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Egantry47
Starlite Member
Username: Egantry47
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 11:58 am: | 
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The True Iraq Appeasers
by Peter W. Galbraith
In his most recent justification of his Pentagon stewardship, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reached back to the 1930s, comparing the Bush administration's critics to those who, like US Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, favored appeasing Adolf Hitler. Rumsfeld avoided a more recent comparison: the appeasement of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush administrations. The reasons for selectivity are obvious, since so many of Hussein's appeasers in the 1980s were principals in the 2003 Iraq war, including Rumsfeld.
In 1983, President Reagan initiated a strategic opening to Iraq, then in the third year of a war of attrition with neighboring Iran. Although Iraq had started the war with a blitzkrieg attack in 1980, the tide had turned by 1982 in favor of much larger Iran, and the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose. Reagan chose Rumsfeld as his emissary to Hussein, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984. Inconveniently, Iraq had begun to use chemical weapons against Iran in November 1983, the first sustained use of poison gas since a 1925 treaty banning that.
Rumsfeld never mentioned this blatant violation of international law to Hussein, instead focusing on shared hostility toward Iran and an oil pipeline through Jordan. Rumsfeld apparently did mention it to Tariq Aziz, Iraq's foreign minister, but by not raising the issue with the paramount leader he signaled that good relations were more important to the United States than the use of poison gas.
This message was reinforced by US conduct after the Rumsfeld missions. The Reagan administration offered Hussein financial credits that eventually made Iraq the third-largest recipient of US assistance. It normalized diplomatic relations and, most significantly, began providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence. Iraq used this information to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons. And when Iraq turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, killing 5,000 in the town of Halabja, the Reagan administration sought to obscure responsibility by falsely suggesting Iran was also responsible.
On Aug. 25, 1988 -- five days after the Iran-Iraq War ended -- Iraq attacked 48 Kurdish villages more than 100 miles from Iran. Within days, the US Senate passed legislation, sponsored by Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island, to end US financial support for Hussein and to impose trade sanctions. To enhance the prospects that Reagan would sign his legislation, Pell sent me to Eastern Turkey to interview Kurdish survivors who had fled across the border. As it turned out, the Reagan administration agreed that Iraq had gassed the Kurds, but strongly opposed sanctions, or even cutting off financial assistance. Colin Powell, then the national security adviser, coordinated the Reagan administration's opposition.
The Pell bill died at the end of the congressional session in 1988, in spite of heroic efforts by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to force it through by holding up a raft of administration nominations.
The next year, President George H.W. Bush's administration actually doubled US financial credits for Iraq. A week before Hussein invaded Kuwait, the administration vociferously opposed legislation that would have conditioned US assistance to Iraq on a commitment not to use chemical weapons and to stop the genocide against the Kurds. At the time, Dick Cheney, now vice president, was secretary of defense and a statutory member of the National Security Council that reviewed Iraq policy. By all accounts, he supported the administration's appeasement policy.
In 2003, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld all cited Hussein's use of chemical weapons 15 years before as a rationale for war. But at the time Hussein was actually doing the gassing -- including of his own people -- they considered his use of chemical weapons a second-tier issue.
The Reagan and first Bush administrations believed that Hussein could be a strategic partner to the United States, a counterweight to Iran, a force for moderation in the region, and possibly help in the Arab-Israel peace process. That was, of course, an illusion. A ruthless dictator who launched an attack on his neighbor, Iran, who used chemical weapons, and who committed genocide against his own Kurds was never likely to be a reliable American ally. Hussein, having watched the United States gloss over his crimes in the Iran war and at home, concluded he could get away with invading Kuwait.
It was a costly error for him, for his country, and eventually for the United States, which now has the largest part of its military bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire. Meanwhile the architects of the earlier appeasement policy now maintain the illusion that they have a path to victory, if only their critics would shut up.
"If we don't learn to get along with one another, cast off our social and religious dogma and deal with reality as it is, we will not survive this social cycle and have to start all over again." - Jim Armstrong
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Njaeok
Starlite Member
Username: Njaeok
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 02:20 pm: |
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Peter W. Galbraith ---
I thought he had crawled away in a hole somewhere and hid his face.
Isn't this the Ambassidor that prescided over the Bosnia debacule? Isn't this the pundit that declared that elections in Iraq were impossible -- that no one could get to the voting centers without being killed? Wrong again. Eighty percent turn out is a pretty good election.
Isn't this the expert that declared agreement on a constitution could never be reached because of unresolvable differences between the different factions. Wrong again. They got together in the face of assinations and intense violence directed at the elected officials and put together a pretty darn good constitution.
Isnt this the biased pseudo liberal that tried so mightly to spin blame for the widespread looting by Saddam's guards during the fighting onto Gorge Bush? Wrong again.
I mean has this guy ever been right about anything?
Every one has a right to their opinion. No one has the right to invent their facts.
Born with the gift of laughter and aware that the world is mad. -- Jimbo
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Egantry47
Starlite Member
Username: Egantry47
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 04:05 pm: |
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How's the tooth, Jim, feeling better, are you? Bad Boy come home?
What facts in the above article did Galbraith invent?
"If we don't learn to get along with one another, cast off our social and religious dogma and deal with reality as it is, we will not survive this social cycle and have to start all over again." - Jim Armstrong
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Njaeok
Starlite Member
Username: Njaeok
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 07:22 pm: |
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I'm doing great now. Thanks
There was nothing wrong with my tooth. Seems I am reacting to something in my envirinment that is causing my sinus to swell and fill up with fluid. It's pushing against the root of my tooth causing it to hurt. A strong decongestant fixed things up in no time. I am pain free and dopy as hell.
I going to wait until tomorrow to answer your query concerning the facts that Galbraith was trying to invent. I'm kind of la la right now.
Bad boy is back but he isn't talking to me. As you said he is playing it for all its worth.
He is a weird feline. Big as a medium dog with long hind legs and short front legs he looks downright spooky with his turfted ears, cole black coat and yellow eyes. He regularly lets the dogs know that he is boss and won't put up with any of that "dog chasing cat" nonsense. Even my daughter in law's pit bull shows proper respect for Bad Boy. Actually that is how he got his name.
Jezus-- I am in la la land. I have practaclly wrote a book.
Talk to you all tomorrow.
Born with the gift of laughter and aware that the world is mad. -- Jimbo
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Egantry47
Starlite Member
Username: Egantry47
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 08:47 pm: |
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So glad you're feeling better, Jim, even if it's la la better and do I ever know what you're talking about! Pain from a sinus infection can shoot through your teeth and ears. It's excruciating! You take care and get some rest.
Would love to see a pic of that cat. He sounds like a real contender.
"If we don't learn to get along with one another, cast off our social and religious dogma and deal with reality as it is, we will not survive this social cycle and have to start all over again." - Jim Armstrong
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Njaeok
Starlite Member
Username: Njaeok
| | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
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Egantry--
Take a look at the way Galbraith picks and chooses incidents and dates to try to give credance to his theme while he totally ignores anything that is not supportive.
A big elephant in the room he ignores is the fact that we were fighting a cold war with the Soviet Union and had to depend on bribery to keep many of the Islamic countrys in line while we took care of the Soviet Union's attempts to take over the world.
Just remember, the Berlin wall came down in 1989. From 1944 until 1989 everything was in the context of the cold war.
Thank you for your well wishes. I have never before had sinus problems and really didn't appreciate just how painful that can be.
As soon as I can stop taking this dopy medicine I will hook up my PC digital camera and see if I can get Bad Boy to set still long enough to get a picture.
I would love to get a viedo of him preening in front of the mirror. It's amazing. He is the only cat I have ever seen behave as though he is self aware.
Born with the gift of laughter and aware that the world is mad. -- Jimbo
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Egantry47
Starlite Member
Username: Egantry47
| | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 12:06 pm: |
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Yes, I think you mentioned that before, Jim, how we all choose whatever facts fit our specific agenda. I certainly agree with that. And that's what's so great about these discussion forums, different points of view.
I once spent about two months running from doctor to specialist with a sinus infection behind my eye. Nearly died from being pumped full of antibiotics. Finally went to a friend's Osteopathic physician. He gave me a simple nasal spray and I was cured in two days.
Appeal to Bad Boy's vanity, tell him his picture will be seen by thousands when you post it on the net. That should make him sit like a pretty kitty.
"If we don't learn to get along with one another, cast off our social and religious dogma and deal with reality as it is, we will not survive this social cycle and have to start all over again." - Jim Armstrong
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