by shakespear1 » Sat 16 Jul 2005, 11:16:04
Carlhole
Looks like no one wants to enter this arena. The word Gestapo may have scare people.
However I went a journey which went sort of like this
1) You story
Genesis of an American Gestapo
Mike Whitney
2) On that wen page there was link to this story
:: What happened in Kurdish Halabja?
FLASHBACK: Report Suppressed: Iran Gassed Kurds, Not Iraq
Raju Thomas, Times of India
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=12256
3) There I saw the names from Us Army War College so it does not sound like CT types
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')professors Stephen Pelletiere and Leif Rosenberger,
and Lt Colonel Douglas Johnson of the US Army War College (USAWC)
undertook a study of the use of chemical weapons by Iran and Iraq
in order to better understand battlefield chemical warfare. They
concluded that it was Iran and not Iraq that killed the Kurds.
4) The a GOOGLE search led me to this story
Kurds
A War Crime Or An Act of War?
Who really gassed the Kurds?
By STEPHEN C. PELLETIERE
We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a granary for the region.
Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990's there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that could change.
Thus America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades — not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water. Even if America didn't occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.
All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting, one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in its present debilitated condition — thanks to United Nations sanctions — Iraq's conventional forces threaten no one.
Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.
Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?
Stephen C. Pelletiere is author of "Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf."
Yes, there are other PO's, dare we call it PW.
I say this to people over and over that it is amazing that we NEED TO BUY bottled water. Not so long ago bottled water was sold at the same price as a gallon of gasoline. Those were crazy days.
