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Don't forget Americas old friend Saddam Hussein, whom they supplied with... chemical weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.

by wz1000 10y ago

Don't forget Americas old friend Saddam Hussein, whom they supplied with... chemical weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Iran-Iraq_War_and_resumption_of_diplomatic_ties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_rel...

acqq 10y ago
The Vietnam war was started with a (to the government known) lie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
nwah1 10y ago
It seems a bit strange to say that the US supplied him with chemical weapons and that they were lying that he had chemical weapons. Not technically impossible for both to be true, but seems somewhat unlikely. Is the thinking that it was bad intelligence or falsified intelligence? And what about the other foreign intelligence agencies that supposedly corroborated it?
- acqq 10y ago
  Not unlikely at all. If you really believed that up to now, here's your red pill: Long ago, Iraq bought different weapons. But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the UN Security Council required Iraq to eliminate its WMD. Iraq destroyed it then. The UN inspectors were able to confirm that. Saddam let them search, they have found nothing, but the USG politicians didn't care. They wanted the war. So what happened then in 2003: The Independent reports in 2012: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-wmd-lies-led-to-100000-deaths-confesses-all-7606236.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-w... "Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw The Guardian reports in 2011: "Curveball" admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war" Other foreign intelligence agencies? On another side of the ocean, UK and Tony Blair did their part of lies: the "secret services" presented a work of a student, which they copied from the internet(!) as their own "research" and a "proof": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier "much of the work in the Iraq Dossier had been plagiarised" "The most notable source was an article by then graduate student" copied "verbatim including typographical errors" And the attack of Iraq on Kuwait, that was the cause of the first Gulf war, was also result of the signaling that the US prepared for their ambassador (not "don't touch Kuwait, we'll attack you then" but "we want peace" which Saddam translated "if you do it fast we won't do any more war afterwards"): http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-didnt-cause-the-gulf-war/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-did... ""There was no way that April could have done anything more than she did without authority going all the way up to the president of the United States," said White. "Because we don’t make idle threats. If you’re going to threaten, you have to really mean it."" By the way, the testimony of a "nurse" about "Iraqi killing babies" that was a direct excuse for the first Gulf war? Fake, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) "al-Sabah's testimony has come to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda." See also my other post here, about Vietnam war. P.S. As you still don't believe that there were no WMD in Iraq: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-inspections-fast-facts/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-i... "October 6, 2004 - The final Iraq Survey Group report is released. The report concludes that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction." "March 31, 2005 - The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction reports that the intelligence community was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion." The US really did it best to find anything once they were there. But there wasn't anything at all. The West did sell Saddam the weapons earlier, but he also destroyed it all for the West. He simply didn't want war.
  - nwah1 10y ago
    Sweet, thanks for the sources. I still find myself doubting that Saddam actually eliminated all of his weapons that, as you demonstrate, there's proof that he had at one point. There's known corruption scandals at the UN involving Iraq, and the IAEA officials require cooperation with the government. However, it seems to me that for the most part very few people would switch from anti-war to pro-war based on this issue. It is mostly, but not entirely, irrelevant to the moral questions surrounding foreign interventionism. But it is important for the historical record.

by wz1000 10y ago

acqq 10y ago

The Vietnam war was started with a (to the government known) lie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

nwah1 10y ago

It seems a bit strange to say that the US supplied him with chemical weapons and that they were lying that he had chemical weapons. Not technically impossible for both to be true, but seems somewhat unlikely. Is the thinking that it was bad intelligence or falsified intelligence? And what about the other foreign intelligence agencies that supposedly corroborated it?

acqq 10y ago
Not unlikely at all. If you really believed that up to now, here's your red pill: Long ago, Iraq bought different weapons. But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the UN Security Council required Iraq to eliminate its WMD. Iraq destroyed it then. The UN inspectors were able to confirm that. Saddam let them search, they have found nothing, but the USG politicians didn't care. They wanted the war. So what happened then in 2003: The Independent reports in 2012: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-wmd-lies-led-to-100000-deaths-confesses-all-7606236.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-w... "Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw The Guardian reports in 2011: "Curveball" admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war" Other foreign intelligence agencies? On another side of the ocean, UK and Tony Blair did their part of lies: the "secret services" presented a work of a student, which they copied from the internet(!) as their own "research" and a "proof": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier "much of the work in the Iraq Dossier had been plagiarised" "The most notable source was an article by then graduate student" copied "verbatim including typographical errors" And the attack of Iraq on Kuwait, that was the cause of the first Gulf war, was also result of the signaling that the US prepared for their ambassador (not "don't touch Kuwait, we'll attack you then" but "we want peace" which Saddam translated "if you do it fast we won't do any more war afterwards"): http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-didnt-cause-the-gulf-war/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-did... ""There was no way that April could have done anything more than she did without authority going all the way up to the president of the United States," said White. "Because we don’t make idle threats. If you’re going to threaten, you have to really mean it."" By the way, the testimony of a "nurse" about "Iraqi killing babies" that was a direct excuse for the first Gulf war? Fake, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) "al-Sabah's testimony has come to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda." See also my other post here, about Vietnam war. P.S. As you still don't believe that there were no WMD in Iraq: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-inspections-fast-facts/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-i... "October 6, 2004 - The final Iraq Survey Group report is released. The report concludes that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction." "March 31, 2005 - The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction reports that the intelligence community was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion." The US really did it best to find anything once they were there. But there wasn't anything at all. The West did sell Saddam the weapons earlier, but he also destroyed it all for the West. He simply didn't want war.
- nwah1 10y ago
  Sweet, thanks for the sources. I still find myself doubting that Saddam actually eliminated all of his weapons that, as you demonstrate, there's proof that he had at one point. There's known corruption scandals at the UN involving Iraq, and the IAEA officials require cooperation with the government. However, it seems to me that for the most part very few people would switch from anti-war to pro-war based on this issue. It is mostly, but not entirely, irrelevant to the moral questions surrounding foreign interventionism. But it is important for the historical record.