8 washington lies about Iraq - from anti war .com

[peaccenicked]

http://www.antiwar.com/rep/utley9.html
An american anti war site.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 4:09 pm on Sep. 24, 2002)

[Exploited Class]

Its intelligent, concise, it makes sense and it is good information to have. A must read link for sure.

Thank you.

[peaccenicked]

here is another good link
http://www.slate.msn.com/?id=2071309

[PunkRawker677]

This seems like great flier material.

[Michael De Panama]

Very good article, Peacce.

[Blackberry]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 4:08 pm on Sep. 24, 2002
http://www.antiwar.com/rep/utley9.html
An american anti war site.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 4:09 pm on Sep. 24, 2002)


I'll probably use that information in a pamphlet, along with some pictures, which I was planning on making, for people to read.

Good stuff.

[peaccenicked]

I am forming an idea in my head beyond the news letter
a sort of chelives against the war pamphlet, It might be the best thing we could contribute to stopping the perpetual war, I have just about got my finances in order again after some real hiccups and would put something substantial towards it and even publish it here in glasgow and mail copies on order to anyone who wants them.

[PunkRawker677]

I'm willing to work with you peacce.

[RedCeltic]

Oh great Job Peaccenicked! I was going to look for something that had a few of these points on it for a meeting tommorow. This helps out greatly. :)

[Michael De Panama]

Peacce, I think that's a great idea. If you're willing to pursue it, I'll definitely help!

[peaccenicked]

The pundits are predicting that the attack on Iraq will happen early 2003. let us have a goal for December.
What we need to work out is contents. I am in favour of
short sharp bursts of work rather than an introduction and essay type thing.
The above article could be reprinted and perhaps that could be the longest piece. If there is anything that people think can maintain the same power,it would be exciting. The problem might be the article's links. It might be wise to edit these. Give me more time. let space be no problem. It is better to have an abundance of material, hopefully of as equal power.
All ideas are welcome.

[Blackberry]

Someone from another message board believed most of the facts listed are 'lies', and has posted why they are lies. I will post it here and see what people think....



ONE
IRAQ WAS INVOLVED IN THE 9/11 ATTACK ON AMERICA OR IS CLOSE TO OBTAINING NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
ANSWER: That was the party line for all of about 10 minutes, then Osama took over and no mention of Iraq was used in the same sentence as the wTC.

TWO
IF WE DON'T BOMB IRAQ, SADDAM WILL USE HIS WMD AGAINST US OR HIS NEIGHBORS OR ISRAEL
ANSWER: Well, as soon as Saddam fires a gun at another country he'll get bombed shítless anyway, so he'll almost certainly be too smart to use such "conventional" means.

THREE
IRAQ WOULDN'T LET THE UN--US MONITORS INSPECT POSSIBLE WMD PRODUCTION OR STORAGE SITES. THAT'S WHY AMERICA STARTED BOMBING.
ANSWER: Maybe the most plausible point out of all of them, due to the reference to the sanctions not being lifted, and new demands being made. But the weapons inspectors were obstructed from doing their work.

FOUR
IT'S SADDAM'S FAULT THAT HALF A MILLION CHILDREN DIED SINCE THE ECONOMIC BLOCKADE, SADDAM COULD FEED HIS PEOPLE IF HE CARED INSTEAD OF USING HIS MONEY TO BUY WEAPONS
ANSWER: Already been addressed in this topic. There were never any trade embargoes on medicine or food.

FIVE
IF IRAQ ALLOWED INSPECTIONS FOR WMD (WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION), WASHINGTON WOULD REMOVE THE BLOCKADE. IRAQ MUST PROVE THAT IT HAS NO WMD AND THAT IT WON'T MANUFACTURE ANY IN THE FUTURE.
ANSWER: The article itself answers its own point here: "There's No Connection Between Inspections and Sanctions on Iraq." How does this point "prove" that the comment is a lie, when the former has never been claimed?

SIX
IT'S IRAQ'S FAULT THAT THE BLOCKADE CONTINUES. AMERICA HAS NOTHING AGAINST IRAQ'S PEOPLE, ONLY AGAINST ITS GOVERNMENT.
ANSWER: Um, well, duh. Go back to point four.

SEVEN
SADDAM GASSED HIS OWN PEOPLE
ANSWER: Shaky ground here. I don't recall this having been extensively used as "grounds for war" this time around. It's also largely irrelevant to bring Waco into the argument. In fact this point is so weak that the "answer" the site gives goes completely off the point in citing the propaganda used by the US government during the first and second world wars. What does that prove or disprove about Saddam? Jack Schitt.

EIGHT
A WAR WOULD BE QUICK AND EASY TO WIN. IRAQIS WOULD WELCOME AMERICANS TO OVERTHROW THEIR CRUEL DICTATOR. AMERICA WOULD THEN SET UP A FRIENDLY REGIME, EASILY OCCUPY THE COUNTRY AND RID IT OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
ANSWER: Since when has anyone claimed any of that? What's the point of basing an argument against the current war on things that have not been said regarding it?


I'm not saying I agree with his counter-argument, but I'm not as knowledgable as others are on this board about the subject...

(Edited by Neutral Nation at 1:03 am on Sep. 26, 2002)

[peaccenicked]

Point seven. Chomsky uses the phrase ''emotionally potent oversimplifications'' The original answer I believe is a reaction to this.....In that way it does not function.
Yet as it has emotive power, it is useful. What it needs is a context that reflects an actual juxtaposition and not a contrived or artificial one.
The real question is: Did that happen? Did Saddam gas his own people.
Firstly, just to clarify something.. the kurds themselves would not consider themselves his 'own' people but that is by the way a point of language and not of emotive power.
Here we are getting closer to the facts.............
Why was there no bodies produced in evidence?

''This is serious stuff, because the United Nations tells us that 1.4 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the sanctions, which is three thousand times more than the number of Kurds who supposedly died of gassing at the hands of Saddam. Many of my old Cold Warrior friends practically DEMAND that we not lift the sanctions because if Saddam would gas his own people, he would gas anyone. Now I have come across the 1990 Pentagon report, published just prior to the invasion of Kuwait. Its authors are Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II, and Leif R. Rosenberger, of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The report is 93 pages, but I append here only the passages having to do with the aforementioned issue:

Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East

Excerpt, Chapter 5

U.S. SECURITY AND IRAQI POWER

Introduction. Throughout the war the United States practiced a fairly benign policy toward Iraq. Although initially disapproving of the invasion, Washington came slowly over to the side of Baghdad. Both wanted to restore the status quo ante to the Gulf and to reestablish the relative harmony that prevailed there before Khomeini began threatening the regional balance of power. Khomenini’s revolutionary appeal was anathema to both Baghdad and Washington; hence they wanted to get rid of him.

United by a common interest, Iraq and the United States restored diplomatic relations in 1984, and the United States began to actively assist Iraq in ending the fighting. It mounted Operation Staunch, an attempt to stem the flow of arms to Iran. It also increased its purchases of Iraqi oil while cutting back on Iranian oil purchases, and it urged its allies to do likewise. All this had the effect of repairing relations between the two countries, which had been at a very low ebb.

In September 1988, however -- a month after the war had ended -- the State Department abruptly, and in what many viewed as a sensational manner, condemned Iraq for allegedly using chemicals against its Kurdish population. The incident cannot be understood without some background of Iraq’s relations with the Kurds. It is beyond the scope of this study to go deeply into this matter; suffice it to say that throughout the war Iraq effectively faced two enemies -- Iran and the elements of its own Kurdish minority. Significant numbers of the Kurds had launched a revolt against Baghdad and in the process teamed up with Tehran. As soon as the war with Iran ended, Iraq announced its determination to crush the Kurdish insurrection. It sent Republican Guards to the Kurdish area, and in the course of this operation -- according to the U.S. State Department -- gas was used, with the result that numerous Kurdish civilians were killed. The Iraqi government denied that any such gassing had occurred. Nonetheless, Secretary of State Schultz stood by U.S. accusations, and the U.S. Congress, acting on its own, sought to impose economic sanctions on Baghdad as a violator of the Kurds’ human rights.

Having looked at all of the evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the State Department’s claim that gas was used in this instance. To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds -- in Turkey where they had gone for asylum -- failed to discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

We would have expected, in a matter as serious as this, that the Congress would have exercised some care. However, passage of the sanctions measure through the Congress was unusually swift -- at least in the Senate where a unanimous vote was secured within 24 hours. Further, the proposed sanctions were quite draconian (and will be discussed in detail below). Fortunately for the future of Iraqi-U.S. ties, the sanctions measure failed to pass on a bureaucratic technicality (it was attached as a rider to a bill that died before adjournment).

It appears that in seeking to punish Iraq, the Congress was influenced by another incident that occurred five months earlier in another Iraqi-Kurdish city, Halabjah. In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.

Thus, in our view, the Congress acted more on the basis of emotionalism than factual information, and without sufficient thought for the adverse diplomatic effects of its action. As a result of the outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq is now the most powerful state in the Persian Gulf, an area in which we have vital interests. To maintain an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Gulf to the West, we need to develop good working relations with all of the Gulf states, and particularly with Iraq, the strongest.
From http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/12-14-00.html