Posted on 04/19/2003 12:08:44 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Why does it have to be either/or?
Very good read.
Yeah, Adm. Thomas H. Moorer (ret) is right. Theres a Chinese behind every blade of grass here in Panama. Gads, they are armed to the teeth ready to shoot. Im learning Mandarin and Cantonese just to be able to communicate. Ive already made an appointment with a plastic surgeon to have my eyes uplifted when the things get ugly here with the Chinese. I hope to pass for a Chinese in the near future.
However, the Cold War and other extenuating factors were in play. With the Afghanistan situation heating up, why did Jimmuh think we could abandon Iran?
We need to remember that letting a brutal regime in the mideast fall, then walking away can have disasterous results. Things could be even worse in Iraq if we aren't careful.
Carter's state of the union speech on January 21, 1980 couldn't have been more forboding of the failures to come as a result of his "human rights" commitment:
At this time in Iran, 50 Americans are still held captive, innocent victims of terrorism and anarchy. Also at this moment, massive Soviet troops are attempting to subjugate the fiercely independent and deeply religious people of Afghanistan. These two acts--one of international terrorism and one of military aggression--present a serious challenge to the United States of America and indeed to all the nations of the world. Together, we will meet these threats to peace.In failing to fight tyranny effectively, Carter unleashed much more of it than he ever expected. "Trying" just isn't good enough.
I'm determined that the United States will remain the strongest of all nations, but our power will never be used to initiate a threat to the security of any nation or to the rights of any human being. We seek to be and to remain secure--a nation at peace in a stable world. But to be secure we must face the world as it is.
You chose disgrace instead of war, you got disgrace and war as well. --Winston Churchill
No argument here.
Click to scroll to commentary.
Arming Saddam
The Weekly Standard ^ | April 14, 2003 | The Weekly Standard Scrapbook
Posted on 04/09/2003 5:28 PM PDT by forsnax5
Two things stood out in the excellent April 2 dispatch from Najaf, Iraq, filed by the New York Times's Jim Dwyer. There was the headline, "Cheers and Smiles for U.S. Troops in a Captured City," which one had not expected to read in the Times. And there was this delicious kicker: "American troops found that the fleeing Baath Party and paramilitary forces had set up minefields on roads and bridges leading out of the city....Lt. Col. Duke Deluca, noting that the mines had been made in Italy, said, 'Europeans are anti-war, but they are pro-commerce.'"
As it happens, Colonel Deluca's point had just been made by the inimitable bilingual blogger and illustrator known as the Dissident Frogman (http://thedissidentfrogman.now.nu). He produced this chart with data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
I've seen lots of comments about how the U.S. armed Saddam in the 80's. This article from the Weekly Standard and the nifty chart from the Dissident Frogman adds a little perspective...
1 posted on 04/09/2003 5:28 PM PDT by forsnax5
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Surprised that Germany's sales are near nil.
3 posted on 04/09/2003 5:30 PM PDT by C210N
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Remember, this is for weapons sales only. Trying to find machinery, etc sales elsewhere is a little more difficult.
4 posted on 04/09/2003 6:10 PM PDT by cmsgtusafret
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Nice chart.
5 posted on 04/09/2003 6:15 PM PDT by k2blader ("Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful." - C. S. Lewis)
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Looks like there are certain UN security council members that sponser terror
6 posted on 04/09/2003 6:20 PM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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adds a little perspective
Adds a little perspective, my butt. It exposes it as a lie. What else are they lying about? (Rhetorical question)
7 posted on 04/09/2003 6:23 PM PDT by 1L
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Looks like there are certain UN security council members that sponsor terror
8 posted on 04/09/2003 6:26 PM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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Excuse me if I don't believe the German percentages. No one ever said the Germans were dumb, only evil when it is profitable to be so. We've heard repeatedly that the bunkers were built by German engineers. I doubt they stopped with sending blueprints on how to pour concrete and form steel.
9 posted on 04/09/2003 6:27 PM PDT by pepperdog (God Bless and Protect our Troops)
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read later
10 posted on 04/09/2003 7:43 PM PDT by LiteKeeper
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The "we armed Iraq in the 1980's" is a constant excuse used by the Left to argue against war against Saddam. While Saddam did get limited military support, most of what he got during the Iraq/Iran war was intelligence information. In fact, the evidence of this was the Gulf War in 1991...which wasn't too far from when our outrageous military support supposedly occurred. But, just how much US-made military equipment did you see used against our troops in the Gulf War? How many US made tanks did you see? Their troops were using AK-47s, not M-16s; their tanks were Soviet TU-type tanks and their aircrafts were Soviet and French made MIGs and Mirages. Seriously...think about that. If we had given this regime so much of our military equipment...the best in the world, why were they using someone elses?
And even if we did, it's irrelevant. We also armed Stalin during WWII with the Lend-Lease Act but that didn't preclude us from engaging in a Cold War, immediately after WWII ended. Even shortly before WWII, when we knew of the atrocities being committed in China, the Japanese were still getting steel to build their ships and fuel to power them from the USA. Throughout history, friends have become enemies and enemies have become friends...but that shouldn't preclude us from reacting to a dangerous situation. Using this argument, the British should've remained our enemies...those dirty Redcoats.
And this crap about giving Saddam Bio/Chemical "weapons" is an exaggeration as well. Saddam never got "weaponized" nerve agents or "weaponzed" biological agents from the USA. Everything he got from us was a cooperative (UN and Western nations) effort to help Iraq deal with the rampant spread of contagious diseases and viruses that were killing his people. While this did include biological samples of viruses, this was a standard practice with the ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) and other medical institutions as they sent samples to medical researchers around the world...so they could develop immunizing agents to battle these diseases.
This was especially of interest for Baghdad University and the Ministry of Higher Education (not Saddam) as they appealed to the UN, CDC and WHO for help in controlling the spread of Brucellosis, Diphtheria, Hepatitis, Cholera, TB and any number of contagious diseases. Much of these so-called "chemicals" were also based on the same principal of fighting disease...which included chlorines and pesticides that could be used in water treatment facilities and in agriculture to contain the spread of disease. Before the concern over bio/chem warfare, these were common practices that medical researchers engaged in world wide. Saddam never got instructions from the US on how to weaponize these agents. That, he got from the USSR which was revealed shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The documents released uncovered that the Soviets engaged in the deadliest bio/chem weapons research the world has ever seen...including "cocktails" which was the mixing of deadly pathogens that made them resistant to vaccines and standard protections.
In hindsight, what the "USA" did was obviously a stupid thing, but it was not illegal...and if it was, the Senate Banking Committee, who actually investigated these charges, would've brought charges and prosecuted those who participated. While they did acknowledge bio-material transfers to Iraq, nothing was done outside the law that existed at that time. But there has been a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue of biological samples, which we did supply legally and deadly chemical materials, which we didn't. While one report says the US government was aware of Saddam's ambitions for "chemical" weapons exploitation as early as the early 1980's, a UN report states that Saddam's "biological" weapons program wasn't initiated until mid-1986 at Salman Pak. And this wasn't acknowledged until after the Gulf War, when the inspectors hit the ground and did their investigations. Now this is important because there has been a deliberate diception by some to say that if we knew about Saddam's chemical weapons, why did we continue to give him more. Number one, we didn't give him chemical weapons; number two, there was no evidence at that time that he was working on "biological" weapons. As the UN report states, he started that in mid-1986...and even then, it wasn't learned until "after" the Gulf War. The attacks on the Kurds and Shi'ites were by chemical weapons...not biological weapons. But that didn't matter because this was enough for some to infer that we continued to supply Saddam with weapons to kill his people.
Unfortunately, this was all the ammunition the left needed to accuse the US of arming Saddam with bio/chem weapons. There is a great article the debunks this myth and explains the details in these transfers. And even though anthrax was a part of these transfers, these transfers had been occurring since the late 1960's and was common practice within the medical community, before the fear of bio/chem warfare. Heck, from what I understand, anthrax is a spore that can be found in Nature.
Unfortunately, nowadays, anyone can turn chlorine and pesticide into a deadly aerosol weapon...and fertilizer into a explosive device. This is a far cry, however, from the Sarin and Mustard Gas that was used by Saddam on the Kurds and Shi'ites. And the USA never gave Saddam these deadly nerve agents. You wouldn't know that, though, from reading the accusations and articles of others. According to them, we gave Saddam these "weaponized" materials. This is nothing but the same liberal clap-trap that looks to blame Smith & Wesson (or any other gun manuafacturer) for the death of an individual because another individual used that product irresponsibly, malisciously...or in Saddam's case, other than how the product was intended to be used. I could be wrong, but from what I've read, I see alot of people connecting dots that don't exist. I think this chart goes further to mitigate these charges, as well.
11 posted on 04/11/2003 12:58 PM PDT by cwboelter
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"[Marshall Tito] is a man who believes in human rights. [He is] a great and courageous leader [who] has led his people and protected their freedom almost for the last 40 years." -- Carter, while still in office, hailing Yugoslavia's communist dictator
But Tito did fight the Germans with his Yugoslav partisans, he did resist Stalin.
I know a Croatian Serb who says that Tito refused to tolerate ethnic and religious strife in Yugoslavia. It was his death that led to the horrible civil wars there in the 1980s and 1990s.
Of course he was a communist. Of course he didn't settle the scores between the muslims and serbs in Yugoslavia. And of course he was a dictator who ruled with an iron fist. Carter should have put his adoration into a more accurate phrase.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.