THIS Is Just Another Reason Why George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand and Others Were CORRECT in Using Force Against Iraq in 1991

@Northwest

We did not "create" Hussein.

@Northwest The secretary of state herself said starving half a million children was an acceptable price to enforce US control in the region.

we supported him and helped him in his war against
Iran@beckyromero

@beckyromero Of course we did. We armed him, and we pushed him to invade Iran. If it wasn't for our military adventurism, things would be different.

@Northwest

Never knew the United States exported Soviet MiGs and T-72 tanks. Guess you learn something knew everyday.



😂

I am not disputing we sided with Iraq during part of their war with Iran, mostly as a means for getting Kuwaiti oil out of the Gulf and because Iran was attacking all shipping in the area.

This was, after all, less than a decade after Iran seized our embassy and held American diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Bur we did NOT "create" Saddam Hussein.

And Iran wasn't exactly innocent in 1980. They were pushing their fundalmentalist Shite ideology in across the borders into Iraq, thus being a threat to Iraq's Sunni minority (which was in power).

So stop feeding into such nonsense about the CIA, Iraq and 1968.

Perhaps @PicturesOfABetterTomorrow has Iraq confused with Iran. I suppose all those those Muslim nations starting with "I" sound alike; might be easy to confuse them.

A CIA-plot during the Eisenhower administration did install the Shah into power - in Iran.

@beckyromero Turkey has Migs, Russian tanks and missile systems. By your logic they are bffs with Putin.

@beckyromero The CIA did the same in Iraq. Seems you are the one who needs a history and geography lesson.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

The Turkish Air Force uses F-16s.

And their army's tanks mostly come from the U.S., West Germany (yes, that old) and some from Israel.

They bought some surplus APC's from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Turkey's military was NOT supplied by the Soviet Union.

Iraq's military during the Saddam Hussein's reign of terror WAS.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
The CIA did NOT install the Ba'ath Party into power in Iraq.

I don't mind a political debate.

But I won't tolerate outright lies on my questions/stories that is merely designed to confuse people who perhaps aren't inclined to read some history themselves.

@beckyromero Just because you are ignorant of something does not make it a lie. You would know if you bothered to do your research that who was the party leader is more important then the party name. They made sure he took power and executed the previous party leadership.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

I'm not going to give you a free history lesson.

But for the benefit of others:

Hussein and Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr were major participants in the 1968 coup. As al-Bakr's health declined, Hussein became more powerful and forced al-Bakr out of power altogether in 1979.

@beckyromero Again just because you are not aware of something does not make it lies and your arrogant condescending attitude does not help your case.

@beckyromero And I suppose the CIA has never manipulated a coup before.

Did I say that?

I said the opposite. I noted that Ike's CIA engineered the coup in Iran.

But just because the CIA engineered coups in some countries doesn't mean they did so in all countries.

What's next? Saying we put Andropov in power, too?

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
My "case?"

You've reached my limit.

You're just looking for an argument just to argue with someone.

Do it again and you get blocked.

@beckyromero I was not aware agreeing with you was a requirement. IF you wanted an echo chamber you should be more clear about it.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

Oh, you can have an opinion.

And most readers here on SW know I'm pretty tolerate, far more than most.

But you are NOT entitled to your own FACTS.

@beckyromero


We did not simply side with Iraq. Saddam would have ended up as a footnote to history, just like all the despots who came before him, in Iraq.

What we did instead, under the neo-con leadership, during Reagan's first two terms, is ARM him. That picture you posted is irrelevant, but you need to understand the situation there, beyond Wikipedia.

We asked the Gulf states to give him $Bs, to carry on that futile war. His new weapons did not come from the Soviet Union, they came from France, because the Soviet Union, was not interested in escalating, but this was also part of our strategy, to weaken the Soviets' sphere of influence.

In addition, we were providing key logistical support, and satellite surveillance imagery.


No, it was payback for the hostage situation, and to counter Soviet potential plans. The war, in fact, was an extra hazard, and both Iraq's and Iran's major oil producing fields, were reduced to rubble.


He started the war, BEFORE the hostage crisis was over, and by the time Reagan took office, Saddam was on the defensive, as despite Iran's, US trained, military's hate for Khomeini, they stepped up, following an initial setback, to defend Iran against Saddam.


Saddam would have been gone, by mid 1980, if we had not stepped in. He had "lost" the war against Iran. But, we stepped in, made him our puppet, and enabled him to carry on with the bulk of his monstrous activities.

The link you posted? These civilians are a small sample. But, at the time these crimes took place, he was our guy, we made him, and we enabled him to continue killing, because we supported his version of events, specifically that Iran gassed the Kurds, not his regime. That was when he was carrying on our agenda, of attacking Iran.


Google is a nice tool, but only if you know what's going on, and you don't.

Iraq's Shiite population, has ALWAYS been an extension of Iran's Shiite religious school of thought. Khomeini lived in Iraq for 13 years, 10 of those years under Saddam, before being exiled to France in 1978, under pressure from the Shah.

In 1980, Iran had its hands full, with its own revolution, and Khomeini may not have lasted more than a year, but Saddam's invasion of Iran, forced the people to rally around him.


1968? The CIA? Stop mixing up what you read on Wikipedia, and appropriating to me, things I did not say. You seem to be lost in the term "we made him". This is not a literal expression. Of course he came to power on his own, but just like the despots before him, he would have been gone before long.

But yes, we did make the Saddam Hussein, who committed all the massacres, and enable him to carry on a nearly decade long war against Iran, where no single military objective was met, and the only thing that was happening, is Iran was getting harassed.

We did that.

Back to the images in the link you posted. We SUPPORTED him when that happened. We ENABLED him to commit more massacres. We might as well have put those kids in the mass graves ourselves.

Get a clue.

The world did not need Iran's theocracy, but we are directly responsible for that, and propping up Saddam was one of the reasons we're in the situation we're in today.

One time, a US Destroyer was hit by an Iraqi Exocet missile, fired from an French-made Mirage jet, causing US casualties. We called it an incident of "friendly fire", because the Iraqi pilot mistook the US destroyer for an Iranian ship.

Plenty of glossy 8x10s of Rumsfeld shaking hands and high 5'ing Saddam, in Iraq.


You're missing the bigger picture. This is not about the coup against Musaddagh.

@Northwest Another level to it is the US was shitting themselves when the Baathist revolution started sweeping through the Arab world starting with Nasser who was not exactly a friend of the US. That was why the US was so adamant at least at first to get an in with Saddam and Assad to essentially hijack the populist revolution that was originally supported by the Soviets. It is also why the US got in bed with Israel and Turkey. Basically it was about controlling the region either through puppets or by countering the few independent ones.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow When it comes to the Middle East, the situation is very complicated, and often "contradictory".

1. The Baath Party and Nasser did not get along, and directly and indirectly, fought each other for control. Nasser wanted Nasser to lead.

2. The Syrian Baath, and Iraqi Baath, though rising to power about the same time, were not really allies. They competed, and plotted against each other. The party founder, Michel Aflaq (A Christian, Syrian), was essentially used as a propaganda tool.

3. The Soviets did not necessarily like the Iraqi Baath, because the latter came down hard on communists. But, they were allies of convenience. One of the reasons why the Soviets did not support Saddam during the Iran war.

4. Nasser was a buffoon, and as corrupt as they come. He was charismatic, and promised a lot of things, but delivered nothing. This was his primary skill set. Despite this, the people loved him. Time, and again, he would simply deliver another speech, with more lies, and the Arab crowds would cheer him up. Following the 1967 humiliating loss to Israel, instead of demanding his head, the people marched to support him. He managed to point the finger at everyone else. He had the people convinced that the US destroyed the Egyptian airforce, a total fabrication. The US was trying to prevent war, as we were eye ball deep in Vietnam. Israel, at the time, did not even have a single US aircraft.

If you're wondering how this can happen, as in a leader lying, to cover up more lies, and the people believing him, all you have to do is watch how Donald Trump works.

We were in bed with Turkey, because of the Cold War. That's it, pure and simple.

We got into bed with Israel, but this did not happen until the 1970s, also as part of our cold war
"preventive" measures.

When Reagan came to power, and alongside him, the neocons, instead of playing the long game, and waiting until Khomeini fizzles out, they really went balls to the wall, and threw everything, behind Saddam. We armed him, and this does not mean we sent F-16s, that would have been dumb, as his people were not trained for that, but we pushed our Gulf puppets to pay for his purchases from France, to the tune of $Bs, that he could not repay (which led to his Kuwait invasion, as a way to avoid having to repay Kuwait back).

If you think this is confusing, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Those chemical attacks against the Kurds? Yeah, they happened, but at the time, we accused Iran of doing it, because Saddam was doing our bidding.

Saddam, not propped up by us, was a minor despot, who would have been out. What became of Saddam IS our creation. Time to acknowledge that.

@Northwest I don't disagree but the US is famous for misreading such things. For example till 1991 the US was convinced the USSR and China were allies and Moscow had more ICBMs pointed at Beijing then at the Americans. That and the US was convinced the communists in south east asia were allies and Vietnam, China and Cambodia fought each other at different points.

I agree that the US got into bed with Israel late and it was after they saw that they could prove themselves to be effective fighting the Arab countries the US did not control.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
Oh, stop it with the snarky attitude.

You were far more accurate when you wrote later:


So how come you didn't "educate" everyone on the weapons we started procuring for IRAN shortly after the Reagan adminstration came to power?

It started years before Lt. Col. Oliver North thought it was a "neat idea" to divert profits from such arms sales to the Contras in Nicaragua.

Or how despite the Iranian hostage crisis, war planners at the Pentagon envisioned the U.S. siding with IRAN in case of a Soviet invasion.

In his memoirs Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, wrote that the United States "had mounting intelligence'' in late August 1980 ''that the Soviets were deploying forces on the Iranian frontier in a mode suited for intervention in Iran."

And a "top secret" report at the time by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Congress described a Soviet exercise:


According to the New York Times:


But because of that scare, the U.S. developed the Rapid Deployment Force and greater importance was placed on the need for U.S. naval forces in the area.

And stop blaming the French for what happened to the USS Stark.

They already get blamed enough for the HMS Sheffield.

@EugenieLaBorgia

@beckyromero You win the prize for the most non-relevant response to a comment, for the day.

The US had contingency plans, for any Soviet movements, and Iran, when the Shah was in power, along with Turkey, two countries that border/across from the Soviet Union, were both key to our cold war strategy. Still not at all related to my comments.


I'm blaming the French? I am pointing out that Saddam's most effective weapons, were French, paid for by the Gulf States, at our urging.

But keep on pushing irrelevant stuff.

The facts are pretty simple. The outrage over the gassing of civilians, should be felt by everyone, but to try to blame Saddam for it, and ignore all the players who enabled him, COVERED up for him, AND enabled him to commit more carnage, is bullshit. We covered up for him, and we armed him, and we gave him logical support, and we supported his cover up. These are the plain facts.

@Northwest
The Shah was not in power in 1980, which is when the Soviet exercise occured to which I referred. I even SAID it occured in "August 1980."

But who knows? Maybe in your alternate universe of "facts" Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was still alive in August 1980 and didn't die on July 27th.

Yes, "facts are pretty simple."

@Northwest Don't waste your time on a true believer apologist who will find a justification for anything or make one up if she can't find the spin. And anyone who takes Zbigniew Brzezinski seriously can't be taken seriously.