U.S. empowering Iraq warlords

{Here we go again, though it shouldn't be a surprise, that's how we do our foreign policies, and how we got Saddam in the first place!}

'Strong like Saddam'

Oct. 15, 2007 issue - Kanan al-Sadid was not yet 10 years old on the afternoon that his father opened the trunk of the family car and Saddam Hussein popped out. It was the early 1960s, and the future dictator was hiding out from the Iraqi authorities, who accused him of plotting to assassinate the country's then strongman, Gen. Abdul Karim Qassim. Kanan's uncle was a member of Saddam's revolutionary Baath Party clique; when the conspirators needed to lie low, they would disappear to the Sadid family estate near the Syrian border. Once, when Syrian soldiers came looking for the men, Saddam and the boy's father ducked into a linen closet. Another time, as the family Volkswagen approached an Iraqi Army checkpoint, Saddam ordered all the children in the car to blow on the windows, steaming them up to conceal the fugitives. While visiting a family home in Baghdad one afternoon, Kanan's father told his sons to get into the car; they were going to a park to play. But after driving around for a while, the car stopped, the boy's father opened the trunk and Saddam Hussein—curled up and dressed in a dishdasha—stepped out and walked off. Kanan's father drove away in silence. "When are we going to the park?" the deflated boy asked. "Keep your mouth shut," his father replied.

SNIP Rest can be found here

News Crawl 2-05-07

Vietnam unveils liberal policy on religion

HANOI - To be religious is now officially welcomed in Vietnam.

Yesterday, the ruling communist regime released a White Paper explaining a new liberal policy towards religion.

It marked the first time the communist government has published a formal document setting forth its stance towards the nation's 20 million religious believers.

For full text of the White Paper on Religion and Religious Policy in Vietnam, click title link


**********

Vietnam Expands Protection for People with HIV

Richard Knox, NPR
Sister Tue Linh and an AIDS orphan at the Mai Hoa AIDS Center in Cu Chi, about an hour outside Ho Chi Minh City.

A garden at the Mai Hoa AIDS Center. Until recently the center was a hospice where homeless people with AIDS died. Now it's a treatment center where nearly all patients return to health.

Morning Edition, February 5, 2007 · Vietnam is embarking on a campaign to end discrimination against people with AIDS and HIV. A new law will give new rights and protections to people with HIV, and the country is expanding the number of people getting treatment for AIDS.
About 6,500 people currently are receiving antiretroviral drugs. That's about one-quarter of the 25,000 Vietnamese that are estimated to need AIDS treatment now.

You Can Read The Rest and Listen To Report At Title Link

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New Pentagon Numbers Raise Health Care Worries

All Things Considered, February 4, 2007 · Last month, Harvard professor Linda Bilmes presented a paper at a meeting of social scientists about the cost of treating injured soldiers. She reported that 50,000 American troops had been wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A few days later she got a call from a senior Pentagon official.
"The assistant secretary for Health of the DOD phoned me up asked me where I had found the numbers, and I faxed him his own Web site and that was the last I heard from them," Bilmes says.
Now both the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs have changed the number of wounded on their Web sites.

You Can Read Report And Listen To At Title Link


**********

The speech that made the U.S hate Saddam

This speech was delivered by Saddam Hussein to the Amman Summitt meeting on Feb. 24, 1990. Present were the heads of state of the key Arab allies of the United States: the president of Egypt and the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The president of Syria was also present. In its sweeping proposals for Arab unity against U.S.-Israeli domination, it was a blunt challenge to imperialism. It is this speech that was the flash point of the U.S.-U.N. aggression, not the Kuwait crisis which was engineered in response.

You Can Read The Speach At Title Link

The Trial You'll Never See

Videos: Saddam’s American Allies: The Trial You'll Never See
Former “60 Minutes” producer and author Barry Lando connects the dots between Saddam Hussein and his American backers in this powerful documentary. Watch this!


PART 1



PART 2



And lets revisit Erics Thanks For The Memories, over at bushflash, for a better understand of the U.S. Saddam connections!

Niger To Sue U.S. - Over 2 Billion

NGOs to sue US over WMD claims
From correspondents in Niamey
January 14, 2007

SOME 30 non-governmental organisations in Niger said overnight they are going to sue the United States for nearly two billion dollars for "unfairly accusing" Niger of selling uranium to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"Our lawyers are about to file a lawsuit against the US calling for damages of about 1000 billion CFA francs ($2.42 billion dollars) for the harm suffered" by the country, Moustapha Kadi, president of the Collective of organisations in Niger defending the right to energy (CODDAE).
The lawsuit by the collective will be filed at either French or Belgian courts, Kadi added.
In January 2003, US President George W. Bush accused Saddam of having bought uranium from Niger to make weapons of mass destruction.
The Niger collective said in a statement that investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), world media and US officials, all concluded that it was a "false accusation" against Niger.
That false information was used by Bush "to invade Iraq," said the collective's statement, which also called for support from Niger's President Mamadou Tandja, who back in 2003 said the US allegations were "harming Niger's image".
Niger is the world's third-largest producer of uranium with about nine percent of the global market, according to 2003 figures.
The country's two uranium deposits have been mined for 40 years by the French group Areva, number one in civil nuclear energy.

A Lynching...... Riverbend

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Sunday, December 31, 2006

A Lynching...

It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He's like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It's almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We're in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists- you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world- the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator. Saddam's last words were NOT "Muqtada Al Sadr" as Munir Haddad claimed, according to the article below. If anyone had seen at least part of the video they showed on TV, you'd know that.

""A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room."

"As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader."

"Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account.""

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

Then again, one could argue that it was a judge who gave them that false information. A judge on the Iraqi appeals court- one of the judges who ratified the execution order. Everyone knows Iraqi judges under American tutelage never lie- that explains CNN's confusion.

Muwafaq Al Rubai was said he was "weak and frightened". Apparently, Rubai saw a different lynching because according to the video they leaked, he didn't look frightened at all. His voice didn't shake and he refused to put on the black hood. He looked resigned to his fate, and during the heckling he looked as defiant as ever. (It's quite a contrast to Muhsin Abdul Hameed's public hysterics last year when the Americans raided his home.)

It's one thing to have militias participating in killings. This is allegedly the democracy the Americans flaunt. Is this how bloodthirsty and frightening we've become? Is this what Iraq stands for now? Executions? I'm sure the rest of the Arab countries will be impressed.

One of the most advanced countries in the world did not help to reconstruct Iraq, they didn't even help produce a decent constitution. They did, however, contribute nicely to a kangaroo court and a lynching. A lynching shall go down in history as America's biggest accomplishment in Iraq. So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?

2006 has definitely been representative of Maliki and his government- killings like never before and a lynching to end it properly. Death and destruction everywhere. I'm so tired of all of this…

History: U.S. and Iraq

I got extremely sick and tired, loooong ago, about our 'Choices of Responsibility' in the Actions of those, we hire and pay, into power supposedly leading this Nation, and the brokers behind the scenes, skimming off the public troth, that we all know exist, and what they do In Our Names! Everything done, in a Democracy, wether good or bad is done In Our Names and We Are As Responsible As They Are!

One can't grab their share of resposibility, of any good actions/policies, by grabbing the flag and drapping themselves in some sort of Patriotic goody goody feeling, cheering "We're Number One", and than scream "I'm Not Responsible" for the bad done 'In Our Names'! In a true Democracy, something we still haven't obtained, the Whole shares The Responsibility Equally!

I don't belong to a lot of online boards, not enough time and one gets really tired really fast of reading idiotic responses from lazy lamebrains who try and act like their guro's, limbaugh being only one. And a guro he is to a group of {add any label one wants here, they are numourous}, that give their empty racist/bigotted thoughts with nothing to back them up or attempt to back them up with the empty thoughts of others equally lamebrained {add guro name here, they to are numourous also}, making a damn good living off these sheople as they lead them like the herders they are. And the lazy fools, who refuse to think for themselves, suck this bullshit up!

Lets take a look at our dealings with Saddam, who won't RIP, I'm sure. You can take your pick of Many tyrants and dictators who over the years we've supported with a total disregard to the countries citizens they led. Paying lip service about 'Human Rights' and 'Freedom' and 'Democracy', which we seem to think that by Destroying Others Countries and Their People', they will except and embrace with Open Arms these self instilled ideologies, we say we would like many of these countries to have, hell we pay lip service on our own soil to many of our own!

U.S. and Saddam:

First take a quick walk down memory lane with a short but historically filled video that Eric, over at bushflash put together shortly after Saddam was captured:

Thanks For The Memories
There's much more to the relationship but this gives one an idea of what has been going on all these years.

One thing about this technology, even for the lazy, one needs only read or view something get backtrack links or grab names, reports, files, whatever out of the read or view and do quick backtracks themselves, retrieving the evidence or the pros and cons, the Real Lazy, like the limbaugh himselve or his wanna-be's seem to find this exhausting as they don't even attempt to gig deeper

Now lets take a look at some of these parts of the Documented Known history:

Front page of Italian Newspaper Corriera della Sera


As Dean Hartwell, political scientist, you can visit his site Here, writes:

Hussein's Bloody Hands Drip on United States

With the execution of Saddam Hussein, the United States has lost an ally-turned-enemy. What it has gained remains to be seen.
When Hussein invaded Iran in September 1980, the Carter Administration applauded. When he used chemical weapons during that war, the Reagan Administration looked the other way. When he told us he would invade Kuwait in 1990, the Bush I Administration said we would stay out of it.

The same man whom Donald Rumsfeld went to make peace with in 1984 as an emissary of the Reagan Administration was our new punching bag from Desert Storm on. Several times under Presidents Bush I and Clinton we bombed Iraq, ostensibly for disobeying United Nations resolutions. Yet we had hid our anger over his previous transgressions, like the invasion of Iran, because they favored us. Whether we admit to it or not, we assisted Hussein in his early crimes.

If the Iraqis ever do switch to a democracy, they ought to consider the lack of principle the United States has shown in dealing with Saddam Hussein. A nation that says it opposes invasions of other nations and the murder of its people cannot hold the hand of one who commits these crimes. Even if the nation shakes off the hold of the dictator, it cannot shake off the blood from his hands.

Now Hartwell does a quick writeup of our involvement in the crimes of Saddam, and as I said above one only needs to pick certain things and find the proof of themselves, it's all out there and documented, hell with this technology it's even hard to scrub the evidence, the facts, the talking points on news video's, you name it it can be found.

Lets visit another recent post of points:

Source: Juan Cole

But the following comes from Black Listed News

Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers, however, has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades. Initially, the US used the Baath Party as a nationalist foil to the Communists. Then Washington used it against Iran. The welfare of Iraqis themselves appears to have been on no one's mind, either in Washington or in Baghdad.
The British-installed monarchy was overthrown by an officer's coup in 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim. The US was extremely upset, and worried that the new regime would not be a reliable oil exporter and that it might leave the Baghdad Pact of 1955, which the US had put together against the Soviet Union (grouping Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Britain and the US). (Qasim did leave the pact in 1959, which according to a US official of that time, deeply alarmed Washington.)

Iraq in the 1940s and 1950s had become an extremely unequal society, with a few thousand (mostly Sunni Arab) families owning half of the good land. On their vast haciendas, poor rural Shiites worked for a pittance. In the 1950s, two new mass parties grew like wildfire, the Communist Party of Iraq and the Arab Baath Socialist Party. They attracted first-generation intellectuals, graduates of the rapidly expanding school system, as well as workers and peasants. The crushing inequalities of Iraq under the monarchy produced widespread anger.

If one visits the title link, or the Juan Cole link, one will find more backtrack links and information to each item listed below:

1} The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

2} After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government. He frequently visited US operatives at the Indiana Cafe. Getting him back on his feet in Cairo was the second episode of US aid to Saddam.

3} In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms). Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer of the 1960s, alleged that the US played a significant role in this Baath coup and that it was mostly funded "with American money.". Morris's allegation was confirmed to me by an eyewitness with intimate knowledge of the situation, who said that that the CIA station chief in Baghdad gave support to the Baathists in their coup. One other interviewee, who served as a CIA operative in Baghdad in 1964, denied to me the agency's involvement. But he was at the time junior and he was not an eyewitness to the events of 1963, and may not have been told the straight scoop by his colleagues. Note that some high Baathists appear to have been unaware of the CIA involvement, as well. In the murky world of tradecraft, a lot of people, even on the same team, keep each other in the dark. UPI quotes another, or perhaps the same, official, saying that the coup came as a surprise to Langley. In my view, unlikely.

4} In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup.

5} The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union. In response, Nixon supported the Shah's Iran in its attempts to use the Iraqi Kurds to stir up trouble for the Baath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a behind the scenes leader. As supporting the Kurdish struggle became increasingly expensive, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran decided to abandon the Kurds. He made a deal with the Iraqis at Algiers in 1975, and Saddam immediately ordered an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The US acquiesced in this betrayal of the Kurds, and made no effort to help them monetarily. Kissinger maintained that the whole operation had been the shah's, and the shah suddenly terminated it, leaving the US with no alternative but to acquiesce. But that is not entirely plausible. The operation was supported by the CIA, and the US didn't have to act only through an Iranian surrogate. Kissinger no doubt feared he couldn't get Congress to fund help to the Kurds during the beginnings of the Vietnam syndrome. In any case, the 1975 US about-face helped Saddam consolidate control over northern Iraq.

6} When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement. Historians are deeply indebted to Joyce Battle's Briefing Book at the National Security Archives, GWU, which presents key documents she sprung through FOIA requests, and which she analyzed for the first time.

7} The US gave practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War:

8} The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran's motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons.

9} The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.

10} After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising. President GHW Bush had called on Iraqis to rise up against their dictator, but when they did so he left them in the lurch. This inaction, deriving from a fear that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would ally with Tehran, allowed Saddam to remain in power until 2003.

Now these are just a couple of recent postings but all of the above has been known and followed, by many, over the years. Giving voice of opposition to these practises of destructive policies as the majorities ignored what was going on 'In Their Names'!
This is the history of our Nation, not only as to the above, but in the Policies set forth under the guise of 'National Security' which has only made 'National Security' even less than 'Secure' but giving Wealth and Power to the Military Industrial Complex and Rampent Growth of the Corporate Mindset of a Capitalist Society run amouk!

Throughout our history there have been, and continue to be, Voices of Opposition to what has been going on, knowing full well they themselves Share In The Responsibilities of the Actions set forth, believing that which we teach and say has a deeper meaning and truth and when we sway from our words of describing ourselves not only do we suffer the consequences but those consequences effect many many others as well!

Oh by the way, Saddam isn't the only one, while you might still be wondering where oh where bin Laden might be and Why He Hasn't Been Brought To Justice!

Thanks For The Memories....

A Quick History Of Saddam....

As Eric, of bushflash, made awhile back, he's even brought it up on his home page top post:

Thanks For The Memories