Brief summary of the Iraq and the U.S. Tragic, shameful, inexcusable.

[melonkali]

I've been informally researching the Iraq situation since 1991, and I think it's important to remember . .

We were allied with Iraq (and Saddam) in the Iraq/Iran war. We gave 'em lots of weapons. Mostly from the profitable defense industry cartel of which George H.W. Bush was a member. One former CIA operative quipped, in the recent "Why We Fight" movie, that the reason we believed Iraq had WMD's was because we had the receipt! (Later, of course, our inept "intelligence" failed to acknowledge what U.N. inspectors and international "intelligence" agencies discovered: that Saddam had disposed of any WMDs or WMD manufacturing facilities he might have once had.)

BEFORE 1991 and the Persian Gulf War, Iraq had, with the exception of Israel, the highest average standard of living in the mid-East. It was a modern, secular country with a 98% literacy rate, free modern education (for females also), free modern health care, an exceptionally low infant mortality rate -- U.N. sources cited Iraq as ready to cross over to becoming a First World Nation.

But Bush argued that Iraq was ruled by a ruthless dictator (the same guy who was once our ally). What Bush failed to mention was that, with the exception of Israel, all mid-east countries are dictatorships, some far more greedy and ruthless than Saddam. For example "our buddy" the Emir of Kuwait which has one of the LOWEST standards of living in the mid-east, and a literacy rate of about 2%. Or how about our "friends" in the House of Saud (Saudi Arabia)?

So why turn against Saddam? Saddam was standing firm on negotiating a better deal for Iraqi oil -- he was negotiating with other nations -- it's that simple.

How did the Persian Gulf War of 1991 really start? Kuwait was slant drilling Iraqi oil. Saddam asked our ambassador April Glaspie if the U.S. would intervene if Iraq invaded Kuwait -- she gave Saddam the green light. The British transcript of this conversation is all over the internet, it's even on Wikipedia (under the April Glaspie entry). Then, of course, we pulled a double cross. We were going to get that oil!

Our post Persian Gulf War economic sanctions destroyed Iraq. There was very little left of that once prosperous nation when Bush Jr. invaded -- for the oil, of course. It's always been about the oil.

Now look at today's Iraq -- and remember what it once was, before we intervened. We have done a terrible, terrible thing.

[indepat]

1. It's always been about the oil with hegemony and empire thrown as bonuses

:P