It was a set of statistics which I thought illustrated how much hypocrisy there is in the statements and actions of the US Government, when they themselves are guilty of similar deeds since WW2. I have no hate of the US - I happen to believe they do a lot of good things around the world, but they have their finger in a lot of trouble creation as well. It pains me to see what the US Government does in the name of its people.
The same Donald Rumsfeld that is now gunning for Saddam Hussein was personally shaking hands with him in the early 80's, because at that time he was fighting the Iranians, and the US had an axe to grind with them (they kicked out their puppet, the Shah, if you remember). The US had a hand in providing all the cultures for the biological weapons he subsequently made - this is common knowledge. And what did the US think the cultures were for? Killing Iranians of course, as their protege Saddam was in danger of losing the Iran-Iraq war.
At the time the Kurds were gassed at Halabja, the US did not protest. Why not, one may ask? And why now, one may ask too? The US supported Saddam upto just before he invaded Kuwait - then he bit the hand that fed it, and very foolishly too. And you don't do that to the US, do you, as he is now finding out.
So I find it very hypocritical that suddenly they are so concerned about the Iraqi people and their fate, considering they were hand in glove with Saddam upto 1990 (he's been around for decades). The history leading upto this war is fascinating, and I would urge anyone who truly wishes to understand it in its true perspective to do a little independent research. Do not just rely on what Fox News or CNN tells you, because they have dropped all pretensions of neutrality and objective reporting in this crisis. They are not "embedded" with US forces, the are "in bed" with them. They have become part of the propaganda machine. Only independent journalists are trying to bring out a balanced view of the crisis.
This article below goes a long way to explaining why the Iraqis are reacting to the US troops with hostility. They have been through this before, and thus its like deja vu - they have seen the same promises from invaders before. Better the devil you know (Saddam) than the one you don't, and a foreign one at that.
"This isn't the first time a Western superpower has invaded Iraq, promising to free the country from tyrannical rule and bring democratic government -- all while nursing its own strategic interests.
The last time it happened, the British influence stayed for four decades.
When the British captured Baghdad in 1917, defeating the Ottomans, Gen. Stanley Maude made a declaration to the Iraqis:
"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."
Here is what Vice President Cheney predicted last month: "I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators."
That word -- "liberators" -- is leaden with historical weight. Then, as now, the superpower's motivation was suspect to some of the people liberated. Then, as now, there were questions about just how much self-rule would be given to them.
Consider the parallels. Almost 90 years ago, when the British army came to what was then Mesopotamia, they faced a population divided along ethnic and tribal lines. Just as now, Sunni Muslims, a minority, enjoyed an elite status and positions of power, despite the fact that Shiite Muslims were a larger percentage of the population. The British came in through the south of the country and took the city of Basra in 1914, then traveled to Baghdad. For different strategic reasons, the United States today follows a similar geographic route.
Like Americans now, the British faced a forbidding landscape. Britain's first advance on Baghdad was understaffed and under-prepared, and the British troops encountered surprising resistance along the way.
"This of course looks strikingly similar to what happened to the British," says Middle East historian Janet Wallach. "They went in and they thought it was going to be a quick and easy thing and it turned out to be a long and difficult campaign."
Britain's miscalculation led to one of its most humiliating episodes of the war, when they were defeated by the Ottomans at Kut in 1916 after a siege that lasted 146 days. They finally took Baghdad the next year. Among Iraqis, reaction to the British was mixed. As Charles Tripp writes in "A History of Iraq," "many welcomed the removal of Ottoman control, but were apprehensive about British military occupation."
Like Americans today, the British invoked the oppressed state of Iraqis, and promised that with foreign involvement, they would do better. In his proclamation in Baghdad, Gen. Maude reminded Iraqis that "for 26 generations you have suffered under strange tyrants," and invited them "to participate in the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the political representatives of Great Britain who accompany the British Army."
But as the Iraqis saw it, history worked out somewhat differently.
Kumait Jawdat's grandfather was among the Iraqi military men who fought alongside the British to defeat the Ottoman Empire, which in the parlance of the times was called "the sick man of Europe." At the end of the war, "Arabs had some justification for thinking rather than getting occupation they were going to get self-determination," says Phebe Marr, an Iraq historian.
Instead, France and Britain carved up the Middle East like so much pie while the United States clucked its tongue at their imperialism. The British were eager to hold onto Iraq, which gave them a strategic position with regard to India and -- shades of the modern day here -- access to oil interests ".
This argument could go back and forth, and there will be no end to it. All I ask is that people keep an open mind to the fact that there is another side to this tragic story - the one that the US and other Coalition governments do not wish you to see or know about.
