summed it up perfectly. I'm not questioning the danger Iran posed to us at the time. I'm questioning the cynical maneuver, perpetrated time and again, of assisting, empowering and arming bad guys (at a considerable cost to taxpayers), only to go back and take them out later (at considerable cost in both tax dollars and blood).

And Bosnia and Somalia were very different. We went in to those situations DURING the genocide -- not years later.

 

Deckard said:

Sadly, I'm not. Many people, especially in Texas,think that morality has only to do with supporting Bush the Younger because he is a "good Christian man". Nothing else needs to be said.

Of course one can talk about the immorality of premarital sex, homosexuality, abortion, erotic literature and pictures and in the Catholic Church's case (at least in years past) the immorality of masturbation and impure thoughts.

 

What do you mean, 'that's it?' What do you think feeds anti-Americanism? When everything from local poverty to the emasculation of the Arab male by the Israelis is blamed on the US by local regimes, who do think they're going to hate? When they look at how powerful their ancestors were, and how developed their civilizations were, how can they not be jealous of the comparative squalor they live in while we now occupy the top rung. At the same time they see the Jews prospering. Why are the Jews prospering with no oil, while the Arabs like like crap with the worlds money flowing into their pockets? Oh, well it can't be their own regimes, so it must be those Imperialist Americans! Can't get milk for the kids? Well its obviously because the US has a vendetta against that good Muslim Saddam since he stood up to them when Kuwait invaded Iraq!

When Arabs say silly stuff like the above, its obvious the Arab world is either misperceiving our intent, or they are falling for propaganda designed to transfer blame to the US. Neither is justification to alter our course nor our policies.

Your hypothetical is not parallel. No one says we STARTED the war between Iran and Iraq. No one says we caused 'political and financial ruin' in Iraq as a result of the Iran/Iraq war. Saddam was already firmly in power in Iraq so the political situation hardly changed. Financially Iraq was fine until they invaded Kuwait which was much later. Iraq WERE the aggressors in the Iran/Iraq War AND in the Gulf War.

If we invaded Mexico and got waxed by a UN coalition as a result, I don't think Americans would be reacting the same way as the Arabs.

 

You cannot make policy in a vaccuum. In most policy choices you are faced with choosing between the lessor of two evils. Whether or not more US soldiers are saved through these actions is probably unresolvable. I think it should be apparent that involving US troops in a full scale conflict in the Middle East, during the early 80s, while the Cold War was still in swing, would have been much more dangerous, potentially losing many many many more American lives, than supplying Iraq with operational intelligence. The moral decision, which was to stop radical elements threatening the West's economy, was easy. Would be easy again.

Would you murder one child or launch a nuclear bomb at NY? At some point our tendencies toward moral imperatives MUST take a backseat to the more utilitarian instinct.

Now in the post-Cold War world, the US has follow a path with MORE multilateral actions, and less UNILATERAL actions. We have interevened in places with NO STRATEGIC VALUE purely for the sake of the people involved (Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia) when NO ONE ELSE would act.

This makes no sense.

 

I'm definitely upset by the kind of 'morality' used in that conflict. But I'm just not surprised. I think the Reagan administration was one of the most unethical administrations this century. You hear so much about Clinton corruption but looking at just the convictions Reagan had 29 convictions in his administration, and Clinton had 1.

I'm not trying to defend Clinton, because personally I think the guy was extremely dishonest, and behaved poorly. I just wanted to point out how unethical the Reagan administration was. Also a lot of Clinton's dishonesty ended up in him getting oral sex, Reagan's cover ups ended with chemical weapons being used, arms being sold to terrorist nations etc.

 

Objection, relevance.

 

Refman: Sustained.

Hayes: Someone (Ref?) said Saddam's treatment of the Kurds was similar to the reasons we went into Bosnia and Somalia. I pointed out the main difference, which was that we went into those conflicts to stop the bloodshed. In the case of the Kurds, they are not presently being killed -- to the best of our knowledge that has stopped. How does this not make sense?

 

Damn, I was going to reply to HayesStreet, but now I've got to go after YOU... Refman???

Read my post. I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING (thank you, that felt good) about the crap your referring to... Glynch said that. I think supporting Saddam's use of poison gas in that conflict was immoral and would rather have used our military if Iraq was on the verge of losing. I think we could of gotten rid of Saddam at the same time. Read my post, please.

 

Not to mention our ally, Turkey has it's own problem with oppressing Kurds. We'd have to attack them as well as Iraq. But instead we are trying to get Turkey to help us in the attack.

To say we'd go into Iraq because of their treatment of the Kurds doesn't make sense, or at best is hypocritical.

 

Batman Jones, I'm glad you bothered to read it as well.

 

Whoa, bro. I'm on your side. I'm on glynch's too. Ref just failed to edit out the "Deckard said" bit from glynch's post. Honest mistake. I think glynch has a point here too. It's a bit of a reach in this thread, though, even though I get his point about Bush getting the benefit of the doubt on issues of morality from people who share his basic value system.

 

OK, no problem.