I'd like to hear some opinions about what Mike Parenti says about how Saddam came to power. He talks about it in this video. He alleges that the CIA put him in power.
Start watching this video at the 26 min. 18 sec. mark.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11635.htmThis is an interesting article about the history of the US and Iraq.
www.truthout.org/docs_2005/WTI062405V.shtmlThis guy interviewed in this video talks about Iraq toward the end of the video.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8171.htmI couldn't get the exact time because the hour and minute marks are obscured but it begins during the last 20 minutes.
I've always been confused about the relationship between Saddam and the Kurds. I've read about how he gassed them and massacered them but I was always foggy on what the exact reasons were. Read this.
www.monthlyreview.org/1101chomsky.htm(excerpt)
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There’s a lot more. There is the fact that the U.S. has supported oppressive, authoritarian, harsh regimes, and blocked democratic initiatives. For example, the one I mentioned in Algeria. Or in Turkey. Or throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Many of the harsh, brutal, oppressive regimes are backed by the U.S. That was true of Saddam Hussein, right through the period of his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds. U.S. and British support for the monster continued. He was treated as a friend and ally, and people there know it. When bin Laden makes that charge, as he did again in an interview rebroadcast by the BBC, people know what he is talking about.
Let’s take a striking example. In March 1991, right after the Gulf War, with the U.S. in total command of the air, there was a rebellion in the southern part of Iraq, including Iraqi generals. They wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein. They didn’t ask for U.S. support, just access to captured Iraqi arms, which the U.S. refused. The U.S. tacitly authorized Saddam Hussein to use air power to crush the rebellion. The reasons were not hidden. New York Times Middle East correspondent Alan Cowell described the “strikingly unanimous view” of the U.S. and its regional coalition partners: “whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for stability than did those who have suffered his repression.” Times diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman observed, not critically, that for Washington and its allies, an “iron–fisted Iraqi junta” that would hold Iraq together just as Saddam’s “iron fist” had done was preferable to a popular rebellion, which was drowned in blood, probably killing more people than the U.S. bombing. Maybe people here don’t want to look, but that was all over the front pages of the newspapers. Well, again, it is known in the region. That’s just one example. These are among the reasons why pro-American bankers and businessmen in the region are condemning the U.S. for supporting antidemocratic regimes and stopping economic development.
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From what I can gather from watching videos and reading articles from the alternative press, Saddam was an American puppet and of course the people of Iraq didn't want a puppet for a president so there was a movement against him. The Kurds were especially against him because they wanted autonomy.
I found these articles about the Kurds when the British controlled Iraq.
www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/kurdsindex.htmAs far as I can tell, that's what was happening between the Kurds and Saddam. If I missed anything or got something wrong, I want to know. Please tell me.
There seem to have been a lot of Iraqis that supported Saddam too because he created a high standard of living for the Iraqi people (according to Parenti in the first video).
Here's some more good stuff about the history of the relationship between the US and Iraq.
www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/husseinindex.htmwww.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/histindex.htmThere's more here.
www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/irqindx.htmThis video is about the history of Iraq.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13416.htmIt talks about Iraq and world war one.
We Americans are really kept in the dark about world affairs. Thank God for the internet or we'd be totally lost.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15978.htm(excerpt)
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GV: Well, remember two things: most Americans have no information at all on history, on geography, or on what's going on in the world. They don't know about these things. Roosevelt had made arrangements so that we would detach the colonies from France, Holland, Portugal. By 1945 when the war in Europe and in Asia ended, we would get them, and we would become their masters. Americans knew none of this, and they still don't know. They're not taught this; the rulers do not want them to know it.
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Gore Vidal seems to know what he's talking about.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_VidalSo did Steve Kangas. He wrote this before he got snuffed.
www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.htmlThe ironic thing about all this intervention is that it frequently fails to achieve American objectives. Often the newly installed dictator grows comfortable with the security apparatus the CIA has built for him. He becomes an expert at running a police state. And because the dictator knows he cannot be overthrown, he becomes independent and defiant of Washington's will. The CIA then finds it cannot overthrow him, because the police and military are under the dictator's control, afraid to cooperate with American spies for fear of torture and execution. The only two options for the U.S at this point are impotence or war. Examples of this "boomerang effect" include the Shah of Iran, General Noriega and Saddam Hussein. The boomerang effect also explains why the CIA has proven highly successful at overthrowing democracies, but a wretched failure at overthrowing dictatorships.
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This hot-link doesn't work so you have to copy and paste it.
www.google.es/search?hl=en&q=who+killed+steve+kangas&btnG=Google+SearchThere is a lot of confusion about the history of and the current situation in Iraq because the US press just keeps us confused. Unless we can talk to some people from the Middle East, we just don't know what's going on.
Of course I know about the oil factor but there is probably more to it than that.
video.google.es/videoplay?docid=1130731388742388243A lot of Iraqis seemed to have supported him and a lot of them didn't. I'm still a little confused about why he invaded Iran. Does anyone want to have a discussion about this?