The Fiskies are being handed out, and he’s not eligible, obviously, because he’s already won the award, but Robert Fisk demonstrates why the award is named after him. All others, even Monbiot, even Carter, are pale copies of the original Fisk.
We’ve shut him up. The moment Saddam’s hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington’s secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States – and Britain – gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support – given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War – is dead.
Gone is the man who personally received the CIA’s help in destroying the Iraqi communist party. After Saddam seized power, US intelligence gave his minions the home addresses of communists in Baghdad and other cities in an effort to destroy the Soviet Union’s influence in Iraq. Saddam’s mukhabarat visited every home, arrested the occupants and their families, and butchered the lot. Public hanging was for plotters; the communists, their wives and children, were given special treatment – extreme torture before execution at Abu Ghraib.
What follows is a long laundry list of accusations against the United States and Great Britain in their dealings with Iraq . . . and Robert Fisk is the only one who understands and sees clearly the depth of the perfidy.
Neither country is innocent of culpability in enabling the rise of Saddam or subsequently aiding in his invasion of Iran, it is true, and it is equally true that a lot of foolishness has been committed by Soviets, Americans and Europeans in the Middle East. It would be interesting to find out how Fisk imagines that the CIA acquired the detailed information about communist cells in Iraq that he claims they passed along to his (personal) regime. But Fisk’s claims are breathtaking in their scope, and rely for their credibility of two things: 1) Fisk’s unique situation vis-a-vis the actors in the drama, 2) the inability of Saddam to back up or contradict the narrative as he himself constructs it.
Now, if this is a matter of public record, then why would it require Saddam to tell the world about it? What is it particular to the litany of Saddam’s atrocities that makes the massacre of communists any worse than any of his other purges? Why would it not have been possible for Saddam to get the information out when it was clear that the US-led coaltion was going to invade? Certainly a dossier of US and British double-dealings would have been compiled in the great document engine of Saddam’s government, just in case, don’t you think, Mr. Fisk? Are there no others within Saddam’s regime who could speak to the accusations that you so liberally supply?
Your story is ludicrous, Mr. Fisk. What it demonstrates, more than anything else, is how much anti-Western bullshit can be projected onto Saddam’s corpse by one complete asshole.
Not what you’d first think. Or not only. Although Fisk and his fans generally do think that commies r kul [heart], he’s got a more subtle rhetorical thing going on.
Having swallowed whole the standard pop-culture Cold War narrative‗McCarthy!” “Blacklist!” (blah blah etc.)â€â€your typical Fisk-reading type, hearing of persecuted communists, yes, probably does identify with the persecuted, but that’s not the important thing. Garnering sympathy for Saddam’s victims isn’t really Fisk’s bag.
What matters is that the reader thinks of “us,” of America, as the persecutor. The movies have conditioned us well. Highlighting communist victims Americanizes the crime, makes “us” the reader’s mental stand-in for the perpetrator. Soâ€â€Saddam = Uncle Sam (via Mickey Spillane). Fisk’s point, subtly reinforced.
Fancy move. I’m actually impressed.
Wow. Sounds like he’s finally morphed into a being all knowing truth.
I don’t think I could get thru one of his columns if my life depended on it.
Just to be accurate, I don’t think Fisk ever won a Fiskie. His idiotarianism is so thorough and well-documented that his name was taken for the award, but he is not a previous winner. This ain’t no Lombardi Trophy we’re talking about.
Such self-loathing, if he could kick himself in the balls he surely wouldn’t stop.
Shovel the crap into the dialectic and wait to see if anything useful crawls out. It doesn’t have to be true – just feed into it what you want to be true…it just might happen.
I read it in Lenin’s works. It must be true.
You konw what cracks me up? He implies that Rumsfeld shaking Saddam’s hand implies some relationship and support… in the same sentance he admits he did the same thing.
Now, business magnate and government official Donald Rumsfeld grudgingly shaking some third rate scumbag dictator’s hand is one thing but who the heck is Fisk? And he’s shaking a world leader’s hand? Uh, that says more about Fisk than Rummie in my book.
All these articles about how awful Saddam was and how the US CIA/republicans made him. Written by those who, given their way, would still have Saddam in power.
You mean that shaking a Head of State’s hand while acting in your capacity as a Presidential envoy doesn’t make you and your boss responsible for everything he does before that point in time and after it? Huh.
Bob Fisk has a fraction of a point; but not in the way he thinks he does. Reading Saul Bellow’s
collection of essays on Jerusalem, there was a
review of the Chatham House rules, that elegant
deconstruction of Foreign Office policy, by the
late Iraqi scholar Elie Kedourie. He points out
that the leading CIA officials supporting Nasser, were Miles Copeland, and James Eichelberger, one was a former bandleader, the
latter an advertising man. Eichelberger, was the
one who thought a political police, could be used
to restrain the population, and move the nation
toward modernism. As it turns out, their co-creation; the Mukharabat (which was refined with
further imput from emigre German intelligence experts like Alois Brunner)was the tool, that Nasser employed to crush the Islamists, particu-larly a fellow named Syed Qutb (that didn’t go
wrong)unfortunately, Nasser rebelled against the
US and Britain, This duo didn’t learn the lesson
and proceeded on a similar track with a young band ofIraqi emigres living in Cairo, with the same disastrous result.(a hermetically sealed
pro-Soviet police state, with strong pro-french
affinities. Which did persecute some Islamists
of the Shia variety, but not Khomeini, who lived
there for 15 years; did allow training for others
like Dr. Azziz al abub, the Patrice Lumumba trained Iranian protege of Abu Nidal, who oversaw
the interrogation of William Buckley for Hezbollah
in Beirut. Ultimately, let the Salafi/Wahhabist
current permeate enough of Iraqi society, to allow for ‘the messengers of PETN and gelignite’
to be cultivated that we see today. Ironically though, the Beirut resident from the Emerald Isle, really hasn’t shown any real opposition to either of these leaders; as long as they spouted their Anti-American, Anti-semitic pablum.(One
recalls he said not to rely on the translations
of the 9/11 hijackers martyrdom tapes, because
the translators were Maronite Christians or Jews
so their work was unreliable)
Gone is the man who personally received the CIA’s help in destroying the Iraqi communist party.
– You mean to say the murderous bastard did at least one thing right?….Who knew….
I don’t care this dictator dies, but I have to thank him for helping me win a lot of money as I bought his stock in time on trendio
http://www.trendio.com/word.php?wordid=120&language=en
In Fisk’s case, the action did indeed imply some relationship and support.
He is a peculiar creature. An inveterate liar and obsessive self-publicist, a sexually complex mixture of homosexual masochist and neo-Nazi sadist, a hypocrite certainly, but ultimately we have to recognise that his self loathing is both sincere and justified.
I’m sorry the fact that the US once partnered up with Saddam disturbs you. We supported him, we financed him, we sold him the chemicals he used to make his chemical weapons. His most heinous crimes–for which he wasn’t tried–were committed without a peep of protest from the GOP administrations then in power here. A very dangerous witness has been silenced, Foe that you should give thanks. It’s a fact. It wasn’t “foolishness.” It was shameful and makes the Bush administration and their apologists demonizing of their former friend all the more disgusting and hypocritical. Facts are inconvenielnt things.
Facts are inconvenielnt things.
– In particular facts seem to consistantly denude the Lefts anti-american narrative. I’m with Ric. I think every one of you Socialist bastards should be given a simple choice of living for 5 years in the dictatorship of your choice, and then given a chance at proving you deserve American citizenship, and if you still insist on lying about this country and practicing sedition, barred for good.
Name them.
Ah, the “Bush had Saddam executed so he couldn’t squeal on him” meme has been born with the new year, giving leftists new hope and new hate.
Insanity is mighty entertaining, isn’t it?
Details, please. Facts and figures, that sort of thing.
Oy. I was first.
Much better discussion on Lesbian sheep going on over at BS.
Why is it that so many Fiske’s ilk feel their gorges fill up when American accomodations of dictators for national interest are discussed?
WAA! WAA!!
Bernard Lewis in “The Crisis of Islam” talks about the peculiar double standards that have existed vis a vis foreign intervention in the middle east. Everyone, including Fiske, has forgotten that the old Soviet Union was an early supporter of Israel and immediately provided full recognition of the State while the US was still stuck on “de facto.” The Soviets were so accommodating (including weapons sales from the Czechs) because they saw the support as a hedge to and a tweak of the British. America supported Saddam because he was in the process of killing and (hopefully) destabilising the Iranian Theocracy that had allowed our embassy personnel to be taken and held for 444 days. Water under the bridge that I have no problem with.
Relationships change with the turn of the geopolitical winds. The US State Department used to be terrified the idea of a democratically elected ME country. Today we promote it throughout the region. Only in Fiske’s world is the US required to pay an eternal “political sin” price for policies that were in place 20-50 years ago. Whether right or wrong, success or failure, they reflected the then as opposed to the now. Is it Fiske’s contention that those policies leave us “morally disqualified” from dealing with the ME (or Saddam) today? More likely, it is simply an intellectually bankrupt lever to allow another barnyard whipping of the “evil, capitalistic, imperialistic” US, the root of all misery in the world.
As far as Mick’s contentions, sourcing please!
Wake me when Fiskee excoriates Putin for all those peasants Stalin starved in the Ukraine.
– Of course we’ve supported various dictitorial regimes if it seemed to stifle some worse player in various settings. What’s interesting is that through his long winded tirade it seems there was just not enough room for Fisk to include Clinton’s gift of a nuclear reactor to the NK. Strange.
Whatsa matta for you, eh BBH?
Clinton’s Reactor gift was diplomacy dontcha know. International relations were done the way highly educated World View intellectuals work with misunderstood “pre democracies” to build a long term framework for cooperation.
Didn’t you get the policy paper? Come on over for Brunch and we’ll review it with a nice Cab.
Gotta go, my nose is bleeding.
– BJ – Heh….Just “Heh”….(and don’t even get me started on Kennedy and Cueber)…..
<blockquote>His most heinous crimes–for which he wasn’t tried<blockquote>
I think you mean this trial
”. I think every one of you Socialist bastards should be given a simple choice of living for 5 years in the dictatorship of your choice,”
“Of course we’ve supported various dictitorial regimes if it seemed to stifle some worse player in various settings.”
Of course nazis are bad, unless they’re OUR nazis.
‘Nuff said.
Uh, semanticleo? Please don’t forget that it is you and your fellow travelers who are agitating for a return of realpolitik and foreign policy realism.
How do you think that political philosophy works, exactly.
Personally, I find the irony rich. You’ve taken away your own favorite weapon for bashing the right.
WHY DO YOU CODDLE DICTATORS, SEMANTICLEO?
How about Commies, cleo? Was it wrong to ally with Stalin against Hitler.
How easy those decisions of yours are with that 20/20 vision.
– So then semicolon, I’m assuming you would be the vfirst to condemn the KennedyNazi’z for supporting Castro when he was in the jungle, and the Clintonazi’s for patting Little Kim on the head, and sending him on his way to nuclear weapons viability. I mean just to be consistant you know, and if you are Left, you’re all about consistancy, have I got that right?
Hair of the dog what bit you is the ticket this morning, Jeffrey.
There is a real difference between engaging a dictator with dialogue and economic incentives,
and filling his ordinance cache with WMD’s.
The irony and projection employed by; “Please don’t forget that it is you and your fellow travelers who are agitating for a return of realpolitik and foreign policy realism.” would be disarming if I was ignorant of it’s source.
– I thought so. Thank you for your perfidy semicolon, but your cherry picking won’t save your deadend cult, or any money on your car insurance.
– BTW. Just so I’m up to date. Has “economic incentives” become the covering euphamism for “nuclear capability” in the moonbat communes for 2007 now?
BigBadHunter;
FYI;
General Batista overthrew the elected President of Cuba in 1952. A young lawyer name Fidel Castro vowed to overthrow him. Castro did not become a Communist until after the revolution (signaling the end Of Kennedy’s support).
But that bit of fact makes no difference to you, does it?
You forget one thing: Nuance!
How else can you deal er… negoitate with despotic tyrants? Don’t ever touch them, apparently.
Semanticleo, the National Day of Mourning on Tuesday is for President Ford, not Saddam. You may want to change the order at the stationary shop.
“Semanticleo, the National Day of Mourning on Tuesday is for President Ford, not Saddam”
You know, I assUme, you know the danger of assumptions.
Why is the world only Black or White to these people?
Yeah! Damn those French and Germans anyhow! Giving dictators experimental nuclear reactors and building chemical weapon factories!
…What was that? That’s not the ‘filling his ordinance cache with WMD’s’ you were referring to? My bad.
Seriously, has anyone come up with a reliable source for the claims the US provided Saddam with the expertise or equipment to build chemical weapons, chemical weapon specific precursors, or chemical weapon precursors with the knowledge that they would be used for chemical weapons? The only argument I’ve actually seen a source for is that the US provided a limited amount of common Anthrax under a well-publicized medical program. The Iranians, if I remember correctly, seem to blame the Germans for the Iraqi chemical weapons that went their direction.
Hey I’m jiggy widdit semi. Mayhaps when Kennedy realized his total fuckup for supporting a Communist revolutionary, he made up for it by placing missles in Turkey, nearly destroying the entire world in a nuclear war. Or maybe it was his escalation of the US military in VietNam, that caused a Marxist to take him out. We need to revise some of that, because it really looks bad on a Liberal Democrats resume’.
– See the bitch about trying to use history to differentiate your own bad boy idea’s, is your own laundry is never as perfect as you’d like it to be, and then you’re forced to resort to “selective nuance”, which gets highly sticky and difficult, trying to keep all those balls in the air at the same time. Probably the most excersize SecProgs get in an average day is playing the “wish” game with the historical record.
You know, I assUme, the danger of assumptions.
strike the former, add the latter.
Semanticlueless:
1) Source, please.
2) Much like the US and Britain were filling the Soviet’s war chests with planes and guns and ammo and bombs? They were our Commies then. I guess.
It’s great to live in a vacuum but generally the breathing is labored…
“See the bitch about trying to use history to differentiate your own bad boy idea’s,”
You have the greater challenge making excuses for your own kind. What are your excuses, btw?
– When you start acknowleging the “entire” record, good and bad on both sides, then we’ll talk. Until then it’s just more of the same old, same old, Bush derangement crap.
Sorry. But you did ask. There is more, if you wish.
n a December 17, 2002, article entitled “Iraq Used Many Suppliers for Nuke Program,†the Associated Press stated,
Dozens of suppliers, most in Europe, the United States and Japan, provided the components and know-how Saddam Hussein needed to build an atomic bomb, according to Iraq’s 1996 accounting of its nuclear program….
Iraq’s report says the equipment was either sold or made by more than 30 German companies, 10 American companies, 11 British companies and a handful of Swiss, Japanese, Italian, French, Swedish and Brazilian firms. It says more than 30 countries supplied its nuclear program.
It details nuclear efforts from the early 1980s to the Gulf War and contains diagrams, plans and test results in uranium enrichment, detonation, implosion testing and warhead construction….
Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985–90, the U.S. Commerce Department, for example, licensed $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which at the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf region.
In a September 26, 2002, article entitled “Following Iraq’s Bioweapons Trail,†columnist Robert Novak wrote,
An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.
In a September 18, 2002, ABC article entitled “A Tortured Relationship,†reporter Chris Bury wrote,
Indeed, even as President Bush castigates Saddam’s regime as “a grave and gathering danger,†it’s important to remember that the United States helped arm Iraq with the very weapons that administration officials are now citing as justification for Saddam’s forcible removal from power.
In a March 16, 2003, article entitled “How Iraq Built Its Weapons Program,†in the St. Petersburg Times, staff writer Tom Drury wrote,
Yet here we are, on the eve of what could turn into a $100-billion war to disarm and dismantle the Iraqi dictatorship. U.N. inspectors are working against the clock to figure out if Iraq retains chemical and biological weapons, the systems to deliver them, and the capacity to manufacture them.
And here’s the strange part, easily forgotten in the barrage of recent rhetoric: It was Western governments and businesses that helped build that capacity in the first place. From anthrax to high-speed computers to artillery ammunition cases, the militarily useful products of a long list of Western democracies flowed into Iraq in the decade before its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Unfortunately, the U.S.-WMD connection to Saddam Hussein involved more than just delivering those WMDs to him. In an August 18, 2002, New York Times article entitled “Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas,†Patrick E. Tyler wrote,
A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program.
Those officers, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition that they not be identified, spoke in response to a reporter’s questions about the nature of gas warfare on both sides of the conflict between Iran and Iraq from 1981 to 1988. Iraq’s use of gas in that conflict is repeatedly cited by President Bush and, this week, by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as justification for regime change in Iraq.
As writer Norm Dixon put it in his June 17, 2004, article “How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons,â€Â
While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Ronald Reagan’s Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime’s repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq’s Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
Immediately prior to the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein delivered a WMD declarations report to the United Nations in an attempt to avert a U.S. invasion. Do you recall that U.S. officials intercepted the report and removed special sections of it, based on claims of “national security� Well, it turned out that the removed sections involved the delivery of those WMDs by the United States and other Western countries to Saddam Hussein, information that obviously caused U.S. officials a bit of discomfort on the eve of their invasion.
In a February 3, 2003, Sunday Morning Herald article entitled, “Reaping the Grim Harvest We Have Sown,†writer Anne Summers wrote,
What is known is that the 10 non-permanent members had to be content with an edited, scaled-down version. According to the German news agency DPA, instead of the 12,000 pages, these nations  including Germany, which this month became president of the Security Council  were given only 3,000 pages.
So what was missing?
The Guardian reported that the nine-page table of contents included chapters on “procurements†in Iraq’s nuclear program and “relations with companies, representatives and individuals†for its chemical weapons program. This information was not included in the edited version.
In a June 9, 2004, article “Reagan Played a Decisive Role in Saddam Hussein’s Survival in Iran-Iraq War,†Agence France Presse points out,
In February 1982, the State Department dropped Baghdad from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing the way for aid and trade.
A month later, Reagan ordered a review of US policy in the Middle East which resulted in a marked shift in favor of Iraq over the next year.
“Soon thereafter, Washington began passing high-value military intelligence to Iraq to help it fight the war, including information from US satellites that helped fix key flaws in the fortifications protecting al-Basrah that proved important in Iran’s defeat in the next month,†wrote Kenneth Pollack in his recently published book “The Threatening Storm.†…
By March 1985, the United States was issuing Baghdad export permits for high tech equipment crucial for its weapons of mass destruction programs, according to Pollack.
In his June 8, 2004, article “Reagan and Saddam: The Unholy Alliance,†Alex Dawoody states,
By 1982, Iraq was removed from the list of terrorist sponsoring nations. By 1984, America was actively sharing military intelligence with Saddam’s army. This aid included arming Iraq with potent weapons, providing satellite imagery of Iranian troops deployments and tactical planning for battles, assisting with air strikes, and assessing damage after bombing campaigns.
And?
Goldberg;
I haven’t the means to prove Jeff Goldstein exists.
Sorry.
Here’s what’s funny: even if those claims made by anonymous officers are true, you would vilify Bush for trying to correct them?
Or is this just a hush up job. With Bush as Tony Soprano.
Christ, what a world of intrigue you live in. I sure hope you asked for the industrial size box of tinfoil this
Christmasfestive holiday season of presents, eggnog, andSanta ClausKris Kringle.Goldberg, Goldstein—what’s the difference, right? I’m not a New York liberal Jew, so it’s perfectly okay to let slip a bit of your innate disgust for the Hebes that refuse to tow your line.
Dana Gilbert: SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE KIBBUTZ-KROWD-KIKES!
– semi, I’ll just set aside the fact that most of your “sources” are actually non-sourced parroting “opinion comments” by hard-Left rabidly anti-American rags, and I’ll just cite a single entry, since they all follow the exact same pattern of propaganda in the guise of “news”.
“Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985–90, the U.S. Commerce Department, for example, licensed $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which at the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf region.”
– This is a classic example of generating fire, where there is not a single example of “sourced” smoke. Here’s how you should proceed when reading this sort of “sinister” writing:
1) How exactly does the phrase “with potential military uses” prove in any manner that the material was applicable to WMD’s of any sort, and more specifically that the State Department knew that there was intent to use whatever un-named materials we sold to Iraq for WMD’s. Carefully read the entire set of faux “facts”. There is none, nor specific details of the “materials, nor sourcing of any documented evidence.
– This is so typical of the Left. Cite the guardian, a rabid Marxist polito-rag, and viola. we have a smoking gun. Its all total nonsense. But apparently, when your agenda is desperation based, any twig of an argument will do.
– That entire screed you posted is bereft of a single tiny piece of factually documented evidence to support your “america bad” claims.
– Do you ever tire of “Teh Stupid” games?
Reuben Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970) was a Jewish American cartoonist who earned lasting fame for his “Rube Goldberg machines”; exceedingly complex devices that perform simple tasks in very indirect and convoluted ways. He was cofounder and president of the American National Cartoonists Society and was posthumously awarded their Gold Key Award in 1980.
Holy Moly;
Stop with the antisemitism already!
My Goldberg reference was not a compliment.
Does that qualify it as Anti Jew? Can no one criticise another without it going to race?
“This is so typical of the Left.”
Robert Novak is on your left?
Criminy!
Semantclueless:
1) Thank you for the sources. I’ll be checking them out over the next several days. I share some of BBH’s concerns about the source rags.
2) Even if they all check out, my point is: So what? As I stated before Saddam was performing the American Realpolitik trick of the decade in pounding Iran, a country that not only had attacked our embassy (an act of war, BTW) but had also declared it’s intention to export Islamic Revolution all over the world. If so, was it a good idea to give Saddam Chemicals and Bio agents. No! Not for us or the French or the Germans or the British.
Between 1973 and 1990 Saddam got 70% of his military hardware from the Soviets as compared to 1% from the US. The whole point of this exercise is that that was then and this is now! Your argument is absurd because it operates arounds some kind of neo-moral pedestal that suggests that because of our supposed complicity, along with other weetern nations, in supplying materials that may have eventually been used to make WMD’s that we abrogated any moral authority to deal with them now!
I don’t think so. This argument gets applied in various, tedious ways. For instance, we can’t be involved in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions because the CIA and MI-6 helped topple the Iranian governemnt in 1952. On and on. This is absurdist thinking. Things change and that includes the Realpolitik. Ultimately we make decisions in our own self interest at the time! Some work. Others, like the Bahgdad Pact, are illconceived errors. Oh, well. How about we deal with today and the changes in the world, mainly that Saddam had a) used WMD’s b)many of these weapons are (still!) unaccounted for and c) threatened us and his neighbors which include 70% of the world’s oil supply.
You’ve got plenty of decent points that can be made about both the advisability and conduct of the Iraq war. Bringing up 20-50 year old stuff is dishonest, no more that a cheap jab.
“Does that qualify it as Anti Jew? Can no one criticise another without it going to race?”
– I don’t know semicolon, ask your side. They’ve raised the “racist” meme to an art form, at the drop of any percieved slight.
“Ultimately we make decisions in our own self interest at the time!”
Ah there’s part of the rub. Decisions seem to made based on tactics rather than long-term strategy.
As to your point that we may have done some diddling but other nations are MORE culpable, one might argue that our position and stature in the world set examples for emerging nations. Great harm is done to the viability of our system of government when we are caught losing
confidence in it, and demonstrate such by rounding the corners to our short-term benefit.
– I’m still waiting for you to cite some of the “corner rounding” that the “caring” Liberal Democratic administrations have dabbled in, to the great dis-service of our “viability”. But then I suppose if you want to discredit something you have to leave out all the “inconvienient facts” that show cupability on both sides of the devide.
– I’m going to take a wild guess here, and go with the idea that one such “inconvienient fact”, would revolve around the actions of a certain Democratic president who nearly destroyed the planet with his nuanced numbskull diplomacy. Small peanuts in your self-proclaimed reality I should think.
Semanticleo —
Given your single word invocation, there was absolutely no reason that I should make the jump to Rube Goldberg (as opposed to, say, Jonah or Lucienne, et al.).
And, having been called “Goldberg” here on several occasions by those who know my name, I am used to “Goldberg” being directed at me as a slur.
Couple that with your Anti-Japhetism remark, and it seems you’ve come out swinging in your hood this new year.
How about Commies, cleo? Was it wrong to ally with Stalin against Hitler?
How easy those decisions of yours are with that 20/20 vision.
And what would that be?
After all, Hussein did an awful nice job of turning his “economic incentives” into WMDs and killing his own people while we were “engaging” him with “dialogue”.
And what about N. Korea? Do nuclear reactors count as “economic incentives” or “dialogue”?
As I explain at my blog post “The Intellectual Dishonesty of the American Left,” there were legitimate strategic reasons for providing temporary military support to Hussein during the Iraq-Iran war (1980 – 1988). That does not mean we are complicit in any crimes he committed before or since.
To imply Reagan and Rumsfeld knew about the gassing of the Kurds is especially dishonest. Rumsfeld met Hussein in 1983; Hussein gassed the Kurds in 1988, but blamed it on the Iranians. The US did not discover the truth until several years after that. So another of Semiclueless’s misrepresentations is revealed.
We supplied lots of military support to Josef Stalin in WWII, knowing full well he had killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930’s. It was a strategic necessity in order to defeat Hitler. In politics temporary alliances are made all the time, especially when physical survival is at stake. That does not imply agreement on all of the philosophies and practices of the temporary ally. If it did, we would have to conclude that FDR was a Stalinist, was complicit in the Gulag Archipelago, the annexation of Eastern Europe, etc.
Likewise, Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, met with Kim Jong Il of North Korea, shook his hand, smiled at him flirtatiously and toasted him with champagne. I assume she and her boss knew full well that Il has imprisoned thousands of his own people and starved millions more. But she and her boss decided to give Il nuclear reactors, which he then used to build nuclear weapons. So Semi, are you liberals therefore communists, totalitarianists or supporters of a terrorist state?
Probably not. Clinton and Albright were dangerously naive, but thought their negotiations with this dictator would have a good effect for us and for them. It’s called “diplomacy” and it is practiced in something called “the real world.”
– I’ve already asked that one Tom. the Left never responds in debate, just makes unsubstantiated statement after statement. You have to be more than one talking points list deep to actually carry on debate.
BBH, if you noticed, I asked it twice already, and I’ll continue to ask it until cleo answers it or runs away.
I’m counting on the latter…
– Stogie, you left out Albrights greatest jewel of diplomacy, the one that Clinton was sure would cement future realtionships with the NK, and lead to world peace. She gave him a basketball.
TW: physical69 ….Albrights NK doctrine?
“Was it wrong to ally with Stalin against Hitler?”
Was it wrong for Stalin to sign a treaty with Hitler?
Not sure what point you’re making, but you seem determined to have me reply.
If you can, document what military aid, weapons,
or money we gave to Stalin. Can you see a difference between stalling for time and actively supporting the military goals of a dictator?
Semanticleo, have you ever heard of something called “Lend-Lease”?
“If you can, document what military aid, weapons,
or money we gave to Stalin.”
– semicolon, you have to be kidding. If not, and that comment is indicative of your level of education, then we’re all wasting our time even acknowledging you.
If that point eludes you, you have no business in this discussion, becuase it is at the very crux of the matter. But I suspect rather than being dim you are just being purposefully obtse so as to avoid the discussion.
’Couple that with your Anti-Japhetism remark, and it seems you’ve come out swinging in your hood this new year.”
The ‘Japhetic’ reference was made in jest. I am Irish, but was not offended.
Oh, and since you asked, Semanticleo –
The following list, while not complete, gives a reasonable overview of military supplies provided by the U.S. to the Soviet Union from 1941-1945:
Aircraft 14,795
Tanks 7,056
Jeeps 51,503
Trucks 375,883
Motorcycles 35,170
Tractors 8,071
Guns 8,218
Machine guns 131,633
Explosives 345,735 tons
Building equipment valued $10,910,000
Railroad freight cars 11,155
Locomotives 1,981
Cargo ships 90
Submarine hunters 105
Torpedo boats 197
Ship engines 7,784
Food supplies 4,478,000 tons
Machines and equipment $1,078,965,000
Non-ferrous metals 802,000 tons
Petroleum products 2,670,000 tons
Chemicals 842,000 tons
Cotton 106,893,000 tons
Leather 49,860 tons
Tires 3,786,000
Army boots 15,417,001 pairs
The USSR received a total of 11.3 billion dollars from the U.S. Office of Lend-Lease Administration by the end of the war.
Thank you sir, may I have another?
Already shoved up your ass.
Yes, the former is when the guys you support are doing it and the latter is when the guys you don’t support are doing it.
If you can, document what military aid, weapons,
or money we gave to Stalin.
Uh.It ain’t fer nuthin’ Russian trucks looked like Studebakers.
Alright.that’s it. If you NeoCon knuckle draggers are going to keep replying to my carefully thought out comments, (some that you may actually see in the future in a best selling book, or possibly even quoted by a well known Senator on the floor of congress – love the new decore’ Nancy sweetie), with all these pedantic facts, then I’m outta here. My clouth ass can take only so much of this boring “truthiness”…
Good Day to you sir!!!
TW: size45? …Perhaps that would have been a more timely question before you slid it in your mouth….
Given the lack of a snarky cleo-comeback, do you think it’s at all possible that cleo didn’t realize the extent to which FDR was in bed with Stalin?
Talk about your worldview crashing down upon you…
Cleo Semi-sweet.
Since others have dealt more effectively with your Stalin WWII gaff I’d like to address this:
Let me guess: that was a phrase yanked from some Political Science class on Emerging Imperialists or Capitalist Totalitarian Egresses into Progressive Socialist Xanadus or some such. Do you have any sense of how arrogant and utterly narcissistic that phrase is?
All historians have the opportunity to review, at their leisure, the strategic and/or tactical geopolitical decisions of nations states in the past. Very few of them are so full of themselves that they would state, “I would never have acted tactically instead of strategically!” They’d be laughed out of seminars (or invited to HuffPo to be a regular contributor.) In fact, under the conditions inplace during 1982-1988, helping out Saddam was the right thing to do. Even then, as has been dcemonstrated, our military help was miniscule compared to the Soviets (59%), France and Germany. Things changed when Saddam invaded Kuwait just as things changed when the Taliban took over Afganistan and provided safe haven and a base of operations for bin laden and his minions. Again, let me say things change! To sit back in your applewood paneled study, sipping 10 year old Scotch and smoking a pipe pontificating about the difference between tactics and strategy is just pompous to the max.
More importantly, what purpose does this debate serve in regards to present day tactics/strategies for the GWOT, Afganistan and Iraq? Why should I give an Irish rat’s ass that Rumsfeld shook Saddam’s hand 20 years ago? It provides no insight into current situations and the best way to proceed from here. In fact, it only serves as a cheap swipe against people you can’t stand. From your perspective, it’s not enough to disagree with Rumsfeld or BushMcChimpyhitler, you have to seek out “proof” that they are clueless, boorish knaves worthy only of your icy contempt and derision. Thus the game plan is to harken back over 20 years to policies under another administration in another time with entirely different geopolitcal realities.
This is nothing more than an exercise in insulting irrelevance. Try to keep up and make a point that actually addresses the topic rather than vomiting Charlie Rangel talking points while you cackle with glee.
Turn the oxygen up, Mabel!
Semanticleo never ceases to astonish me on the continuous supply of opinions devoid of any actual basis in fact. Not to mention an unending supply of pure ignorance.
Semenclit thinks it is adult and clever to use “spastic” as an insult, so it comes as no surprise at all that he thinks calling Goldstein “Goldberg” is the height of sophisticated wit.
He is a disgusting creature who argues at the level of a kindergarten playground. His new pathetic attempt to claim Irish blood when his stumbling verbal inadequacies stand evidence of his void in that noble substance makes him the more despicable.
Well, the ones that didn’t look like Fords. The Studebaker trucks were real Studebakers made in USA, as were the Dodges later shipped to Viet Nam and used to ferry supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
In 1929-32, the Ford Motor Company built an automobile factory in the Soviet Union in the city of Gorkiy, along the Kama River. The initials GAZ stand for “Gorkiy Avtomobiliy Zavod”, literally Gorkiy Automobile Factory” (checking my Russian will be welcome). If you see a motor vehicle labeled GAZ or KAMA, it is for all practical purposes a Ford. If you look at vehicles produced at GAZ between WWII and the Eighties, then at those made by Ford in the same period, the stylistic similarities are obvious. The engineering ones are even more so (separate solenoids and hot wires to the dome light switch, e.g.).
We now wait patiently for semi-frantic to wrap its mind around the concept that Henry Ford was a Communist sympathizer[1]. It might be well to stay behind the blast wall until the danger is past.
Regards,
Ric
[1]which he was.
Henry Ford was anti-semitic too. Another trait he shares with semenclit.
Anyone else notice that despite the long screed, this is the only actual specific claim in Semanti Cleo’s list? He mentions a lot of lefty articles saying “OMG! Teh US armed Saddam with WMDs!”, but all we get is a confirmation that “equipment for producing nuclear weapons”, disease producing materials (which probably refers to the common Anthrax samples I already mentioned) and poisonous materials were exported.
Anyone else suspect that that equipment for producing nuclear weapons is something like those “aluminum tubes”? And that those poisonous materials are pesticides or similar chemicals? Not that that necessarily makes the sale okay, but the same people who castigate us for selling them to Saddam back then are the same people who look at these things now and continue to insist that Saddam was all clean and innocent.
I stand by my question, which I will gladly move the goalposts forward on to give the trolls another chance. Changes have been bolded.
Has anyone come up with a reliable source for the claims the US provided Saddam with the expertise or equipment to build biochemical weapons, biochemical weapon specific precursors, or biochemical weapon precursors with the knowledge that they would be used for biochemical weapons?
Civilis, the answer is no. And they know it.
This is all smoke and mirrors anyway. It continues to amaze and astonish me that people like Semi-sweet and others are carping aboput 20 year old crap but have zero, none, nada interest in the UN documented WMD’s that are still unaccounted for!
Why is it so difficult for them to understand that many of us are far less concerned about 20-30 year old policies and are more ineterested in asking that question.
So Fiske, semi-sweet, heet, beetroot, Timmah, david, here’s an additional question for you: Where are the unaccounted for WMD’s and their building materials.?
‘Cause inquiring minds want to know…
Thanks, Ric. I didn’t know about the Ford plant. My late step father was in the Navy and escorted friegters to Murmansk during WW2. The frieghter were filled with all sorts of war materiel.
It just calls into question anything semanticleo might bring up.
>chuckle>