[PLUG-TALK] Chirac's shocker... Iraq.

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, none wrote:
> Saddham was trying to buy missiles from North Korea.

There's no evidence of this.  The so-called "intelligence" on the Iraqi
weapons program was shown to be either falsified or speculation
contradicted by evidence.

In other words, it was a lie... either told knowingly by liars or told in
ignorance by wishful-thinking warmongers.

> What reason does this country have to try and profit in a region where
> our allies are already very short with us?

Money.

> Saddham wasn't harmless towards this country, or does threatening to
> kill the President's father not amount to anything?

Well, when your old friend turns against you and starts killing your
people with a brutal embargo, you get angry and make some threats.  If
Bush didn't want to deal with a killer, he shouldn't have helped him take
office in the first place.  (And recall that he was helped into power
BECAUSE he was a ruthless killer.)

> He killed and gassed his own people showing no remorse for it,something
> an Iraqi has said.

Right... and when the United States found out about it (right after we
gave him the materials to do the job), we did nothing and cared very
little.  It was called a "domestic issue" and none of our business.  This
started happening back in the early-/mid-eighties, remember.  Iraq was our
ally at the time and none of that genocide was secret.

> Some plundering your talking about, a number of civilians have been
> killed.

I'm talking about the wholesale plundering of a nation as a doorway into a
region.

> Saddham could have prevented an attack a long time ago by letting the
> U.N. weapons inspectors stay in his country.

I have no idea who fed you this lie.  The Hussein government gave access
to UN inspectors wherever the mandate allowed.  The inspectors came to the
conclusion that there were no illegal weapons and that no facilities
existed to ramp up a weapons program without raising serious red flags way
in advance.  True, the inspectors were not allowed into areas not covered
by the UN's mandate, but that's hardly surprising.  If the police came to
my house with a warrant to search the garage, I'm not going to let them
look in the basement as well.  I have privacy that must be respected.
The U.S. called for the removal of the inspectors claiming that they were
in danger "if war breaks out" (read:  when we attack).

> Believe it or not, the restoration of infrastructure is important for
> the Iraqi people where our troops are so outnumbered by the Iraqi
> population that we are guests in that country.

Right... "the restoration of infrastructure"... there's an interesting
one.

WHY does Iraq have to be rebuilt?  It's because the nation has been
systematically broken down by U.S. aggression over the past fifteen years.
First, the embargo destroyed their foreign-made supplies and limited their
trade to an unsustainable trickle.  Then ten years of bombing decimated
the infrastructure that did exist.  Finally, it's a ruined nation that
needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.  And this will be done by American
corporations who expect a return on that "investment".  The return will be
wage-slaves who are happy to get whatever crumbs offered and the natural
resources of the entire country.

> Most of the opposition is probably coming from Iran or Pakistan.

Huh?!?  The opposition is coming from human beings looking outside their
door and seeing foreigners with guns patrolling their streets.

Believe me, I would be the first one out throwing rocks and worst if that
happened here.  They don't even have to be foreigners.

> At least Saddham can't order executions anymore.

No, instead American troops can burn down homes wherever "suspected former
high-ranking party members are thought to be hiding out".  Realize that
this is EXACTLY how the executions in Saddam's Iraq were justified to the
public.  He was killing criminals and people sworn to subvert the nation
and hurt the Iraqi people.  That is how all state murder is explained
away.

> Have you ever considered the policy that you only hear the bad and that
> wages in foreign countries are going to be different than what you earn
> here because money is worth a different amount there?

I'm not talking about straight equivalence in dollars to dinar.  I'm
talking about living wages based on the ability of a person to provide
food, clothing, shelter, and security for themselves and their families in
their own cities.

Germans workers have the highest standard of living in the world.

> I should also mention that the pay for Iraqis is being raised and it
> could be argued that underpaying people produces incentive for them to
> build their economy up to a point where they can demand better pay, a
> situation that can get us out of Iraq.

Wow... so paying them less is GOOD for them!  Of Course!

And that would MEAN SOMETHING if the companies that employed the people of
Iraq were Iraqi companies that couldn't simply threaten to take their
business elsewhere when the workers strike for better standards of living.
Instead, American corporations will just say "fine, you want a raise?
We'll be looking at new manufacturing space in Pakistan." and instantly
the government steps in and puts down the worker's rebellion for the sake
of the national economy.

> We did pay for a war where the International community isn't pulling
> it's weight and we are in recession, consider what you're saying when
> you knock the pay.

This is mind-boggling.  The people of the United States paid for a war
that almost nobody wanted so that a few U.S. corporations could make
ass-loads of cash.

Remember that the military is really just a method of putting public funds
into the hands of the wealthy.  The primary purpose of government spending
is to prop up an economic system that is unsustainable without state
support.

> > > I don't care much for the whole International court concept either
> > > that was pushed on Bill Moyers.  It's curious that a court selected
> > > through some unclear procedure is purported to be International.
> >
> > The procedure is quite clear.  They have a well-defined process.
>
> Whatever.

Please, dismiss the facts.  Go right ahead.  Spew conjecture and then wave
away truth.

> Then tell the audience what a war crime is in their definition?

"War crime" is a whole class of violations.

> France and Germany didn't want Saddham gone because they had extensive
> trade with him, I very much doubt that German and French prosecutors
> could ever be trusted to convict Saddham of war crimes.

The prosecutors don't do any convicting.  The court would convict based on
the determination of the justices.  The justices are not in the pay of the
few companies that had trade relations with Iraq.

Remember that ALL of the trade between Iraq and Germany and Iraq and
France in the past ten years is less than what Haliburton alone expects to
make off of Iraq in the next five years.

> > And if you don't have an international court of justice, you have war.
> > There must be a civil place to resolve grievances outside a particular
> > nation's bias.
>
> War will always be.

So long as there are people like you, yes.  We're working on changing that
by teaching civility.  It's a long process.

> Bureaucracy and multilateralism neither obsolete war nor do they provide
> an affective means to wage war.

Arguing in court before a consensually assigned panel is a much better
alternative than blowing each others brains out and destroying the land.

However, it doesn't ensure the victory of the largest army, so the U.S. is
opposed to it as a matter of policy.

> If you wage war you fight to win, or you don't fight at all.

I'll take the latter.

> The pope isn't for peace at any price despite what the Catholic Sentinel
> publishes these days.

Right... you know the Pope better than the Vatican papers.

By the way, the Pope SPECIFICALLY CONDEMNED the bombings in Iraq and the
Sudan as criminal aggression.

> He is concerned about preemptive strikes where I must say the president
> offered that as a reason for going into Iraq, but it really isn't.
> This invasion is in reality the end of the Persian Gulf War.

There was no declaration of war.  It was a criminal violation of UN
Charter.

> If Bush believes in what he is doing, truly believes, not backing
> down takes real courage.

It doesn't take courage to do whatever you want if you're rich and control
more guns than anyone in the history of the world.

> Instead, he believes they need to stay for now and has said if he isn't
> reelected that he'll simply return to his Crawford Ranch to let the next
> guy take over.

Right... he's super rich and will continue to be super rich.  The more
work he does in Iraq, the richer he and his cronies will be.  The more
programs and systems that are set up to perpetuate his wealth and the
oppression of people, the longer it'll take to dismantle those systems.
(And they will see a half-step back to our former freedom as a "victory",
not realizing they are still many steps worse off than they were before
the neo-conservatives/liberals took control.)

> We are a democracy ( representative republic ).

Sort of.  If you can do what the wealthiest 1% tell you to do, then you
can run for office with a chance of getting elected.

> In all your angst over Bush have you ever given him the benefit of the
> doubt considering that he's the only president chosen by the court
> because of a tie?

Huh?!?  Do you have any idea what happened in Bush v. Gore?  Do you
understand the basis of that case or the outcome?  Essentially, the court
set their own deadline for recounts and then failed to meet that deadline
and let the decision stand.

Justice Scalia issued a court order to halt the recounts on the grounds
that such a recount would harm the Bush presidency, should it come out
against him.  (Demonstrable harm is a requirement for issuing an
injunction.)  Justice Scalia totally ignored the fact that if the recount
did not come out in Bush's favor, there would be no Bush Presidency to
harm!

Furthermore, recounts aside, there are the issues with the gross
misalignment of polls and actual election results that indicate either
elections tampering or criminally negligent election managment.  And
lastly, but perhaps most importantly, there is the issue of tens of
thousands of people being illegally scrubbed from the voter rolls and not
allowed to voice their opinion at all.

This is only going to be magnified when the voting systems are all
electronic.  (See the recent elections in Alabama and California for fine
examples.)

> He came in with a recession against him, a late start in office, and
> then shortly after he had the September 11th crisis to contend with.

A late start in office?  He was sworn in the third week of January like
every president of the past century (except the ones taking over for
deceased or resigned presidents, of course... of which there were four in
the past 100 years or so).

> Need I remind you that there are democrats, namely Lieberman, who are
> for the war in Iraq?

Do I care what Democrats think?  (And Lieberman is a Democrat in name
only.)

> > It's called democracy.  It's not your business to tell other people
> > how to run their country.
>
> And Saddham Hussein wasn't killing people who disagreed with him?

And Katherine Harris wasn't silencing people in her own way?

And Tony Blair doesn't get to call elections when he's on top and stop
them when he's less favored?

And we don't have, in this country, a system of criminalizing the
lifestyles of the impoverished and then removing their ability to vote
because they are criminals?

And Hussein wasn't installed with American support and supported for years
without a peep?

> In a true Islamic state their are religious police who control attire
> and enforce certain rituals, or am I mistaken?

You're not mistaken.  But you're sorely mistaken if you think that Saddam
Hussein was the leader of an Islamic state.  He was regularly condemned by
the people of the region for being secular.

> The hallmarks of representative government include freedom of religion,
> tolerance, and a government focused on improving social welfare.

No, the hallmarks of a representative government are representing the
people of the governed region.  If those people are single-mindedly
intolerant, then the government will be so.  If those people believe that
improving social welfare is best done by suppressing the people and giving
all the public money to private interests, then that is what the
government will do.

But it is not our job to make sure the rest of the world has governments
that are of the style we like.

> Is it because we removed a government that has anyone who disagrees with
> it put to death or tortured?

So far, that's what we've been doing there... putting to death those that
disagree with American rule.

> The president went in on grounds that Saddham is harmful to his own
> people and bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

We all know that he said that.

The first part is a lie because it was known that he was harmful to the
minorities in his country for years and MANY nations' leaders are
systematically brutalizing and killing their minorities (China is a pretty
good example of this), but the U.S. does nothing.

The second part is a lie because the UN inspectors and the CIA said
otherwise.

> He abused the oil for food program.

Look at that program, for God's sake, and tell me that this isn't all
about taking control of the nation's natural resources.

"We'll let you starve, unless you give us oil!"

> Any nation that does not seek to improve the social welfare of it's own
> people does not deserve to be recognized.

Recall that pre-1991, Iraq had the highest standard of living and the
highest quality of life in the Persian Gulf region.

ALL of the destruction in that nation has happened because of aggression
and embargo and blockade led by the United States.

> France and Germany wouldn't go in because they were trading with Iraq
> and probably don't want a free Iraq for fear it will negatively impact
> their trade arrangements.  France and Germany were incapabling of
> questioning Saddham and arguably still are.

Um, you'll find that this is exactly why the United States turned against
Saddam Hussein in the first place.

> We killed two of his sons who were known as torturers.

Suspected torturers.  They were not tried and were never offered the
chance to bring evidence in their own defense.  This is a gross violation
of what we consider to be fundamental rights.

> Our troops are pulling back from the cities and there is work being done
> to build a new Iraqi military to take over from them.

A loyalist military that will look more like the average Iraqi, but be
controlled from Washington.  It's an attempt to add a layer of abstraction
that confuses the people.

> There is an Iraqi governing council.

Hand-picked by Washington and very friendly to U.S. interests.

> We are not targeting civilians, but there have been many clashes where
> terrorists want civilian casualties in order to create outrage against
> American troops.

You're just looking for reasons to believe the people of Iraq are not
trying to protect themselves from foreign occupation.  There is no
evidence of that.  It's all propaganda.

> > And by all means, keep foreign transnational corporations OUT of the
> > rebuilding process.  That is only going to turn Iraq into a slave
> > state for the United States and Britain.
>
> You're paranoid and delusional.

Ha ha.  Cute.

But you'll find that this is a pattern repeated throughout recent U.S.
history.  I'm not talking about bogeymen, here.  I'm not saying that
people are out to get me or that there is some vast conspiracy or that
Saddam Hussein is hiding at PSU (a front for Al-Qaeda, heh).  There's
nothing absurd in my statements.

> Sometimes you need a big corporation to get the job done.

And what is "the job" and WHY does it need to "get done"?

> Do you really think Iran, Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria will idly
> stand by if we make Iraq our colony?

Do you really think their combined forces are a mote in the eye of the
most terrifying force ever assembled on Earth?

> We've brought food to a nation that was starving and our troops have put
> down their weapons many times to give food to children, people they can
> trust.

Do you know WHY they were starving?  There was an embargo led by the
United States that ruined their economy.  There was regular U.S. bombings
of their infrastructure that prevented any internal development.

It's like cutting someone open and then telling them they should be
thankful that you gave them stitches.

> Not only that, our troops have switched to more of a policing role
> attempting to build comraderie when they can by engaging civilians in
> outdoor games.

Well, they're hurt.  Now's the time to show a little "kindness" (though
not respect... the kindness you might show a child).

This is classic brainwashing.  The soldiers become the saviors and the
people forget that the soldiers are the reason they were suffering in the
first place.

> We have brought modern medicine to many Iraqis who had nothing and we
> are working on the infrastructure, we are even rerepairing electrical,
> water, and sever when necessary.

WOW!  We're undoing some tiny amount of the damage that we did?  How
amazingly humanitarian!

The medicine was withheld by our embargo.  The infrastructure (including
electrical, water, and sewer systems) were destroyed by our bombs.

Rebuilding is the absolute LEAST we can do for those people.  But we
should be doing it as restitution, not as "investment".


> Saddham sympathizers don't want Iraqi civilians to have running water,
> sewer, and electricity.

Yeah, because they want the people to know WHO made their lives hell.
That makes sense.

The people should be rebuilding it themselves so they don't come to praise
their oppressors out of misguided gratitude.

> The press has done a good job of making our business in Iraq look like
> the worst occupation ever failing to show the good we are doing.

Well, this just goes to show how much the press is up for interpretation.
The press in this country seems to do nothing but praise the troops and
the Bush administration for their work over there and barely pays service
to the injustices.

And note that they NEVER ONCE DO ANY ANALYSIS.  Two and two are never put
together to make four in the press here.  They just say "Here is two and
there is also another two with it."

> Conquerors would have put a 45 to the back of Saddham's head the moment
> they found him, they wouldn't care about civilians at all, and they
> wouldn't want the United Nations to know they're going into a nation to
> plunder it.

That would be a foolish conqueror indeed.  The intelligent conqueror
throws the people candy and then charges them for the candy after it's
eaten.  That's what's happening in Iraq... only the candy is food and
fresh water and we're the ones that took it from them in the first place.

> We did go to the UN.

This should be evidence that what I'm writing is true.  The Bush
administration didn't go to the UN to find out of the Iraq invasion was
justified, they went to the UN to make it appear as though they care about
international law.  What is the purpose of going and asking permission if
you're going to do it anyway?  It was a rouse.  The intent is to APPEAR to
care and APPEAR to be doing something right, but then doing whatever you
want when the rubber meets the road.

> Under him what kind of legal system do you think Iraq has had for the
> last thirty years?

Thirty years?!?  Saddam came to power in 1979 when George Bush headed the
CIA.  That was just over twenty years ago.

> People were starving before we invaded and the oil infrastructure it
> turns out has been neglected hurting Iraq's economy.

They couldn't trade as they chose!  There was an embargo.  There was no
food or medicine coming into the country.

The people were VERY happy before 1991.  The United States is almost
solely responsible for all of that hunger and hardship.

And if we care so much about the Iraqi people, why don't we let them
profit from their own natural resources?

It would be trivial to nationalize the oil resources and make their
extraction and sale benefit the people of Iraq directly.  There is no
serious plan to do this because it is contrary to the goals of the State
Department.  (The State Department defines "radical nationalism" as
follows:  The belief that the resources of a nation should serve to
benefit the people of that same nation.  They say it's a bad thing because
it's contrary to U.S. interests.)

> > Do not forget that Reagan's people (many of them even more prominent
> > in Bush's administration -- criminals like John Poindexter) were
> > responsible for helping Saddam overthrow the government of Iraq in
> > order to stoke the fires of war with Iran.  This is all just one long
> > continuation of the Iran-Contra affair.  That criminal system is still
> > in operation and today's occupation of Iraq is just one more step in
> > that plan.
>
> Bush has said that past policies with Iraq that saw Saddham as the
> answer to dealing with Iran were wrong even though that implicates
> decisions made by his own father.

Well, after the money's in the bank, it's easy to say that it was wrong to
do what it took to put it there.

The whole thing is unfolding more or less as planned.

> The Iran contra scandal was in part caused by a political stunt by
> democrats to challenge Reagan's presidential powers where he chose to go
> around Congress instead of taking them head on.

A political stunt?

Funny, I remember seeing documented evidence that the United States was
supplying weapons illegally to two belligerent nations to fuel war and
destroy them both and using the money from those sales to fund a second
illegal war in Nicaragua.

Perhaps bringing that to light was a "political stunt", but it was,
perhaps coincidentally, also the right thing to do.

All of the people involved in that abomination should have been banned
from public agency work for life.  They betrayed the public trust.

Does your belief that it was a political stunt lessen the heinousness of
the act?

> It surprises me that removing Saddham who hates Iran doesn't please
> Iranians.

Iran is a very intelligent nation.  Read the Tehran Times (available
online).  It's a pretty good paper.

They see very clearly that this isn't about Saddam Hussein's regime, but
about American influence in the region.

Read the highly illuminating paper from the Project For A New American
Century (an organization founded by Bush regime officials and several of
the new Iraqi "leadership council" in the late 90s) called "Rebuilding
America's Defences:  Strategies, Forces ANd Resources For A New Century".

This document is essentially a blueprint for the Bush administrations
plans in the middle east.  It was written in September 2000... before
September 11, 2001, clearly.  It describes exactly what is happening today
and why.

  'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role
  in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq
  provides immediate justification, the need for a substantial American
  force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam
  Hussein.'

The Iranians are aware of this desire by the United States and would
rather have Saddam Hussein than the United States ruling the country next
door.  This should give you some idea of how the world views Saddam
Hussein in comparison to, say, George W. Bush.

> Bush has stated that supporting dictators is a mistake and that we
> shouldn't do it again.

Um, Bush continues to support the dictatorial leaders of Chile, Nicaragua,
El Salvador, Haiti, Colombia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, etc....

This is one of those places I was writing about earlier in which
statements are taken only in narrow context and two is never added to two.

The United States officially recognizes and supports DOZENS of dictators
worldwide.

> Politically, Bush needs to leave Iraq.

Politically, he needs nothing.  He has huge piles of money and control
over the elections process (See the recent statements by the leaders of
the leading electronic voting vendors and one's claim to "deliver the
state's votes to George W. Bush by any means available to me").

If you think he needs to leave Iraq because the people are opposed to the
occupation, then you believe that he is NOT a representational leader and
working against the desires of the public.  That would make him a
dictator.

> Strategically, the mission is not done until Iraq has a new constitution
> and can take care of it's own security needs without U.S. and British
> support.

The United States hasn't led another nation to that status EVER.  It is
not the intent.  Permanent U.S. military installations in the area are a
top priority to the administration.

> Are you blind to the fact that not having enough troops there is a way
> to put pressure on France and Germany to come and help?  France and
> Germany aren't coming because they don't care about the Iraqi people,
> they were only interested in trade deals guranteed to them by Saddham.

Or perhaps they do not want to take part in the sham that is called
"rebuilding".  Perhaps they do not want to share in the guilt of raping
this nation and its people.

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
   -----------------
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