It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.There is Much More to Say by Noam Chomsky.
Charter of the International Military TribunalThe victors, post hoc, declared the actions of the enemy to be crimes.
August 8, 1945
(Selected Articles)
ARTICLE 1
In pursuance of the Agreement signed on the 8th day of August 1945 by the Government of the United States of America, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, there shall be established an International Military Tribunal (hereafter called "the Tribunal") for the just and prompt trial and punishment of major war criminals of the European Axis.
The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.These are all crimes ex post facto. They would be constitutionally prohibited in the United States.
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:
(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution
of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
Also, let's not quote the Nurnburg trials if we are saying that there has to be due process.I'm pretty sure the Nazis broke laws in the countries they attacked.
I'm no fan of the Nazis, and I think it was right they were tried. But they were charged with crimes on no statute books, which they had no prior knowledge existed, and for which international law did not exist. Due process requires a statute. The idea that somehow these trials were the paragon of due process is laughable.
You can make a case that Bush (and maybe Blair) lied to the UN to get global consensus on going to war, but likewise it's up to the UN to issue sanctions or so if that body feels itself to have been wronged.They never got a global consensus to go to war and the U.N never authorized it.
Chomsky is going to ivory tower us to death, I swear.Who is "Us" here? Do you think Chomsky is an Obama supporter or something?
No, others are doing that for you. What's wrong with Kansas? Fuck. What's wrong with us?I find this attitude annoying. Rather then arguing about what's right and wrong we should be arguing about how we can be as amoral as possible in order to benefit the democratic party because... because why exactly? So democrats can cut back on social spending on the poor instead of republicans?
If the world were fair, the conditions of most Americans--i.e. the 90% that think the top 5% should pay more in taxes--would revert to that of Eastern Europeans. Your condition, however bad you think it is, would be immeasurably worse if things were evened out.Yeah the guy making over $250k thinks average Americans need to suffer MORE for the economic catastrophe caused by wallstreet and the bush administration, because obviously all jobs emanate from billionaires like light from the sun, and the more billionares we have, the more jobs we'll all have! So wee need to cut their taxes right away!
the unemployment rate in the US, France, Germany, and Japan are between 6-8%Now see, that's funny. You lump the U.S. in with much more socially equitable countries in order to make the statistics look better, when in fact the U.S's unemployment rate is 9% and for recent college grads it's actually around 20%. Or higher. Meanwhile countries like Germany, Japan, France, Sweeden, the Netherlands etc actually are much, much more evened out, people get tons of mandatory vacation per year, free government supported healthcare and so on.
We should have sent a message that we do not kill in anger -- that we do not seek revenge.Why would you call an attack on a leader of a group of heavily armed militants we're fighting "revenge"? Sounds like good strategy, to me. It's not like he was 20 years retired, living in the Caribbean.
Robertson attributes the murder to “America’s obsessive belief in capital punishment—alone among advanced nations—[which] is reflected in its rejoicing at the manner of bin Laden’s demise.” For example, Nation columnist Eric Alterman writes that “The killing of Osama bin Laden was a just and necessary undertaking.”Well, this is an out-and-out lie.
Those of use who are concerned with civil liberties wanted that done according to the law, and without collateral damage to our traditions and liberties.What is the law that prohibits a country to attack a leader of a group of militants that is fighting the country's armed forces?
The central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars. The chief reason for international cognizance of these crimes lies in this fact.Just like with intentional crimes, self-defense is allowed, so militarily defending yourself is okay. But aggressive wars are different. You can't wage a war without at least destroying property, if not killing people, so planning to wage an aggressive war is inherently a conspiracy to commit those other, existing, crimes. These were only ex post facto crimes if conspiracy, murder, destruction of property, slavery, etc. were not crimes in the nation waging the war. And I'm no legal historian, but I BET they were in 1930s Germany.
For most of history, assassination was viewed with moral equanimity. Before the mid-17th century, historian Hans Morgenthau has recorded, such methods "were used without moral scruples and as a matter of course."From this perspective, the American reliance on assassination demonstrates that its power relative to its adversaries has declined. The US had to send in a secret team, without notifying Pakistan, because of the likelihood that sympathizers would have warned bin Laden. Why would there be sympathizers for bin Laden (especially considering that al-Qaeda has assassinated numerous Pakistani officials)? Because there's so many strong grievances against the US in the Islamic world. Even before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there were the sanctions against Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Between 1415 and 1525, Morgenthau found, the Republic of Venice "planned or attempted about two hundred assassinations for purposes of its foreign policy." Venice’s ruling council publicly solicited proposals for the elimination of domestic and overseas enemies from aspiring assassins. One clergyman-assassin, Brother John of Ragusa, made this offer in response: "For the Grand Turk, 500 ducats; for the King of Spain (exclusive of travelling expenses), 150 ducats; for the Duke of Milan, 60 ducats; for the Marquis of Mantua, 50 ducats; for his Holiness, only 100 ducats."
During the 16th century, religious fractures generated by the Reformation allowed political enemies to be deemed heretics, and vested assassination with the moral imprimatur of God. Philip II of Spain, one of the architects of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, placed a price on the head of Holland’s William of Orange, and sponsored several plots against Queen Elizabeth I of England. In the decade after 1570, Elizabeth I was the target of at least 20 known assassination plots and, in turn, sponsored several operations against her adversaries overseas. In 1516, Thomas Moore extolled the practice, deeming it a moral imperative--moral, that is, since it spared ordinary people the hardships of wars for which their leaders were responsible.
As the wars of the 18th century wound down, though, and the new nation-state system stabilised, a consensus against assassination developed. In essence, nation-states had little interest in vesting a system which empowered the weak against the strong with moral legitimacy.
... real power is always something far greater than military power alone. A balance of power is not a balance of military power alone: it is, rather, a balance in which military power is one element. Even in its crudest aspect, power represents a subtle and intimate combination of force and consent. No stable government has ever existed, and no empire has ever become established, except with an immensely preponderant measure of consent on the part of those who were its subjects. That consent may be a half-grudging consent; it may be a consent based in part on awe of superior force; it may represent love, or respect, or fear, or a combination of the three. Consent, in any case, is the essential ingredient in stable power--more so than physical force, of which the most efficient and economical use is to increase consent.Considering all the things that could have gone wrong, sending in a team to kill bin Laden was a major risk. Attempting to capture him alive and put him on trial, rather than killing him, would have increased the risks further. It's arguable that the US should have taken these risks anyway; but it's not obvious.
By using physical force in such a way as alienates consent one constantly increases the requirements of physical force to replace the consent that has been alienated. A vicious spiral develops that, continued, ends in the collapse of power. If the Government in Washington had undertaken to use [its monopoly on nuclear weapons] to control the world it would surely have ended by incurring the fanatical hostility of the world's peoples, with incalculable consequences. It would have found itself trying to dominate the world by terror alone; it would have found itself driven to ever greater extremes of ruthlessness; and the requirements of a totally ruthless policy would, at last, have compelled it to establish a tyranny over the American people as well as over the rest of mankind.
For anyone concerned about the deterioration of the norm against assassination in recent years, U.S. policy is likely to seem more part of the problem than part of the solution. ...posted by russilwvong at 5:44 PM on May 24, 2011 [5 favorites]
Any discussion of policy options should start from two premises. The first is that the United States should not want the killing of national leaders to become an accepted international practice, even under exceptional circumstances. The effects of such an adoption would be destabilizing, and as an open society, the United States would be more vulnerable than most of its potential adversaries. Assassination is an often low-tech, small-scale technique that places a premium on secrecy and fanatical resolve rather than sophisticated conventional operations, and therefore plays away from American strengths.
The second premise is that neither the United States nor any other state can or should renounce the right to target those individuals who, through non-state organizations, wield violence outside the purview of international law and pose significant threats to its interests or its citizens.
... While counter-terror efforts must use an array of strategies, non-violent means may not always suffice. Terrorists are immune to most forms of diplomatic and economic pressure and may be beyond the effective reach of judicial procedures. They are difficult to apprehend and to indict and convict without compromising intelligence sources that are important for intelligence gathering to preventing future attacks. Indeed, it may be both unrealistic and undesirable to expect intelligence gathering to proceed with an eye toward the potential admissibility of evidence in a court of law. If these individuals are taken alive, of course, they must be tried, but the threat posed by their organizations, while eluding easy categorization, is better understood in military than in criminal justice terms.
... Of course, there is a tension between these premises. The question is how this circle should be squared: how can a state like the United States retain this freedom of action in a way that does as little damage as possible to norms that serve its interests and promote international order?
The first and most obvious step is to distinguish between sovereign states and trans-national, non-state organizations and categorically to reject the direct personal targeting of government officials, whether in war or in peace. Even ambiguously threatening or condoning the killing of national leaders could hasten the demise of a norm that promotes international stability and serves U.S. interests.
(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-If you look up that section of the War Powers Resolution referenced in the law, you'll find this clause basically means congress was explicitly saying that this resolution was meant to be the legal equivalent of a formal declaration of war.
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes [sic] any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
While counter-terror efforts must use an array of strategies, non-violent means may not always suffice. Terrorists are immune to most forms of diplomatic and economic pressure and may be beyond the effective reach of judicial procedures. They are difficult to apprehend and to indict and convict without compromising intelligence sources that are important for intelligence gathering to preventing future attacks.... If these individuals are taken alive, of course, they must be tried, but the threat posed by their organizations, while eluding easy categorization, is better understood in military than in criminal justice terms.David Cole, a prominent critic of the Bush administration:
... the conflict with al Qaeda is not a traditional armed conflict. Al Qaeda is not a state, has not signed the Geneva Conventions, is difficult to identify, and targets civilians. Nevertheless, we are in an armed conflict with al Qaeda. The “global war on terror” is an ill-conceived metaphor or slogan, but the military conflict with al Qaeda is real. Al Qaeda declared war on the United States, and has attacked it both at home and abroad. The attacks of 9/11 were of such a scale that both NATO and the United Nations General Assembly recognized that a military response in self-defense was justified. Approximately 120 nations signed on to the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda’s leader.Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch responds to Cole, arguing that criminal justice processes are adequate:
The first concern—that evidence and testimony collected on the battlefield would be inadmissible in court—is simply a red herring. Alleged al Qaeda operatives are nearly always detained during law enforcement operations, not military confrontations. They are arrested by police in Pakistan, stopped by immigration authorities in Egypt, or—like Ali Saleh al-Marri—picked up at their homes in the United States by the FBI. Moreover, in those cases where evidence or testimony is obtained in an actual battlefield setting, the courts have never rigidly or formalistically refused to admit it. They have not insisted that Miranda rights be read on a battlefield, for example, but instead have taken a practical and flexible approach to ensuring that the right against self-incrimination is respected.posted by russilwvong at 11:30 AM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
The need for secrecy, while compelling in some instances, is hardly unique to cases involving al Qaeda.
Article 51: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of collective or individual self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by members in exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.posted by saulgoodman at 12:46 PM on May 25, 2011
A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle; and that almost every man is more or less, under its influence. Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in particular instances, actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely disinterested; but they are not of themselves sufficient to produce persevering conformity to the refined dictates and obligations of social duty. Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.The question is the manner in which it pursues those interests: with prudence, restraint, and due regard for the interests of others (the Marshall Plan comes to mind); or with the blind self-righteousness described by Stanley Hoffmann in 1969.
We do disagree on the subject of American objectives in Vietnam. Professor Chomsky believes that they were wicked; I do not. I believe that they were, in a way, far worse; for often the greatest threat to moderation and peace, and certainly the most insidious, comes from objectives that are couched in terms of fine principles in which the policy-maker fervently believes, yet that turn out to have no relation to political realities and can therefore be applied only by tortuous or brutal methods which broaden ad infinitum the gap between motives and effects. ... What Vietnam proves, in my opinion, is not the wickedness of our intentions or objectives but the wickedness that results from irrelevant objectives and disembodied intentions, applied by hideous and massive means. It has its roots, intellectual and emotional, in elements of the American style that I have been at pains to analyze in detail. The Americans' very conviction that their goals are good blinds them to the consequences of their acts.I would argue that the US should not go to war for humanitarian reasons. War is an extremely blunt instrument, meaning that you'll end up killing civilians no matter how careful you are. And in the absence of strong self-interest, setbacks are likely to result in a quick exit (see Somalia). Moreover, as George F. Kennan points out, nobody believes it:
... most foreign peoples do not believe that governments do things for selfless and altruistic motives; and if we do not reveal to them a good solid motive of self-interest for anything we do with regard to them, they are apt to invent one. This can be a more sinister one than we ever dreamed of, and their belief in it can cause serious confusion in our mutual relations.In Afghanistan in particular, US self-interest doesn't seem strong enough to sustain the current level of effort. Rory Stewart.
Iraq's main financial backers were the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, most notably Saudi Arabia ($30.9 billion), Kuwait ($8.2 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($8 billion)...So, the US and their allies funded Saddam's regime and Iraq's war with Iran, just as they funded the proto-Taliban in Afghanistan in their proxy war with Russia. It appears that the United States was also the primary financial supporter of their nuclear and chemical weapons programs. Is it still not worth mentioning?
Beginning in September 1989, the Financial Times laid out the first charges that BNL, relying heavily on U.S. government-guaranteed loans, was funding Iraqi chemical and nuclear weapons work. For the next two and a half years, the Financial Times provided the only continuous newspaper reportage (over 300 articles) on the subject. Among the companies shipping militarily useful technology to Iraq under the eye of the U.S. government, according to the Financial Times, were Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, and Matrix Churchill, through its Ohio branch.
In all, Iraq received $35 billion in loans from the West and between $30 and $40 billion from the Persian Gulf states during the 1980s. ( source )
"In a nutshell: He won because the freedoms he purportedly hated us for don't exist any more."I know why that's why you want to discuss my comment instead of yours, but you can't move the goalposts yet again. You used rape in that case not to state a fact, but as a rhetorical device. This is another stunningly simple fact that I know you are capable of grasping.
You're right! Just the other day, I saw a girl who was punitively raped for going to school! And I sure can't criticize Islam on the internets! All those freedoms, all gone!
posted by klangklangston at 5:39 PM on May 24
Howard Teicher served on the National Security Council as director of Political-Military Affairs. He accompanied Rumsfeld to Baghdad in 1983. According to his 1995 affidavit and separate interviews with former Reagan and Bush administration officials, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly directed armaments and hi-tech components to Iraq through false fronts and friendly third parties such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait, and they quietly encouraged rogue arms dealers and other private military companies to do the same:Even through raw numbers from a source in your links, we get these weapons sales figures from 1980-1990:[T]he United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required. The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat... The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.
USSR. : 18.7bn
China : 05.0bn
France: 04.5bn
U.S.A.: 00.2bn
Others: 02.7bn
==============
TOTAL : 31.1bnDonald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that authored the aforementioned Riegle Report, said:Let's keep going:U.N. inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs. ... The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 separate agents "with biological warfare significance," according to Riegle's investigators.
In 1984, Iran introduced a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council, citing the Geneva Protocol of 1925, condemning Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. In response, the United States instructed its delegate at the UN to lobby friendly representatives in support of a motion to take "no decision" on the use of chemical munitions by Iraq. If backing to obstruct the resolution could be won, then the U.S. delegation were to proceed and vote in favour of taking zero action; if support were not forthcoming, the U.S. delegate were to refrain from voting altogether...Let's keep going:
Representatives of the United States argued that the UN Human Rights Commission was an "inappropriate forum" for consideration of such abuses. According to Joyce Battle, the Security Council eventually issued a "presidential statement" condemning the use of unconventional weapons "without naming Iraq as the offending party."
Alan Friedman writes that Sarkis Soghanalian, one of the most notorious arms dealers during the Cold War, procured Eastern Bloc and French origin weaponry, and brokered vast deals with Iraq, with the tacit approval of the Central Intelligence Agency.Can we finally cut the bullshit and be adults about our accountability? Please?The most prominent [arms merchant] was Sarkis Soghanalian, a Miami-based former CIA contractor who brokered tens of billions of dollars' worth of military hardware for Iraq during the 1980s, reporting many of his transactions to officials in Washington. [Soghanalian] was close to the Iraqi leadership and to intelligence officers and others in the Reagan administration. In many respects he was the living embodiment of plausible deniability, serving as a key conduit for CIA and other U.S. government operations.
From 1983 through mid-1990, Iraq received nearly $5 billion in U.S. GSM-102 and GSM-103 export credit guarantees to purchase significant quantities of U.S. agricultural commodities.William Polk, The Arab World Today, describes the oil export revenue available to the two sides in the war:
From an economic perspective, the war went through similar phases. During the early years of the war, Iran appeared to have a great advantage. Because Iran could interdict Iraqi oil shipments in the Persian Gulf and because its Arab ally, Syria, cut off the Iraqi pipeline to the Mediterranean, Iraq was forced to ship oil by truck through Jordan. Its exports fell to less than 750,000 barrels a day. Iran, meanwhile, able to move in the Gulf, raised its exports to about three million barrels a day. For some time, the only Iraq answer to this situation was to beg or borrow money from Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that about $50 billion came to Iraq in such credits and gifts.posted by russilwvong at 10:46 PM on May 25, 2011 [2 favorites]
By 1986, however, the advantage had swung to Iraq. By then, Iraq had opened or rebuilt pipelines through Saudi Arabia and Turkey, so that it was able to export about two million barrels a day. More pointedly, the Iraqis began to attack Iran's oil installations and its tankers in the Gulf, particularly on Kharg Island; these attacks did not stop Iranian exports, but they served to make them more dangerous and expensive. The result was a reduction in tonnage, to about half the amount sold abroad earlier. And as the world oil market softened and the price of oil dropped, the real effect on Iran was more like a 75 percent loss of revenue.
I blame Nixon for introducing the whole 'War on Something' concept.
The American decision to lend crucial help to Baghdad so early in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war came after American intelligence agencies warned that Iraq was on the verge of being overrun by Iran, whose army was bolstered the year before by covert shipments of American-made weapons.Again, cut the apparatchick style horeseshit rationalizations. We paid for and armed both sides of the conflict to get the war that we wanted to keep our cheap, accessible oil. And once again, when the outcome led to unintended consequences, we suddenly remembered the war crimes of our former ally, and simultaneously forgot that we played a crucial role in helping him commit them.
The New York Times and others reported last year [1991] that the Reagan Administration secretly decided shortly after taking office in January 1981 to allow Israel to ship several billion dollars' worth of American arms and spare parts to Iran. That intervention and the decision to aid Iraq directly in 1982 provide evidence that Washington played a much greater role than was previously known in affecting the course of the long and costly Iran-Iraq war.
The interventions also raise questions about the White House's often-stated insistence in the early 1980's that it was remaining neutral in the Iran-Iraq war, since the United States was arming both sides in its desire to see neither side dominate the vital oil region...
In the end, officials acknowledged, American arms, technology and intelligence helped Iraq avert defeat and eventually grow, with much help from the Soviet Union later, into the regional power that invaded Kuwait in August 1990, sparking the Persian Gulf war last year.
At one point during Mr. Gates's testimony, Senator Bill Bradley, the New Jersey Democrat, asked whether the intelligence-sharing with Iraq had amounted to a "covert action" that under law should have been made known to the intelligence committees.
"I believed at the time," Mr. Gates responded, "that the activities were fully consistent with the understanding" of the law then in effect, "as it related to liaison relationships." ...
The decision to help Iraq was "not a C.I.A. rogue initiative," a former senior State Department official explained. The policy was researched at the State Department and "approved at the highest levels," he said. The idea, he added, was not to "hitch our wagon to Hussein."
"We wanted to avoid victory by both sides," he said...
Washington also "looked the other way," as a former American Ambassador in the region put it, as American-made arms began to flow into Baghdad from Iraq's allies in the Middle East, starting in 1982.
Jordan and Saudi Arabia sent Iraq small arms and mortars, among other weapons, and Kuwait sold the Iraqis thousands of TOW anti-tank missiles. A former C.I.A. official who worked closely with Mr. Casey recalled that "the Kuwaitis sent lots of money and lots of arms to Iraq, and it was all done with our knowledge." He also acknowledged that by 1982 the Jordanian military was routinely diverting American-made Huey helicopters to Iraq.
American officials made no effort to stop these sales, known to many in the Administration, even though American export law forbids the third-party transfer of American-made arms without Washington's permission. ( source )
Iraq’s indebtedness has been the result primarily of the war with Iran. Iraq traditionally had been free of foreign debt and had accumulated foreign reserves that reached $35 billion by 1980. These reserves were exhausted in the early stages of the war with Iran. ...Looking at Figure 10, the US share of the $35 billion was $4.4 billion. (The Paris Club cancelled Iraq's debts in 2004.)
Iraq’s foreign debt was comprised of western credit provided for military assistance, development finance and export guarantees. This assistance has been estimated at $35 billion in principal. The former Soviet Union and Russia also provided loans to Iraq via the Paris Club during the 1980s and 1990s for the development and production of military programs (Figure 10). Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates provided an additional $30 to 40 billion in financing to fight Iran (Figure 11). Although the Gulf States considered the financial support provided to Iraq to be a loan, Iraq believed that the Gulf States were required to provide help to Iraq in its fight to prevent the spread of radical Iranian fundamentalism.
The Iraqi Kurds had always chafed against rule from Baghdad. During the Iran-Iraq war many Kurdish rebels sided with Iran, hoping to see the end of Saddam Hussein. In 1987, the Iraqi leader unleashed a ferocious campaign against the Kurds, civilians included. It was called al Anfal, the "spoils." Peter Galbraith was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time. He saw the effects of the campaign when he visited the Kurdish region with a colleague. ...posted by russilwvong at 9:36 AM on May 26, 2011
Galbraith drafted legislation to bring US sanctions against Iraq. It was now September 1988. By then Saddam Hussein's forces had killed an estimated 100,000 Kurds and levelled thousands of their villages. With the Iran-Iraq war now over, Galbraith couldn't see any compelling strategic reason why the US government should not punish Iraq for its treatment of the Kurds. The Senate didn't either; it passed the bill in a day. But then the legislation ran into trouble. Political scientist Bruce Jentleson says the House watered it down and the Reagan Administration killed it.
Jentleson: "And it did it for two reasons. One, economic interests. In addition to oil, Iraq at that point had become the second-largest recipient of government agricultural credits to buy American agriculture, second only to Mexico, and there was a lot of lobbying in Washington by those interests. And secondly was this continual blinders of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So it's worth bearing in mind that at that point in time there was not a lot of weight put on the plight of the Kurds."
The problem is that for too long, people have underestimated the power of calling out people on bullshit. They are afraid that the bullshitters will make them look bad. But, even if that happens, continuing to call people out works. The one thing the O'Reilly's of this world know is the power of repetition. Why the other side cannot learn that is amazing. Only recently have things like the Daily Show and Media Matters for America begun to systematically and continuously go after the "lying liars" and their ilk.Supporting Afghanistan is right-wing? Iraq, sure, but Afghanistan was generally seen as a justifiable intervention in a state sponsor of terrorism.
I stress the obvious but often overlooked externalness of foreign policy. The fundamental circumstance giving rise to foreign policy is that most of the world is outside the United States. The areas in which our foreign policy has its effects are those lying beyond the range of our law. They include about fifteen-sixteenths of the world's land surface and contain about sixteen-seventeenths of its peoples. We cannot ordain the conditions there. The forces do not respond to our fiat. At best we can only affect them.posted by russilwvong at 5:30 PM on May 27, 2011
... The death of Osama bin Laden has created a new sense that the war can be won outright, if enough force is applied.posted by russilwvong at 10:50 AM on May 28, 2011
“If I were Mullah Omar, I would certainly be worried,” Major-General Richard Mills of the U.S. Marines said after the Abbottabad raid, referring to the leader of one branch of the Afghan Taliban. “It shows that the Americans are focused – once we’ve targeted you, we’re going to maintain our focus on you until the mission’s accomplished.”
As if to drive home that point, commanders announced plans to increase targeted attacks against senior Taliban commanders in Afghanistan, in order to create a patch of scorched earth upon which democratic governance can thrive.
When I hear such lines coming from a military official, I often think of a British diplomat who would raise his eyebrows, bide his time, and then sidle up to journalists and explain that, no, this is not the way things really work in Afghanistan. Not at all: The Taliban and al-Qaeda aren’t connected that way, and to treat them the same is to risk disaster. And he’d have the fieldwork and research, from the most impressive advisers in the country, to prove it.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, until last year the British ambassador to Kabul, was one of a small group of foreign officials in Afghanistan who produced truly informed and independent thinking. On the occasions when I spoke with him in Kabul, or in off-the-record gatherings in Britain, he had a rare ability to gauge the conflict from a rational distance, free from the deluge of optimistic propaganda and Byzantine PowerPoint models.
He has now placed those views on the record, after quitting the public service, in his memoir Cables from Kabul. It is a shockingly frank record for a man who was a top diplomat just months ago.
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posted by Poet_Lariat at 10:26 AM on May 24, 2011 [8 favorites]