9 ms·

CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

153 points by w1ntermute 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago
Honestly this has never really been a secret, but it is good to see this get some proper attention. With any luck Americans will be more wary of statements like Bush's infamous "'Why do they hate us?' ... They hate our freedom".
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  While the "they hate our freedom" is a completely bullshit line, in the case of Al Qaeda who Bush was referring to, they probably would have supported primarily Sunni Iraq gassing primarily Shia Iran. Our policies in Egypt and (ironically) putting troops in Saudi Arabia to fight Saddam, on the other hand, did motivate Al Qaeda.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Hmm, I thought the "they hate our freedom" line was from the "Axis of Evil" speech. Looks like I remembered wrong.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
  "U.S. says Iraq used nerve gas against Iran" -- March 30, 1984 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cOEbAAAAIBAJ&pg=3398,8079675 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cOEbAAAAIBAJ&pg=3398,80... "Iraq May Get U.S. Aid To Prevent Iran Victory" -- May 21, 1984 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xcQ_AAAAIBAJ&pg=2897,2695491 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xcQ_AAAAIBAJ&pg=2897,26... Not much of a secret indeed.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- GauntletWizard 13y ago
  One of the primary tenets of Al Qaeda is to impose Sharia law on the land. They believe that "man-made" laws are unnatural, and go against god's will; They would see the entirety of the world under their strict, revisionist, regressive, incredibly broken system of law. They literally do "hate our freedom". Every time I hear someone repeat that line as a joke, it makes me mad how incredibly out of touch they are. Literally; Al Qaeda, and an substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere, not only hate your freedom, but would kill you just for espousing it.
  - eliasmacpherson 13y ago
    I'd like to see some numbers there, opinion polls to back up your utter nonsense.
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    Ah, it's you again. Do you actually know any Muslims? I've never met one who "hated [my] freedom."
  - nwp90 13y ago
    "Literally; Al Qaeda, and an substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere" Non-sequitur. No matter how true it may be for Al Qaeda, for which people may feel they have seen evidence, you provide absolutely no backing for your assertion that a "substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere" agree with what you assert Al Qaeda feel.
devx 13y ago
Anyone else think they're doing the same now with the "gas attack" in Syria? I don't really claim to understand how a dictator thinks under pressure of civil war, but the guy seemed relatively intelligent and educated. He'd probably know better than to do such an attack, when US and others were looking for any excuse to enter the war. The situation really is terrible for everyone there, but I'm not sure an US intervention would make things better, and I especially don't trust US propaganda anymore. I'm way over the "spreading democracy" phase.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  At this point, there isn't any way to say for sure. The only thing about that situation that seems clear is that the situation is a clusterfuck and that nothing is clear. We should want nothing to do with that situation and indeed it seems most Americans don't want anything to do with that situation (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-usa-poll-idUSBRE97O00E20130825 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-us...). Unfortunately the possibility remains that Americans already do have something to do with the situation, whether that is what the people desire or not.
- speeder 13y ago
  Although even accident cannot be ruled out (the situation is just confusing and crazy), it would not surprise me if the attack was backed (even if indirectly) by US or Israel. It would surprise me even less if it was someone else, and US knew and did nothing to prevent it on purpose (like the story on the article, or the one about OWS people being targeted by snipers and FBI ignoring the snipers on purpose).
- rdtsc 13y ago
  Still hard to say. Objectively, given that neither side actually cares for taking innocent human lives, the ones most likely to profit from this are the rebels. Obama's "line in the sand" speech coupled with the timing of UN inspectors on the ground should make one think twice before jumping to default conclusion. I don't care for one side or the other, it is just a big mess anyway it seems. The reason I kind of follow is that I am afraid somehow US is going to get involved in it, which, now seems more likely.
grecy 13y ago
Are people honestly still proud to be American when things like this come to light? Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? (honest question, I don't understand)
- jlgreco 13y ago
  > Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? Honest answer to the honest question: I want to live in this country[1] because I consider it my home. The government? That is the part I don't care for. I feel absolutely no loyalty to it. When another victor inevitably starts writing history books, those books will not be kind to the modern American government. [1] Where "country" is both a chunk of geography, a loose-knit culture (perhaps best described as a culture of loose-knit cultures), and the place where most of the individual people I like also live.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    > I feel absolutely no loyalty to it. Yet you are enforced to be loyal to it. Try not paying your taxes, for example, and they will deprive you of your freedom.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      I am loyal to it like somebody is loyal to a mugger. If I don't give them money, people with guns will take it. I would say this is better described as "obedience" than "loyalty". Should I move to another country and pay a different government my tax money instead? Arguably. It is not clear to me which government I should instead be forced to pay, and my options are very limited as I am ill-equipped to live in most other countries. Five Eyes rules out the most obvious answers.
      - ekianjo 13y ago
        > Should I move to another country and pay a different government my tax money instead? Arguably. I'd say any government which does not have a standing army killing innocent people overseas is a better choice. At least your taxes would then not be used to produce bombs and guns. I agree with you that no country is perfect and you can find flaws in every of them, but still. There are some levels of differences.
speeder 13y ago
Then US citizens wonder why everyone else hates them. Much of this, is not news in many countries, although it lacks solid proof or confessions, it is impossible to keep all that hidden for long. Brazillians for example figured only one or two years after the US backed coup here, that the coup was US backed. (declassified documents confirmed our suspicions about 5 years ago). Also, there still many people here waiting to see if documents detailing how our ships got sunk during World War II, the official history is that it was the germans and this is why we joined the war, but WWII veterans swear it was US posing as germans, so they could close the steel mill deal. When WWII started, Brazil president was very close to Italy leadership, and he was a fascist himself, Brazil was providing lots of resources to Italy and Germany. Later, US wanted the massive amounts of rubber we had, and of course, wanted Brazil to stop helping the Axis. Then there was the sudden attacks, and a sudden president change of heart, where Brazil would start to supply US instead, specially Jeep tyres, would buy a steel mill, and would help in the African front lines... this got changed to Italy mid-trip, with Brazillian ships dumping into Italy snowy mountains people trained and geared for a desert war... I know a bunch of people (specially, obviously, fascists, but many non-fascists too, but most of them are over 50) that still resent that story, and wish Brazil had joined (with boots on the ground) the Axis side instead. Also Brazillian soldiers got shafted hard by the US, specially the "rubber soldiers". US and Brazil made a agreement, where drafted people could choose to fight in Europe, or get shipped to Amazon (with several promises regarding the advantage of going to Amazon, and indeed 50.000 soldiers went to Amazon), they would gather the rubber to make tyres, and US and Brazillian government would jointly pay them and take care of them, and return them back to their family after the war... The payment arrived (and partially) only in 1988, and they are still stranded away from home... (some of them still roam the forest wearing their military uniforms, kinda creepy seeing 90+ year old soldiers roaming the forest)
- nl 13y ago
  I aren't particularly familiar with Brazilian history, but I am reasonably familiar with WW2 history. Brazil declared war (on Germany & Italy only - not Japan) in late August 1942. That was a few months before Churchill's famous "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." speech. This was well after Pearl Harbour and at a point where it was becoming clearer that the Axis wasn't going to win. I've never looked into allegations of US sabotage on Brazilian merchant shipping. It's possible, but at the same time it would be very surprising if German U-boats weren't responsible for the majority of the sinkings. There's reasonable evidence that U-507 sunk at least 7 Brazilian ships (the German's were pretty good at keeping records of these things)[1]. It sounds to me like Brazil jumped in on the winning side after being on a wrong side of some bad decisions by some German U-boat commanders. As an aside, it's fine to criticise the US, but I think it's reasonable to expect some evidence to backup some pretty big allegations. Additionally it's hard to make a moral argument that any country should have joined the Axis Powers during WW2 (with the exception of Finland, who made the best of a bad situation but were pretty much screwed no matter what they did). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-507#3rd_patrol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-507#3rd_patrol
graycat 13y ago
Of course. The joke is that Cheney's statement that there is "no doubt" that Saddam has WMDs because we still had the receipts from when we sent him the chemical weapons for him to use against Iran.
javajosh 13y ago
The USG has slowly, by steps, become brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent to the suffering of civilians--it's own civilians not excepted. Loyalty to the chain of command is the only value that matters (that's why the USG hates Snowden so much, BTW). Our leadership (both business and political) has woken up to the startling truth that there is no check on their power, and restraint is for losers. As governor Christie pointed out so eloquently, it's not about principles, it's about winning. The brutality is expressed in different ways to different people. At home, the bureaucracy is brutal, the police are brutal, and the justice system is brutal - the law is applied unequally (when it is applied at all) to those with money and power. Abroad, we undermine legitimate governments, invade countries illegally, assassinate people with drones, we torture, detain people indefinitely, commit war crimes - all with impunity from our own people, even after the atrocity has been exposed and there are no doubts about the facts involved. We vote for new leaders - and the new leaders continue the same practices and grant immunity to their predecessors. Relatively small incidents like Miranda's detention or that guy who wrote the incredible "Don't Fly on Ramadan" piece show how brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent to suffering our governments have become - and now it's totally out in the open. There are too many examples to cite: police mistakenly raid homes by mistake, shooting dogs and then leaving empty handed but telling the terrorized home-owners "you're lucky we didn't arrest you"; women being groped by deputies who are ignored by the family court judge when she tries to get protection; Cameron Ortiz and Aron Swartz; Manning, etc. Of course, terrible things happen. But in each of these cases no-one up the line thought there was a problem. Any corrective action has to be forced by overwhelming public sentiment - and even then the powerful know that time is on their side. It's time we start asking ourselves whether or not we feel like there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect us against wide-spread abuse at the hands of our government. It's time we ask ourselves if there's really anyone who has any sense of urgency to address the ever growing problem of brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent application of power in the US. Is democracy enough? Is democracy of the type that we have, dominated by a manipulative, effective, money-driven two-party machine, giving us the candidates that we want? Why aren't people at every level of government getting fighting mad when these stories come out, and who take immediate, decisive corrective action to make sure that a) the people responsible are not only terminated immediately, but criminally charged, and b) make sure it doesn't happen again? Why aren't people at every level of government so afraid to admit mistakes, apologize for wrong-doing, and ashamed at the lack of restraint, the lack of compassion, and the lack of principled action shown by their people? Where do we find these candidates?
theboywho 13y ago
What is it with all these leaks? Are people following Snowden or is the US gov following the British Gov and leaking info about itself?
- BruceM 13y ago
  Look at the PDFs on the final page of the article. They each have a date for when they were released.
nl 13y ago
Historical context is always needed when one looks at something like this: The US relationship with Iraq & Iran was very complex. In 1979 the Iranian revolution occurred, which humiliated the US. In 1982 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (which borders Iran). That was significant because it let the USSR threaten US oil interests in the Persian Gulf, and put the USSR one step closer to getting a sea port in the Arabian Sea and/or Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was continuing to threaten the US's ally Israel but was also smart enough to play the US off against the USSR. Hussein was very worried about Iran because of the large number of Shia Moslems in Iraq. When Iraq invaded Iran the US expected Iraq to win quickly, because the Iranians had very few advanced weapons. The US certainly didn't want Iran to win, but nor did they want Iraq to become more powerful in the region. So the US (with Israeli help) began arming Iran (on a small scale). This is known as the Iran/Contra affair. Thing went Iraq's way for a while, but eventually the Iranians began to push them back using "human wave attacks". At this point the US began to fear that Iraq would actually lose, so they started giving Hussein financial and military support. This is when the Iraqis resorted to gas: (unsurprisingly) they found it was very effective at breaking up the Iranian infantry charges. There's little doubt that the US knew this would happen. The interesting thing is that the fact Hussein used gas put a new perspective on the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear program (in 1981, towards the start of the Iran/Iraq war). While that was condemned at the time, when the knowledge of gas attacks became wide spread few people doubted that Hussein would have used a nuclear bomb as well if he had access to one. Anyway.. a long history lesson. I guess my question is "What should the US have done"?
- jacquesm 13y ago
  It goes much further back than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mossadeq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mossadeq And if you want you can go back all the way to the 1920's. What the US and the UK should have done is to let the Iranians govern their own country when it mattered. So much for exporting democracy.
- Create 13y ago
  Be more like postwar (West) Germany,
- 13y ago
frank_boyd 13y ago
If you combine these ethical standards with the total surveillance network the government has set up with the "Five Eyes" partners [0], you know what's coming. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

153 points by w1ntermute 13y ago

Honestly this has never really been a secret, but it is good to see this get some proper attention. With any luck Americans will be more wary of statements like Bush's infamous "'Why do they hate us?' ... They hate our freedom".

anologwintermut 13y ago
While the "they hate our freedom" is a completely bullshit line, in the case of Al Qaeda who Bush was referring to, they probably would have supported primarily Sunni Iraq gassing primarily Shia Iran. Our policies in Egypt and (ironically) putting troops in Saudi Arabia to fight Saddam, on the other hand, did motivate Al Qaeda.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Hmm, I thought the "they hate our freedom" line was from the "Axis of Evil" speech. Looks like I remembered wrong.
throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
"U.S. says Iraq used nerve gas against Iran" -- March 30, 1984 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cOEbAAAAIBAJ&pg=3398,8079675 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cOEbAAAAIBAJ&pg=3398,80... "Iraq May Get U.S. Aid To Prevent Iran Victory" -- May 21, 1984 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xcQ_AAAAIBAJ&pg=2897,2695491 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xcQ_AAAAIBAJ&pg=2897,26... Not much of a secret indeed.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
GauntletWizard 13y ago
One of the primary tenets of Al Qaeda is to impose Sharia law on the land. They believe that "man-made" laws are unnatural, and go against god's will; They would see the entirety of the world under their strict, revisionist, regressive, incredibly broken system of law. They literally do "hate our freedom". Every time I hear someone repeat that line as a joke, it makes me mad how incredibly out of touch they are. Literally; Al Qaeda, and an substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere, not only hate your freedom, but would kill you just for espousing it.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  I'd like to see some numbers there, opinion polls to back up your utter nonsense.
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  Ah, it's you again. Do you actually know any Muslims? I've never met one who "hated [my] freedom."
- nwp90 13y ago
  "Literally; Al Qaeda, and an substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere" Non-sequitur. No matter how true it may be for Al Qaeda, for which people may feel they have seen evidence, you provide absolutely no backing for your assertion that a "substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere" agree with what you assert Al Qaeda feel.

devx 13y ago

Anyone else think they're doing the same now with the "gas attack" in Syria? I don't really claim to understand how a dictator thinks under pressure of civil war, but the guy seemed relatively intelligent and educated. He'd probably know better than to do such an attack, when US and others were looking for any excuse to enter the war. The situation really is terrible for everyone there, but I'm not sure an US intervention would make things better, and I especially don't trust US propaganda anymore. I'm way over the "spreading democracy" phase.

jlgreco 13y ago
At this point, there isn't any way to say for sure. The only thing about that situation that seems clear is that the situation is a clusterfuck and that nothing is clear. We should want nothing to do with that situation and indeed it seems most Americans don't want anything to do with that situation (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-usa-poll-idUSBRE97O00E20130825 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-us...). Unfortunately the possibility remains that Americans already do have something to do with the situation, whether that is what the people desire or not.
speeder 13y ago
Although even accident cannot be ruled out (the situation is just confusing and crazy), it would not surprise me if the attack was backed (even if indirectly) by US or Israel. It would surprise me even less if it was someone else, and US knew and did nothing to prevent it on purpose (like the story on the article, or the one about OWS people being targeted by snipers and FBI ignoring the snipers on purpose).
rdtsc 13y ago
Still hard to say. Objectively, given that neither side actually cares for taking innocent human lives, the ones most likely to profit from this are the rebels. Obama's "line in the sand" speech coupled with the timing of UN inspectors on the ground should make one think twice before jumping to default conclusion. I don't care for one side or the other, it is just a big mess anyway it seems. The reason I kind of follow is that I am afraid somehow US is going to get involved in it, which, now seems more likely.

grecy 13y ago

Are people honestly still proud to be American when things like this come to light? Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? (honest question, I don't understand)

jlgreco 13y ago
> Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? Honest answer to the honest question: I want to live in this country[1] because I consider it my home. The government? That is the part I don't care for. I feel absolutely no loyalty to it. When another victor inevitably starts writing history books, those books will not be kind to the modern American government. [1] Where "country" is both a chunk of geography, a loose-knit culture (perhaps best described as a culture of loose-knit cultures), and the place where most of the individual people I like also live.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > I feel absolutely no loyalty to it. Yet you are enforced to be loyal to it. Try not paying your taxes, for example, and they will deprive you of your freedom.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I am loyal to it like somebody is loyal to a mugger. If I don't give them money, people with guns will take it. I would say this is better described as "obedience" than "loyalty". Should I move to another country and pay a different government my tax money instead? Arguably. It is not clear to me which government I should instead be forced to pay, and my options are very limited as I am ill-equipped to live in most other countries. Five Eyes rules out the most obvious answers.
    - ekianjo 13y ago
      > Should I move to another country and pay a different government my tax money instead? Arguably. I'd say any government which does not have a standing army killing innocent people overseas is a better choice. At least your taxes would then not be used to produce bombs and guns. I agree with you that no country is perfect and you can find flaws in every of them, but still. There are some levels of differences.

speeder 13y ago

Then US citizens wonder why everyone else hates them. Much of this, is not news in many countries, although it lacks solid proof or confessions, it is impossible to keep all that hidden for long. Brazillians for example figured only one or two years after the US backed coup here, that the coup was US backed. (declassified documents confirmed our suspicions about 5 years ago). Also, there still many people here waiting to see if documents detailing how our ships got sunk during World War II, the official history is that it was the germans and this is why we joined the war, but WWII veterans swear it was US posing as germans, so they could close the steel mill deal. When WWII started, Brazil president was very close to Italy leadership, and he was a fascist himself, Brazil was providing lots of resources to Italy and Germany. Later, US wanted the massive amounts of rubber we had, and of course, wanted Brazil to stop helping the Axis. Then there was the sudden attacks, and a sudden president change of heart, where Brazil would start to supply US instead, specially Jeep tyres, would buy a steel mill, and would help in the African front lines... this got changed to Italy mid-trip, with Brazillian ships dumping into Italy snowy mountains people trained and geared for a desert war... I know a bunch of people (specially, obviously, fascists, but many non-fascists too, but most of them are over 50) that still resent that story, and wish Brazil had joined (with boots on the ground) the Axis side instead. Also Brazillian soldiers got shafted hard by the US, specially the "rubber soldiers". US and Brazil made a agreement, where drafted people could choose to fight in Europe, or get shipped to Amazon (with several promises regarding the advantage of going to Amazon, and indeed 50.000 soldiers went to Amazon), they would gather the rubber to make tyres, and US and Brazillian government would jointly pay them and take care of them, and return them back to their family after the war... The payment arrived (and partially) only in 1988, and they are still stranded away from home... (some of them still roam the forest wearing their military uniforms, kinda creepy seeing 90+ year old soldiers roaming the forest)

nl 13y ago
I aren't particularly familiar with Brazilian history, but I am reasonably familiar with WW2 history. Brazil declared war (on Germany & Italy only - not Japan) in late August 1942. That was a few months before Churchill's famous "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." speech. This was well after Pearl Harbour and at a point where it was becoming clearer that the Axis wasn't going to win. I've never looked into allegations of US sabotage on Brazilian merchant shipping. It's possible, but at the same time it would be very surprising if German U-boats weren't responsible for the majority of the sinkings. There's reasonable evidence that U-507 sunk at least 7 Brazilian ships (the German's were pretty good at keeping records of these things)[1]. It sounds to me like Brazil jumped in on the winning side after being on a wrong side of some bad decisions by some German U-boat commanders. As an aside, it's fine to criticise the US, but I think it's reasonable to expect some evidence to backup some pretty big allegations. Additionally it's hard to make a moral argument that any country should have joined the Axis Powers during WW2 (with the exception of Finland, who made the best of a bad situation but were pretty much screwed no matter what they did). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-507#3rd_patrol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-507#3rd_patrol

graycat 13y ago

Of course. The joke is that Cheney's statement that there is "no doubt" that Saddam has WMDs because we still had the receipts from when we sent him the chemical weapons for him to use against Iran.

javajosh 13y ago

The USG has slowly, by steps, become brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent to the suffering of civilians--it's own civilians not excepted. Loyalty to the chain of command is the only value that matters (that's why the USG hates Snowden so much, BTW). Our leadership (both business and political) has woken up to the startling truth that there is no check on their power, and restraint is for losers. As governor Christie pointed out so eloquently, it's not about principles, it's about winning. The brutality is expressed in different ways to different people. At home, the bureaucracy is brutal, the police are brutal, and the justice system is brutal - the law is applied unequally (when it is applied at all) to those with money and power. Abroad, we undermine legitimate governments, invade countries illegally, assassinate people with drones, we torture, detain people indefinitely, commit war crimes - all with impunity from our own people, even after the atrocity has been exposed and there are no doubts about the facts involved. We vote for new leaders - and the new leaders continue the same practices and grant immunity to their predecessors. Relatively small incidents like Miranda's detention or that guy who wrote the incredible "Don't Fly on Ramadan" piece show how brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent to suffering our governments have become - and now it's totally out in the open. There are too many examples to cite: police mistakenly raid homes by mistake, shooting dogs and then leaving empty handed but telling the terrorized home-owners "you're lucky we didn't arrest you"; women being groped by deputies who are ignored by the family court judge when she tries to get protection; Cameron Ortiz and Aron Swartz; Manning, etc. Of course, terrible things happen. But in each of these cases no-one up the line thought there was a problem. Any corrective action has to be forced by overwhelming public sentiment - and even then the powerful know that time is on their side. It's time we start asking ourselves whether or not we feel like there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect us against wide-spread abuse at the hands of our government. It's time we ask ourselves if there's really anyone who has any sense of urgency to address the ever growing problem of brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent application of power in the US. Is democracy enough? Is democracy of the type that we have, dominated by a manipulative, effective, money-driven two-party machine, giving us the candidates that we want? Why aren't people at every level of government getting fighting mad when these stories come out, and who take immediate, decisive corrective action to make sure that a) the people responsible are not only terminated immediately, but criminally charged, and b) make sure it doesn't happen again? Why aren't people at every level of government so afraid to admit mistakes, apologize for wrong-doing, and ashamed at the lack of restraint, the lack of compassion, and the lack of principled action shown by their people? Where do we find these candidates?

theboywho 13y ago

What is it with all these leaks? Are people following Snowden or is the US gov following the British Gov and leaking info about itself?

BruceM 13y ago
Look at the PDFs on the final page of the article. They each have a date for when they were released.

nl 13y ago

Historical context is always needed when one looks at something like this: The US relationship with Iraq & Iran was very complex. In 1979 the Iranian revolution occurred, which humiliated the US. In 1982 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (which borders Iran). That was significant because it let the USSR threaten US oil interests in the Persian Gulf, and put the USSR one step closer to getting a sea port in the Arabian Sea and/or Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was continuing to threaten the US's ally Israel but was also smart enough to play the US off against the USSR. Hussein was very worried about Iran because of the large number of Shia Moslems in Iraq. When Iraq invaded Iran the US expected Iraq to win quickly, because the Iranians had very few advanced weapons. The US certainly didn't want Iran to win, but nor did they want Iraq to become more powerful in the region. So the US (with Israeli help) began arming Iran (on a small scale). This is known as the Iran/Contra affair. Thing went Iraq's way for a while, but eventually the Iranians began to push them back using "human wave attacks". At this point the US began to fear that Iraq would actually lose, so they started giving Hussein financial and military support. This is when the Iraqis resorted to gas: (unsurprisingly) they found it was very effective at breaking up the Iranian infantry charges. There's little doubt that the US knew this would happen. The interesting thing is that the fact Hussein used gas put a new perspective on the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear program (in 1981, towards the start of the Iran/Iraq war). While that was condemned at the time, when the knowledge of gas attacks became wide spread few people doubted that Hussein would have used a nuclear bomb as well if he had access to one. Anyway.. a long history lesson. I guess my question is "What should the US have done"?

jacquesm 13y ago
It goes much further back than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mossadeq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mossadeq And if you want you can go back all the way to the 1920's. What the US and the UK should have done is to let the Iranians govern their own country when it mattered. So much for exporting democracy.
Create 13y ago
Be more like postwar (West) Germany,
13y ago

frank_boyd 13y ago

If you combine these ethical standards with the total surveillance network the government has set up with the "Five Eyes" partners [0], you know what's coming. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement