Inscrutable orientals
Uncategorized - - Posted on May, 1 at 3:10 pm by Ken L
There are two ways of thinking about the Iranian nuclear programme.
The first is that the Iranians are developing nuclear power for the same reasons that John Howard wanted to develop nuclear power: because we need alternative energy sources. It’s quite entitled to do it under international law.
It’s true that the Iranians appear to have been less than frank about their past activities but there are extenuating circumstances; the world’s only superpower has been relentlessy hostile to Iran for more than 20 years and that superpower’s main ally in the Middle East has also refused to disclose any information about its nuclear program. So while one might not condone past behaviour, it’s reasonable to accept the Iranians at their word in the absence of any persuasive evidence to the contrary.
The alternative view is that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons under the guise of an energy program. There is no compelling evidence for this. Intelligence summaries from the USA vary so wildly that they must all be highly suspect, but the latest one concludes that attempts to acquire nuclear weapons finished in 2003. The main source of evidence cited by those who maintain that Iran has a weapons program is data from a laptop of mysterious provenance. Anybody who has a working knowledge of the way intelligence was manipulated or fabricated in the lead up to the attack on Iraq must be very sceptical of information gleaned from the laptops of alleged defectors.
The alternative view depends on the fundamental premise that whatever the Iranians are doing, it’s not what they say they are doing. The underlying assumption is that Islamofascists cannot be telling the truth so we must disregard anything they say officially and use our powers of deduction to build a coherent narrative from scraps of data and speculation.
It’s likely that there is a strong element of projection in this. Politicians and the media in the USA, Israel and many other countries are so used to spinning information to tell stories that are either distorted or plain untrue that they take it for granted the Iranians are doing the same thing. It’s beyond their comprehension that the official version of events faithfully reflects reality. Suspicion has become their reflexive response to anything emanating from Iran.
This mentality was apparent in a recent story in the New York Times about a visit paid by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials to a uranium enrichment facility earlier this month. While ostensibly reporting on the visit, the obvious sub-text was ‘what are the bastards really up to?’
For example:
It is a place of secrets that Iran loves to boast about, clouding the effort’s real status and making Western analysts all the more eager for solid details and clues.
Is that just a cutesy bit of hot air or is there some solid evidence that the ‘real status’ is different to what the Iranians say it is? Unfortunately the tenor of the article suggests that ‘Western analysts’ have already made up their minds that whatever the real status is, it can’t possibly be what the Iranians say. Might that be because the analysts would be out of a job?
The article begins:
Barbed wire and antiaircraft guns ring a maze of buildings in the Iranian desert that lie at the heart of the West’s five-year standoff with Tehran over its program to enrich uranium.
Well that’s exactly where I’d expect to find a uranium enrichment plant in any self-respecting NIMBY society. But hang on a minute … aren’t the Iranians supposed to have squirrelled their nuclear facilities away in secret locations? Preferably surrounded by women and children so decent freedom-loving nations won’t attack them. How come this place is out in the middle of nowhere and might as well have an ‘aim bombs here’ sign on the roof?
Some of the aforementioned Western analysts are clearly puzzled by the story and its accompanying photographs of new improved centrifuges. “This is intel to die for,” says one, but if so, why are the Iranians allowing it to be shown around the world? Could it be that it’s only ‘intel to die for’ if the centrifuges are being used for illicit purposes? Maybe the Iranians are showing off their technological capabilities to the world and have no interest in concealing it. “I don’t see anything to suggest this is propaganda,” says another analyst and you can sense the unspoken question … “So what the hell are they up to?”
In the best Western intelligence traditions of ascribing great significance to random events (see also “Look here’s a picture of a North Korean in Syria so obviously they were working on a nuclear reactor”), we read this:
One surprise of the tour was the presence of Iran’s defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar. His attendance struck some analysts as odd given Iran’s claim that the desert labors are entirely peaceful in nature. In one picture, Mr. Najjar, smiling widely, appears to lead the presidential retinue.
Guys do you think there might be a clue why the defence minister would visit in the first paragraph of the story? You know, the bit about the anti-aircraft guns. Given the regular bellicose threats of Israel and the Americans, I’d be amazed if the defence minister wasn’t taking a lively interest in the uranium enrichment plant.
So there are these two competing narratives: one in which we can accept that the Iranians are telling the truth or something close to it and the other in which they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes while they build nuclear weapons. How to know which is true?
In a rational world, people would arrive at a tentative conclusion based on the available evidence and remain prepared to review that conclusion if new evidence comes to hand. On the evidence that has been published so far, I lean to the conclusion that the Iranians are developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Certainly there is insufficient evidence to justify even the financial sanctions that have been imposed by the USA, which now seem to be in support of a childish demand that the Iranians own up to what they did or thought of doing many years ago. Evidence that would justify military action is completely absent.
Unfortunately however, this kind of reaction seems more typical of American attitudes:
Dr. Wood of the University of Virginia said the episode smelled of hubris. “It was amazing to me that they put the pictures out there,” he said. “It’s sort of a cocky thing. I would think they had more to gain by keeping their cards close to their chests.”
By this analysis, the move trumpets Iran’s defiance of the West and the United Nations Security Council, which has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Tehran for its refusal to halt the uranium enrichment.
How dare a bunch of ragheads defy the Empire!!! It looks like we’ll just have to give them some more lessons in knowing their place … that at least seems to be a widespread sentiment.
I fear that intelligence in the USA no longer consists of gathering data for dispassionate analysis. It now consists of gathering evidence selectively to support an unshakeable, predermined belief. I fervently hope that the Australian intelligence services remain sufficiently competent and independent to give the Rudd Government advice unfiltered by any preconceived ideas about the inevitable outcome. Rudd’s response should the USA attack Iran will far outweigh in its long-term consequences anything else he might have to do in his term of office.
Posted in Uncategorized |
May 1st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Yep, those Iranians are fucked alright.
Guilty or innocent doesn’t even come into it at this stage, we all know that.
Just gotta pull the wool over the obligingly docile eyes of the greater US public again, just long enough to initiate the agenda…then on with the Goebelspeak after the fact.
Anybody with a slight historical perpective on US Imperialism could see what was coming in Iraq long before the actual slaughter got underway; sadly, especially considering the all too recent nature of the invasion of Iraq, it looks as though the PNAC will continue on its doomed path to the abyss…Iran the next “enemies” to be righteously dealt with.
A pity the world at large is manacled to the eventual downfall of the bloodthirsty US tyranny.
What pisses me off the most is that the US intentions are very clear & predictable but they call the bluff of society’s apathy to do fuck all about it.
Obviously if they were “up front” they would have a much more difficult time of mobilising their own population…but the pitiful level of PR placebo required to subdue the greater US mentality doesn’t inspire hope or faith in stopping what now seems like inevitable aggression against Iran.
Uncle Sam’s bitches need to pull their heads out of their arses for the good of us all.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Ken says, “I fervently hope that the Australian intelligence services remain sufficiently competent and independent to give the Rudd Government advice unfiltered by any preconceived ideas about the inevitable outcome ..”
You’re joking, they’ll do no such thing. They’ll behave exactly as they did the last time when the lying rat assured us that our famous so-called “intelligence” agencies had assured HIM that naughty old Saddam possessed WMD.
They’ll toe the American line and not display an ounce of independence or competence while our pathetic MSM will gobble it up as per usual.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Argus my hope, and it might be a naive one, is that this time around they won’t know what Rudd wants them to say. Therefore in desperation they might let the Andrew Wilkies have as much input as the slavish USA copycats and in the end give some balanced advice. But I admit it’s a hope, not a confident prediction.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Ken & Argus, you’re both presuming that our intel agencies told Howard what Howard said they did. He also said that no one in the ADF told him that kids overboard was bollocks, and generally lies as often as he opens his mouth.
I can tell you quite certainly, from a conversation had prior to the invasion, that there was no certainty “that naughty old Saddam possessed WMD” within at least uniformed int. I was more convinced than they were at that stage, made me feel quite the goose. Certainly there appears to have been political pressure on the agencies to come up with the right answer, we all know how independent the PS became from party politics under Howard (not), and Lt Col Wilkie resigned for that reason.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Sean, I wouldn’t feel ‘quite the goose’, we vote, we hope.We aren’t all titled to information that others glean through position.
Living in a rural area,you know,scenic and placid,well there is also ‘white anting’,the Rodent specialty,in a local form where a throw away remark ends up as fact.To the cost of the person to suffer from this vindictive ‘casual’ remark.
One thing is, Rudd is not a dill,and so far has not allowed Australia to be a succubus to America or to our Asian neighbours, and I firmly believe he won’t, unlike the last eleven years.
Guess the point is that Rudd is at least a hope that some sort of decency will be projected to correct the illusion that exists,especially in Europe,that Rodent and his grovelers established.And KenL is hopefully right, that Rudd will pay attention to the Wilkies of this world, and if any of us are honest, no one gives away and risks all unless they are either,mad,attention seeking or honest,I’ll go for the honest and of principal just about every time. “Whistle Blowers”,bullshit,how about ethical and honest.
To their cost, untill now ,maybe,is that’Honesty is praised and left to shiver’.
I just hope that Rudd will leave me to fade away without the anger of the last eleven years.
A few of us in our placid rural area call the ‘white anters’, putting rust in the pipes.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:17 pm
What’s always puzzled me about this FOCUS on Iran is the fact Indonesian Islamics blew up Aussie & American tourists & yet the Indonesians can start building nuclear power sites on earthquake prone ground.
And we hear about the connection between Pakistan intelligence & the Taliban & others who kill COW troops, yet no one does a “Dam Busters” on the Pakistani weapons’ sites. It’s all rather confusing for a simple mind like mine.
Good points Ken. I was “goosed” as much as you Sean. Lang Mack, I’m w/ you on that HOPE thing re: Rudd. But so many influential Laborites have chomped on the Blair apple it’s hard to tell where they’ll head.
Why are they so focused on Iran?…Oil? Supporting terrorism? Making it hard to build pipe lines? They pulled the Busheviks into the Iraq debacle? They work w/ the Russkies & no longer Halliburton? They threaten Gulf States & Israel? They are a totalitarian regime? (in many ways they are). They don’t buy enuff fast food, soft drinks & electrical appliances stamped USA via CHINA? They have a habit of keeping the heroin trade going which competes w/ cocaine?
NO
They have a STARGATE…that’s it. Silly me.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Nask, whats Stargate?,honest question..
Oil,pipelines,your on the money there, and just maybe OPEC going Euro, what do you ‘recon?
Off topic(Lucille Bogan,Shave ‘em Dry,I’m gonna shave you Dry,’Till the cows come Home’) what’s not romantic?:).
May 1st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
One thing about the U.S.A. is it gives us a host of contradictory statements,misapplied contempts,and any number of other pre-conditions to think about before a iota of truth in their analysis takes place.What they are playing at there,is hard to understand,given, like the example of the Univ.educated,they cannot seem to think,that other countries are not responding to the emotional and intellectual dictates of their intelligensia. Who must be on a good wicket,if they hope Iranians will find Hubris another part of their personality and character.Do you raise one eyebrow and look suspicious when you are in this declared state!?They must of got some satellite shot of bulk numbers of Iranians displaying this,whilst looking at something iconically American! And seeing my brain isnt run completely by myself,the question was put to my hearing range”And what would that be!?”.And because of incidents like that described by me…I have no trust at all in A.S.I.O. on any matters much at all.And as for Rudd..let’s face it…deaths in Afghanistan are part of the menu of being honest!?So chew it up fellow Aussies,for Time Magazine thinks I am influential.And tomorrow’s nights menu will include,how many dead Aussies ,Sir!? With tomato Sauce SIR!? A lobster as side plate,Sir!? And a napkin with the faces of the dead,Sir!?
May 1st, 2008 at 10:38 pm
“whats Stargate?,honest question..”
lol…LM you really are living out in the paddocks. Good for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s1BiL8GPqc&feature=related
(Stargate movie trailer)
Excellent point LM…the threat of shifting the pricing of oil from American dollars to Euros w/ the dollar already just hanging onto the ledge above the abyss…well, this could be the US strongarming Iran, Russia & such into thinking otherwise. Or being blackmailed by the Saudis & other OPECers…hmmm.
Hopefully backdoor negotiations w/ Iran going on right now so we all live to see another year.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:29 pm
I reckon - clearly, on the basis of no valid sources of information other than my gut (cf Colbert) - that they’re building The Bomb. The reason I think this is that Iran has been repeatedly threatened with invasion and/or attack by the most powerful country the planet has ever known. Assuming they’re not all complete and utter morons, what else would they be doing? The thugs and zealots who run Iran are bound to be capable of reasoning that a few nukes makes them invasion-proof. Not developing this capacity would make them more stupid than George W Bush.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:35 pm
“…the move trumpets Iran’s defiance of the West and the United Nations Security Council…”
But wait! Maybe that’s what they WANT us to think. Or not.
Curse them and their fiendish mind-rays. Tricky, tricky bastards.
“Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent” and “upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents…”
“The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.”
“We’ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.”
“Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.”
May 1st, 2008 at 11:57 pm
President Ahmadinejad visited Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India. A multi-billion gas pipeline with India is in the “pipeline”. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) ties together these nations, as well as Russia, Uzbekistan and China in a geopolitical bloc, which was unthinkable a few years ago.
A few atomic bombs will not save Iran. If the US is loopy enough to start messing with that crowd, in that region, there can be no form of deterrence that will work.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:46 am
If the US is loopy enough to start messing with that crowd, in that region, there can be no form of deterrence that will work.
Yup, serious shitstorm territory.
Unfortunately, based on past lunacy, I fear they are loopy enough by half.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:24 am
I wouldn’t be surprised if the CIA and a certain company linked to the US VP helped them draw up the wonky plans & delivered a few goodies to help them on their way. Add some French & Russian expertise…& that Pakistani NUKE CREATOR who always manages to avoid the clutches of our keystone cop-like NUKE PREVENTERS…& before ya know it…it’s SHOWTIME.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!
Good stuff Mars…ya know, i was half-listening to Jeffrey Sachs tonite on Lateline, still ruminating over where I’ll live when they turn QLD into a gassy Texas & Brissie into Houston…& wondering if i could be bothered visiting Victoria’s upcoming African Safari World - where lions & tigers reenact Westworld & koalas sit peacefully between your kids as they poo themselves on the rollercoaster…
& it occurred to me that there might be a few more reasons why this MAD for WAR lot are so keen on upping the tensions. Drives the educated & skilled out. And we get the benefits.
Not to mention those refugees who will DO ANYTHING if you let them bask in the hot sun of a stankin’ chook wired camp for long enuff.
(I think i mentioned this last year…oh how time flies…& WARS go on & on & on & on…like FEAR CAMPAIGNS…in Corporate media world).
And once the refugees are in…the RIGHT-WING & other fear-merchants wait awhile w/ bated breath…hold it…hold it…hold it…
ahhh…”A BAD crime was committed today against a poor unfortunate Digger by a REFUGEE who receives quadrillions of your tax payer dollars from the piss weak & far too compassionate government”…prints the usual suspect papers…bullsh*ts out a usual suspect lard bucket on radio…then the Wighties in opposition & across the Blue-rinsed Ivory Towers can turn around & scweem:
“THEY DON’T FIT IN!!!…we need real immigration policy…TOUGH policy…not soft c*ck, multi-cultural, Lefty policy”
Anyway, Sachs was wisely stating that resource wars & over-populating combined w/ overly-protectionist policies only lead to chaos, food shortages, furthering of poverty…& I thought, yes & obviously a waste of the energy thru WAR that we were supposed to be benefitting from. Them jets & missiles & ships use mega-litres of fuel.
And of course poverty & Nation-State instability (as we are seeing now in the Middle East & Africa & Sth. America) leads to a search for ANSWERS as people try to SURVIVE…& some turn to EXTREME MOVEMENTS…& consequently we end up w/ a SELF-REPLICATING MONSTER…which requires supposedly INTERVENTION & PRE-MEDITATED ATTACKS by clones of the Busheviks.
Round & round & round we go…& when the MADNESS stops nobody knows.
sigh.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:52 am
Ken you said:
“I fervently hope that the Australian intelligence services remain sufficiently competent and independent to give the Rudd Government advice unfiltered by any preconceived ideas about the inevitable outcome.”
I would have more confidence in this if the Rudd government rehired that ‘most unemployable man in Australia’ Andrew Wilkie into ONA.
May 4th, 2008 at 9:02 am
This statement says a great deal more about the deviousness of the mentality that uttered it, than it does about that of its subject.
May 4th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I agree Caroline. I’m certainly no supporter of the Iranian regime & abhor the lack of Democracy at the highest levels of govt. And certainly some of the “blowhard” & occasionally “threatening” rhetoric coming out of Iran is probably intended to boost the support base for Ahmadinejad. And we know there are influential Iranians benefiting from escalating oil price as the war in Iraq is prolonged.
But you also get the feeling the Iranian people are being put between a rock & a hard place. Manipulated by forces INSIDE & OUT. And we musn’t forget that the Iranians have been previously accussed of WMD activities that didn’t prove to be the case…or it least, the case against them doesn’t seem to hold water:
The Halabja poison gas attack
The first images after the attack were taken by Iranian journalists who later spread the pictures in Iranian newspapers. Some of those first pictures were taken by Iranian photographer Kaveh Golestan. Recalling the scenes at Halabja, Kaveh described the scene to Guy Dinmore of the Financial Times. He was about eight kilometres outside Halabja with a military helicopter when the Iraqi MiG-23 fighter-bombers flew in. “It was not as big as a nuclear mushroom cloud, but several smaller ones: thick smoke,” he said. He was shocked by the scenes on his arrival in the town, though he had seen gas attacks before during the brutal Iran-Iraq War:
It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. You went into a room, a kitchen and you saw the body of a woman holding a knife where she had been cutting a carrot. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl’s mouth and she died in my arms.[6]
Saddam Hussein’s government officially blamed Iran for the attack. The international response at the time was muted and the United States even suggested Iran was responsible.
The know-how and material for developing CW were obtained by Saddam’s regime from foreign firms.[12] By far, the largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie Ltd.) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[13]
The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department’s list State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq’s “Full, Final and Complete” disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips. Both companies have since undergone reorganization and Phillips, once a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum and now part of ConocoPhillips, an American oil and energy company while Alcolac International has since dissolved and reformed as Alcolac Inc.[14]
On March 12, 2008, the democratic government of Iraq announced plans to take legal action against the suppliers of chemicals used in the poison gas attack.
An investigation into responsibility for the Halabja massacre, by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concluded in 2007 that Iraq was the culprit, and not Iran. The U.S. State Department, however, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, took the official position based on examination of available evidence that Iran was partly to blame.[7]
A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time reported that Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for much of the early 1990s. The CIA’s senior political analyst for the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the war[16] which contained a brief summary of the DIA study’s key points. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of weapons of mass destructions WMD before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
(Wiki pedia)
———–
Wouldn’t surprise me that now Saddam is dead the Neo-Cons try to shift the blame back onto Iran. Whilst the companies who supplied these chemicals get away scot-free. Interesting how Republican & oil co. decisions seemed to have contributed…no matter how inadvertently.
Think Rumsfeld meeting Saddam in 1983:
.” Washington had some goodies for Saddam’s regime, the Times account noted, including “agricultural-commodity credits totaling $840 million.” And while “no results of the talks have been announced” after the Rumsfeld visit to Baghdad three months earlier, “Western European diplomats assume that the United States now exchanges some intelligence on Iran with Iraq.”
A few months later, on July 17, 1984, a Times article with a Baghdad dateline sketchily filled in a bit more information, saying that the US government “granted Iraq about $2 billion in commodity credits to buy food over the last two years.” The story recalled that “Donald Rumsfeld, the former Middle East special envoy, held two private meetings with the Iraqi president here,” and the dispatch mentioned in passing that “State Department human rights reports have been uniformly critical of the Iraqi President, contending that he ran a police state.”
Full diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad were restored 11 months after Rumsfeld’s December 1983 visit with Saddam. He went on to use poison gas later in the decade, actions which scarcely harmed relations with the Reagan administration.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805C.shtml
——————–
Interesting, I wonder how those commodity deals worked out? Remind anyone of the “Australian Wheat Board scandal” over here…?
IRRESPONSIBLE CORPORATIONS CAN HELP
“BUILD ‘EM UP & KNOCK ‘EM DOWN”
SHOW ME THE MONEY
May 4th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
“Real men go to Tehran”
For an strong, enlightened democracy, war should be a LAST resort, a final option. The problem is that in Iraq it was ever only going to be the ONLY option. Bush wanted the invasion all along and as we know from various AMERICAN whistle-blowers, the neocons had pushed for the invasion back in the Clinton years.
“While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
As Senator Robert C. Byrd noted on 19 March 2003:
“The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.”
That would make it a crime under international law.
Still the pro-war mob seeks the moral high ground in an attempt to further the myth that the “liberation” of Iraq was their reason for supporting the unprovoked American push for war. This is a spurious claim. It’s just one more handy mantra which they can echo in the corporate media.
What did those supporting the war have to say in the 80’s when Saddam, armed by the west, was doing his worst? Why, in February 1982, did the US State Department REMOVE Iraq from its terrorism list despite objections from Congress? Didn’t Rumsfeld visit Iraq in 1983 knowing they were using illegal chemical weapons “almost daily” against Iran? Didn’t the multinational Bechtel sign contracts with Saddam in 1988, after “Chemical Ali” gassed thousand of Kurds, to build a huge chemical plant near Baghdad? Why did the Reagan administration initially cover for Saddam by blaming Iran for the Kurdish deaths (they’re currently being bombed by Turkey BTW) and then prevent Congress from imposing tough sanctions?
Does anyone think that the Iraqi people have forgotten who supported Saddam? Does anyone thing the Iraqi people have forgotten the suffering brought by the sanctions?
Yet Honest John said on ABC Radio in January 2003 when asked about regime change:
“That has not been one of our policy objectives. That could be a consequence. Because of the circumstances in which military action might take place. But our goal is the removal of weapons of mass destruction”
He clearly didn’t think regime change was worth going to war over.
And on March 14, 2003:
“I would have to accept that if Iraq had genuinely disarmed, I couldn’t justify on it’s own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime. I’ve never advocated that”
Cover for a war crime, perhaps?
Finally, on March 20 the “little digger” told the Australian people that our forces were going into action because it was “in Australia’s national interest.” Did he even bother to explain what he meant?
The new-found concern for the health Iraqi people by the war-mongers is plain hypocrisy. It is a transparent attempt to defend a reckless, illegal and unnecessary war. The fate of the long-suffering Iraqis was not a primary concern. It wasn’t after Halabja, and it isn’t today. Spare me the crocodile tears.
So now we sit by and wait for them to do it again….