[Loki]

So when's W's hanging date?

[dukey]

[NEOPO]

Relevant information for the otherwise unaware......
Gulf War

Pre Iran-Iraq war
To the U.S., Iran-Iraqi relations were stable, and Iran had been chiefly an ally of the Soviet Union. The U.S. was concerned with Iraq’s belligerence toward Israel and disapproval of moves towards peace with other Arab states. It also condemned Iraqi support for various Arab and Palestinian militant groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to its inclusion on the incipient U.S. list of state sponsors of international terrorism on December 29, 1979. The U.S. remained officially neutral during the outbreak of hostilities in the Iran-Iraq War, as it had previously been humiliated by a 444 day long Iranian hostage crisis and expected that Iran was not likely to win. In March 1982, however, Iran began a successful counteroffensive (Operation Undeniable Victory). In a bid to open the possibility of relations to Iraq, the country was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime’s record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in terrorism... The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran."[2] With Iran's newfound success in the war and its rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales from other states (most importantly the USSR, France, Egypt, and starting that year, China) reached a record spike in 1982, but an obstacle remained to any potential U.S.-Iraqi relationship - Abu Nidal continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When the group was expelled to Syria in November 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld as a special envoy to cultivate ties.


[edit] US military aid to Iraq
Because of fears that revolutionary Iran would defeat Iraq and export its Islamic Revolution to other Middle Eastern nations, the U.S. began giving aid to Iraq. From 1983 to 1990, the U.S. government approved around $200 million in arms sales to Iraq, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI).[3] These sales amounted to less than 1% of the total arms sold to Iraq in the relevant period, though the US also sold helicopters which, although designated for civilian use, were immediately deployed by Iraq in its war with Iran.

An investigation by the Senate Banking Committee in 1994 determined that the U.S. Department of Commerce had approved, for the purpose of research, the shipping of dual-use biological agents to Iraq during the mid-1980s, including Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), later identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program, as well as Clostridium botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella melitensis, and Clostridium perfringens. The Committee report noted that each of these had been "considered by various nations for use in war."[4] Declassified U.S. government documents indicate that the U.S. government had confirmed that Iraq was using chemical weapons (but not biological weapons that the agents being exported could have been used for) "almost daily" during the Iran-Iraq conflict as early as 1983.[5] The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: “The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think it’s a devastating record”.[6]

The level of US covert aid to Iraq during this period is difficult to quantify. Hussein is widely known to have received battlefield “intelligence” from the US. This, corresponding with other facts, leaks and rumors, is seen by many as an indicator of substantial CIA involvement during the era. This remains unproven however.


[edit] US economic aid to Iraq
Chiefly, the U.S. government provided Iraq with economic aid. Iraq’s war with Iran, and the consequent disruption in its oil export business, had caused the country to enter a deep debt. U.S. government economic assistance allowed Hussein to continue using resources for the war which otherwise would have to have been diverted. Between 1983 and 1990, Iraq received $5 billion in export credit guarantees from the Commodity Credit Corporation program run by the Department of Agriculture, beginning at $400 million per year in 1983 and increasing to over $1 billion per year in 1988 and 1989, finally coming to an end after another $500 million was granted in 1990.[7] Besides agricultural credits, the U.S. also provided Hussein with other loans. In 1985 the U.S. Export-Import Bank extended more than $684 million in credits to Iraq to build an oil pipeline through Jordan with the construction being undertaken by Californian construction firm Bechtel Corporation.[2]

Imagine what TPTB would do to any "organization" that would attempt to assassinate a Neocon......which is exactly what they tried Saddam for......reacting to a failed coup and I also wonder who sponsored that operation?
Wait....No I dont.......

Reagan was not "the man" BTW.....

[Benzin]

I reiterate from the other thread:

There was no doubt he was a bad man but I would argue that he was no worse than the likes of many other dictators and dirt bags the US has supported or currently supports.

BTW, I'd rather have freedom pie.

[seldom_seen]

<yawn>

[NEOPO]

<flicks a booger into SS's mouth>

[Cobra_Strike]

There are reports saying the deed is done, and he has been hung.

Now to see if there is any basis for the idea that eliminating him solves the problem.

CNN reports.

My entry into the betting pool....violence upsurging. After a short period of people shooting guns in the air excitedly, others will start pointing at the excited crowds. Week or less.

[seldom_seen]

not bad!

[gg3]

Now that Saddam has twitched his last twitch, and his urine has been hosed off the concrete below the spot where he dangled & strangled, we will get to find out whose hypothesis is correct.

My prediction, an easy one at that: More violence. More entropy.

Oh, and just wait until they release the video!

[PolestaR]

One of the justifications media use is something like "well the people hated Saddam.. look at them dance at his demise"

Well sure.. but put George Bush there now and they will do the same.

[medicvet]

For what he did to the Kurds alone he deserved to die.

Are there worse dictators out there..well sure..that doesn't mean that the one that is under arrest currently shouldn't be tried and executed. Fugger deserved it. 'nuff said.

Now maybe we can go back to our 'where's waldo' search of OBL...

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'I') saw one of the mainstream news sites comment that he was responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi citizens. What a wuss!

[lateStarter]

I agree that he was a 'bad' man. But in reality, execution was probably just doing him a favor. C'mon, the guy was 69 years old! Better to go out as some kind of martyr than spending the rest of your life in prison, shitting in your diapers and being forced to watch MTV and reruns of 'The Brady Bunch'. The guy had his 15 minutes of fame.

On the flip side, his kind of blatant in-your-face style of dictatorship, is probably better than and easier to deal with (if you live under it) than the kind we are witnessing elsewhere... Not saying where!

[gw]

So who is it under those black hoods?

[smallpoxgirl]

Come on! Do you really think they'd be so gauche as to execute him in front of a huge American flag? These guys aren't that transparent. Those photos are a spoof.

[gw]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'T')hose photos are a spoof.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'C')ome on! Do you really think they'd be so gauche as to execute him in front of a huge American flag? These guys aren't that transparent. Those photos are a spoof.

[gw]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'E')TA: The video above appears to be real. Here's a video from CNN that shows the moments leading up the hanging. Again, no flags.

[firestarter]

[url=http://]http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1577.shtml[/url]


Morons!!!!!!!!!