Habib, I just heard from a Ghanaian friend that the Turkish Parliament
rejected both the U S economic package and the use of its base to wage war
on Iraq. Have you heard?
Daddy Sang


> [Original Message]
> From: Habib Ghanim <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 3/2/2003 8:22:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Of Hypocrites, Bullies,Puppets and Wimps: The Iraqi Debacle
- Part One
>
>
>
> Great analysis
>
> keep it up
>
> habib
>
>   >From: Momodou Buharry Gassama  >Reply-To: The Gambia and
> related-issues mailing list  >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Of Hypocrites, Bullies, Puppets and Wimps: The Iraqi
> Debacle - Part One >Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 01:24:34 +0100 > >Hi! >
> When I sent the "Dangers of the Tongue" series, I was hoping that I
> would remain incognito by removing my middle and last names. Jabou's
> detective work however exposed me. I had unsubscribed from the list
> and subsequently resubscribed to be a silent observer due to my
> inability to actively partake in discussions on the list because of
> health reasons. I have read piece upon piece regarding the Iraq-USA
> conflict and itched to throw in my butut. Now that I have surfaced,
> I'll throw in my take, answer any issues around it should there be
> any, before probably unsubscribing and subsequently resubscribing to
> remain a silent observer. > >Before giving my take on the issue, I'd
> like to give a background of the Gulf Crisis. Since this is not an
> academic paper, I shall not strictly follow the rules of reference. I
> have gathered the information from readings both in the past (most of
> the sources I have forgotten) and the present. The reason for giving
> a background is that reading the various opinions on the conflict, I
> can see that many a person has been fed right-wing propaganda and /
> or CNN, BBC "objective" yet not neutral news stories that have been
> cleverly and deliberately tailored to hide US duplicity and
> machinations. Ignoring the distant history of the region and the role
> played by the West in the creation of the conflict that has claimed
> so many lives, let us fast-forward to the Iran-Iraq crisis. The
> Iranian revolution of the seventies is a result of the violation of
> Iranian sovereignty by the US in the fifties and for the next quarter
> of a century through the restoration and support of Shah Pahlavi and
> other measures. During this period, the US sold over 20 billion
> Dollars worth of arms to Iran. When the Iranian Revolution occurred,
> the US offered the Shah a visa and this angered the Iranian
> revolutionaries so much that they occupied the US embassy and took
> its officials hostage. The Reagan-Bush Sr. campaign struck a deal
> with the Iranians to delay the release of the hostages until after
> the elections to give them an edge as the hostage situation was a big
> issue. The Iranians were rewarded with a lot of arms through Israel.
> With such successes pocketed, Ayatollah Khomeini set his sights on
> liberating the holy cities of Karbala in Iraq and Mecca in Saudi
> Arabia. Iraq was the only country that had the armed forces and the
> population to resist such overtures and the royal families of Kuwait
> and Saudi Arabia provided the cash and the US the weapons for twenty
> four billion Dollars. Note the US switching of sides. > >The war kept
> on and Iran was the first to attack civilian targets by using Scud
> missiles. Iraq responded some three years later by attacking Teheran
> with Scud-B missiles. Due to a re-organisation of its armed forces
> from "static defence" to high-tech offensive strategy, Iraq gained
> the upper hand and the Iranians accepted a cease-fire. Iraq had
> successfully fended off Iran by 1988 but at a cost of hundreds of
> thousands of lives. At that point in time, Iraq's military
> capabilities were roughly equal to Israel's. Israel has had as a
> premise of its strategic planning, the notion that no single Arab
> state or no combination of Arab states should be militarily stronger
> than it is. The US has repeatedly pledged to support it in this
> endeavour and this pledge is known as the Nixon Doctrine. When it was
> reported in 1988 that Iraq was developing and advancing its missile
> capabilities, Israel became jittery and a war of words ensued
> culminating in threats and counter-threats that lasted for about two
> years. Israel and the US had were faced with a problem. Here was
> Iraq, an Arab state that refused to be cowed by Israel, standing as
> an impediment to Israeli hegemony over the Arab states. Iraq had to
> be disarmed but the problem was how this was going to happen. The US
> hatched a plot. The State Department levelled charges that Iraq had
> used poison gas against the Kurds even though studies carried out
> could not determine who was responsible for the massacre at Halabjah.
> Iran had also used chemical weapons during the war and some studies
> have concluded that it was probably the Iranians who were responsible
> for the Halabjah massacre. The immediate task at hand was the
> demonisation of Saddam Hussein. With the might of the Western media,
> this allegation was made to stick. > >The dilemma for the US in this
> whole debacle was that Israel and Iraq were at a state of war for
> over forty years and could attack each other at will but the US was
> at war with neither. The US could not attack Iraq at will and an
> Israeli-Iraq war would have probably brought about another
> Israeli-Arab war and the US would have entered the war on Israel's
> side. A pretext to disarm Iraq was urgently needed and was provided
> through the Kuwaiti incursions into Iraqi territory and the pumping
> of oil from the Rumailia oil field coupled with the fact that Kuwait,
> together with the United Arab Emirates was exceeding OPEC oil quotas
> and driving the price of oil down. Just coming out of a war, this
> situation was untenable and as King Hassan of Morocco put it, "Kuwait
> was trying to stifle Iraq..." (Le Monde, August 16, 1990). With US
> assurances, Kuwait continued the provocations resulting in Iraqi
> incursion into the disputed territories and the invasion of Kuwait.
> The US pounced. It should be noted that while the US was encouraging
> Kuwait to continue with the provocations, it was also assuring Iraq
> that should it decide to take action, the US would not intervene but
> would hope that the situation would be quickly resolved. See the US
> duplicity? Anyway, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Bush Sr.
> administration froze the situation and did all it could to stifle
> peaceful resolution of the crisis be it through the UN or the Arab
> League. The US provided fake satellite photos to Saudi Arabia
> alleging Iraqi troop movement towards its borders signalling Iraqi
> intention to invade the kingdom. The Saudis fell for this and allowed
> the deployment of US troops to the kingdom. Saddam was given the
> ultimatum of complete withdrawal or military confrontation and he was
> foolish enough to choose the latter to the absolute delight of the
> Israelis who were as is reported, identifying targets for the US Air
> Force. Thus began the Gulf War and the rest is history. Iraq was
> defeated but the US stopped short of marching on Baghdad. Thus began
> over a decade of sanctions, confrontation and tribulation between
> Iraq, the US and the UN. George Bush Jr. became the US president
> under dubious circumstances and September 11th. occurred. Then came
> Afghanistan and Bush's pledge to deal with the "Axis of Evil"
> whatever that means and bang! we are faced with the spectre of
> another war in Iraq. > >After giving a background of the Gulf Crisis,
> I shall endeavour to expose the hypocrites, the bullies, the puppets
> and the wimps in this whole mess. Before going further, I must state
> that I am no supporter of Saddam Hussein. The hypocrisy of the West
> in this issue is however so glaring that one can't help but be
> angered. The basic premise for the current campaign is the supposed
> Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the need to
> rid the world of it. What is funny about this whole thing is that
> those clamouring at the top of their voices sit on the world's
> largest arsenals of WMDs. Isn't this the epitome of hypocrisy? The US
> sits on the world's largest nuclear and other poisonous arsenals and
> tries to tell the rest of the world that Iraq does not have the right
> to possess such. The US, which is the only country in the world to
> have used a nuclear bomb on another country based on racist
> calculations, trying to moralise? Britain, sitting on such arsenals,
> also trying to moralise? Both countries, fully aware of Israeli
> nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and Israeli refusal to let
> anyone inspect its plants, imposing their will to do Israel's dirty
> job on the rest of the world. Isn't this hypocrisy staggering? >
> >Another glaring example of hypocrisy is the insistence that Iraq
> abide by UN resolutions. How many UN resolutions has Israel thrown
> into the toilet? Why is the US clamouring for Iraq to obey and
> respect UN resolutions whilst actively helping Israel to disobey and
> disrespect UN resolutions? When Israel violates UN sanctions and the
> rest of the international community, not even trying to ensure
> enforcement action against it, but simply trying to condemn its
> actions, the US vetoes it. Is this respect for UN resolutions? How
> many UN resolutions has the US itself violated? Talk about the pot
> calling the kettle black! The UN prohibits attacking nuclear
> facilities because of the attendant dangers yet both the US and
> Israel have attacked nuclear facilities in Iraq in clear
> contravention of UN resolutions. The US, which doesn't even bother to
> pay its dues to the UN but still maintains the privilege of being a
> member of the Security Council with veto rights preaching respect for
> the organisation it so disrespects. > > Saddam Hussein's violation of
> Iraqi human rights has become the latest war cry. Wasn't Saddam doing
> the same thing when he was receiving twenty-four billion Dollars
> worth of weapons from the US? Isn't Israel violating Palestinian
> human rights on a daily basis? Aren't the Kuwaiti, Saudi, Egyptian,
> Syrian etc. regimes dictatorships violating human rights on a daily
> basis? Isn't the US violating the human rights of the prisoners it is
> illegally keeping in Cuba? Isn't the US violating the civil rights of
> thousands through the PATRIOT Act? How many people have been kept
> incommunicado without access to legal representation and without
> being charged? How many people are currently being kept in British
> jails under the guise of anti-terrorism without being charged? Aren't
> these clear violations of civil liberties and human rights? Why is
> the US collaborating with dictatorships such as Pakistan and Egypt
> and sending prisoners to such countries to be tortured to extract
> information about al-Qaeda? Isn't the US supposed to be the guardian
> of democracy and human rights? Such blatant hypocrisy! Why the sudden
> concern about the human rights of the Iraqi people? > > Buharry.
> >********************************************* TO BE CONTINUED
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