Anonymous Report This Comment Date: April 18, 2005 03:17AM
Saddam did love his gas, I'll bet another kind of gas was bad down in his
spider hole..
anonymous Report This Comment Date: April 18, 2005 09:05AM
Ironic that the US sold him the gas, wasn't it.
duane Report This Comment Date: April 18, 2005 09:31AM
Yes it is I guess without it he would have had to do it the way he did some of
the others round them up march them to the b`order` into a hole and butcher them
there.Try to understand this the gas is not the problem its Sadam.To many people
try to play it off that the gas is what was bad,it was,but not as bad as Sadam
he murdered millions more without the gas.The anti-war people would try anything
to pawn this off that he was our friend but only by being "the enemy of my
enemy".
anonymous Report This Comment Date: April 18, 2005 09:36AM
You are correct duane, however the subtler point that "the gas"
makes, is that the US was a buddy to Saddam, and facilitated his regime. They
could have made it plenty hard for him to cope, but they liked the fact that we
could sell him weapons and he would fight Iran. Kept him distracted so he
wouldn't attack Israel - they had enough problems at the time. There is no
moral high-ground. The point was that people in power did what they did for two
reasons (1) ensure continuation of power, and (2) make more money. To say the
US cares about people today, that we are doing something different today than
yesterday, is absurd. The rich still plot their wars, using the rest of us, to
ensure their wealth. "Left" "Right"... a farce.
strife Report This Comment Date: April 20, 2005 03:45PM
The U.S. and Saddam never were "buddies", 1485. Think about the
situation that the U.S. was in at that moment.
The biggest event in our recent memory was the Iran hostage crisis, making Iran
the second big name on our hit list (after the Soviet Union). We needed to
somehow keep Iran occupied and take pressure off of our Israeli allies.
Luckily for us, Saddam is a greedy little bastard and decided to incite war with
Iran, ensuring that Iran would be kept busy. The problem was that at the time,
Saddam was destined to lose and didn't know it. His arrogance led him to believe
he could beat the much more powerful (though not as organized) Iranian nation.
He could not, but our weapons, including chemical and biological ones, helped.
Even with them all he could do was bring it to a draw.
Saddam was seen as unholy by the Iranians, so much so that they declared Jihad
on Iraq. They considered it a holy duty to kill him. One problem with that is
how often the view of what is holy can be skewed, especially in the Muslim
world.
Saddam mistook the U.S. for being his buddy, and that's why he thought he could
get away with invading Kuwait... whoops!
The truth is that Saddam was the underdog, so we helped. After his war with Iran
was done he continued to militarize until he had the 4th largest standing army
(the US being the 3rd) with plenty of nice equipment and weapons primarily
bought from the Russians, French, Germans, and Chinese, not the Americans.
You look at the weapons that were used against us in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
you'd notice plenty of made in Russia/France/Germany stickers on them. For
instance, they had been sold several powerful shoulder launched rockets that
were designed by the Russians to take out the M1 A2 Abrams Tank despite it's
reactive armor, that weren't being made until after the embargo. If anybody was
caught with their hand in the cookie jar, it sure wasn't the U.S.
Besides, the point of the picture is how the Kurds were suffering and literally
at war with Saddam. Our acts in Iraq are more humanitarian than anybody gives
credit for. It's not only giving freedom to the average Iraqi, but a long
oppressed group that has been wronged at a level that's comparable to the Jews
or the American Indians.
And you take this whole class warfare thing way too seriously. If the rich hold
so much power and a pointless lust to screw the rest of us, why are they forced
to pay a high percentage in taxes than the average American? The top 20% wage
earners pay 80% of the taxes. There are problems with corruption, but they are
greatly exaggerated and taken as fact. The whole corporate world isn't one big
Enron.
duane Report This Comment Date: April 21, 2005 02:07AM
Ive been mistaken Ive had the habbit of calling some of the people on this site
communists the proper term was dupe.My bad.
aDCBeast Report This Comment Date: June 16, 2006 08:14AM
Iran love their Russian made gas as well. The DIA proved the Kurds were killed
by the Iranians.