Iraq: A Dossier of "Interesting" Yet BADLY Reported Facts

Introduction…
Here I try to prove the following points…
1. “Gulf War 1 Killed 250,000 Iraqis.”
My point behind this is that if Gulf War 1 has killed that many; then surely our current one will have killed many more.
2. “That Saddam killed 250,000 people through oppression.”
Here I show some very contradictory search engine results which take this figure from 250,000 to five hundred thousand, and to one million. So there’s not a lot of consensus; although I do suppose our pro-government mainstream media will be using the higher estimates for some reason.
3. “The Kurds where accepting bribes from the Iranians to steer up trouble in Iraq”.
I demonstrate this historical fact to explain why they were treated with so much hostility. Personally I do not believe Saddam gassed the Kurds instead I think it was an Iranian accident or act, as they had cyanide based gases, and the Iraqis where based on mustard gas (it was the cyanide gas that was used).
4. “Saddam tried to negotiate with the Kurds.” (see previous results).
5 .Kuwait had been part of Iraq for about 5000.
Again no consensus but it certainly was part of Iraq till quite recently (less than 100 years ago).
6. It was only the Uqair Protocol of 1922 that defined Kuwait’s borders between Iraq, and between Kuwait and Nejd.
7. Kuwait had been slant drilling into Iraq’s oilfields and this was one of the major reasons for Saddam trying to reunite Kuwait with Iraq thereby causing the 1991 Gulf War.
Also it is worth noting that this slant drilling happened at a time when Iraq had to pay of huge national debts for the Iran Iraq war (it killed a total exceeding one million people) and was a war in which America sold weapons to both sides. But that’s another story.

Why I Did This
Partly to respond to an earlier post www.abovetopsecret.com... in which I felt a bit ridiculed. But my main reason for going to all this effort is to show you how unworthy you are of judging the actions of Saddam or his government if all you receive is edited information from our western media. Because that’s what I used to do when I used to support the war in Iraq.
I understand the mainstream media to be a bad source. Partly because too few people own its many branches, because through they “can’t” make up the truth there is no law against media owners and politicians doing deals with each other. For that matter there isn’t even a law against bias, and if there was it would be a very hard charge to prove. Though other sources of information exist its worth remembering that most people are too preoccupied with daily life to do there own research, and that in a democracy (especially “post pass the post”) its most people that rule.

So that's why I did it. I just hope most of you will enjoy learning something new as much as I do.

Point 1: Gulf War 1 Killed 250,000 Iraqis

1. “Investors should recall the 1991 Gulf War, which killed 250,000 Iraqis. A U.S. recession also followed. Then and now, America’s foreign interest is more than a military matter.”
Source: www.commondreams.org...
(near end of page).

2. “In a 13-year period (from 1991 to 2004) the US killed 250,000 Iraqis in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, plus another 1.5 million Iraqis via sanctions plus another 100,000 from 2003-2004. That comes to 1.85 million Iraqis.”
colorado.indymedia.org...
(half way through).

3. “While Kerry initially voted against the resolution for the first Gulf War, he quickly reversed himself, saying he had been “ill-advised.” He then voted to fully fund the war that killed 250,000 Iraqis.” www.geocities.com...
(About half a page away from the begging).

4. “America can win the 'hearts and minds' of the Iraqis. Not really. They've killed 250,000 of them in two wars and mutilated and wounded 400,000 more. These 650,000 people have 8 million close relatives and 10 million concerned neighbours. They also traumatised 8 million children.” homepages.ihug.com.au...
(About half way through)

5. “Like the original, Gulf War 2 will involve the bombing and invasion of Iraq by a coalition of nations led by America. Gulf War1 killed 250,000 Iraqis, and the new model offers George jnr the chance to score even more points.”
www.scoop.co.nz...
2nd Paragraph in an Open Letter To Helen Clark


Point 2
Saddam Killed 250,000-350,000 Iraqis according to Pentagon website.
Well have to say I can’t find the website; and I have found some really contradictory information both for against my point as illustrated below.


1. “They acknowledge that, yes, thousands have died, but the deaths caused by this invasion are only a fraction of those killed by Saddam. After all, Saddam killed, what, was it, millions of Iraqis? According to Human Rights Watch, Saddam killed about 250,000 of his own people, but let's not quibble over numbers.”
webdiary.smh.com.au...
(about 3 pages from the very end).

2. Tehran Times Editorial, April 10
"[Kurds and Shia Muslims] still remember the failed Shia and Kurdish uprising of 1991. The US had initially expressed support for the uprising, but then US troops inexplicably stood by and watched as Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam killed approximately 250,000 Shia and 250,000 Kurds.
www.guardian.co.uk...
Guardian unlimited just over (half way through page).

3. “But if we exclude deaths of soldiers, it is often alleged that Saddam killed 300,000 civilians. This allegation seems increasingly suspect. So far only 5000 or so persons have been found in mass graves. But if Roberts and Burnham are right, the US has already killed a third as many Iraqi civilians in 18 months as Saddam killed in 24 years.”
Source…
blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com...
(About 2 pages in).

4. Against My “Claim”
“Saddam Hussein's government may have executed 61,000 Baghdad residents”
“The survey, which the polling firm planned to release on Tuesday, asked 1,178 Baghdad residents in August and September whether a member of their household had been executed by Saddam's regime. According to Gallup, 6.6 percent said yes.”

In Favour
“Richard Burkholder, who headed Gallup's Baghdad team, said the numbers in Baghdad could be high for two reasons: People may have understood "household" to be broader than just the people living at their address; and some families may have moved to the capital from other areas since the executions occurred.
"Anecdotal accounts start to support it, but they don't get you to 60,000," he said in a telephone interview from Princeton, N.J.
Even reducing the numbers slightly because of those possibilities, however, Burkholder said the number of executions the data suggest is higher than previously estimated, in the low tens of thousands.”
www.chinadaily.com.cn...

Both “for and against” quotes are from the SAME Source…


Summary: Unlike my 250,000 figure for the first Gulf War it appears Saddam may have killed both less than and more than 250,000 people at once. Just like he both had and did not have WMD’S. Personally I would expect the pro government media, and the occupation that supplies them with information to keep these death tolls at the highest end. So I made a point with foundation, but equally without concrete foundation by any means.


Point 3
The Kurds where accepting bribes from the Iranians to steer up trouble in Iraq.


1. “Eventually the Kurds were offered independence in Iraq, however, the Kurds were unhappy with it and went to war. Iran supported the Kurds until the leader of Iran signed the Agreement Of Algiers with the Iraqi government. After that, Iran left the Kurd's side. Without Iranian support, the Kurd's rebellion disintegrated.”
www.sfuhs.org...
(End of third paragraph)

2. “After nearly ten years of hostilities, the Iraqi government agreed to Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq in 1970. However, in 1974 the agreement collapsed and a fierce war followed, in which Iran supported the Kurds. In 1975, Iran signed an agreement of co-operation with Iraq and withdrew its support for the Kurds in exchange for territorial concessions in the Persian Gulf. Kurdish resistance collapsed.”
www.refugeecouncil.org.uk...
“During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), Iran again backed Kurdish guerrillas, known as peshmergas. From the mid-1980s, the Iraqi government began to clear parts of the Kurdish autonomous area of the predominantly Kurdish population.”

So basically your enemy (Iran) is bribing an armed ethnic group within your own country to steer up trouble. Can you see why “poor little Kurdies” got treated by bad man Saddam so much?
Note: The clearing policy did only start when the Iran Iraq war had already been going on for some time. Might not justify it in itself, but its still a truth worth remembering for the sake of justice.

• “3. A major ally of the United States in the Middle East, the Shah of Iran, supported the Kurds in their rebellion. The Shah feared the growing influence and power of Iraq, so he aimed at weakening Iraq from within.
• In 1975 Iraq signed an agreement with Iran known as the Algiers Agreement, in which Iraq accepted the Iranian demands regarding supremacy over the Persian Gulf. In return the Shah stopped his support to the Kurds.”
www.geocities.com...
(This quote is exactly in the middle of this webpage. May I suggest that this is a most excellent brief history of Iraq; for anyone who is interested in understanding the place, or the degree to which the Western media leaves stuff out).

A Side Note: It looks like the U.S had supported the Kurds too.

3. “Iran supported the Kurds in northern Iraq with weapons to fight against Al Bakr. Then a civil war started (1974). After Iraq agreed to make major concessions to Iran in 1975, Iran was in control of the Shat-Al-Arab estuary. Another concession was that the border disputes with Iran were settled. As a consequence the USA halted aid to the Kurds. But the USA continued the armament of Iran. This was done, on the one hand, to decrease the influence of the Soviets and, on the other hand, to weaken Iraq.”

www.sg.aa.bw.schule.de...
(4th paragraph)

4. “Iran supported the Kurds in Iraq during the war, it armed them and used them against Saddam. After the war Iraq and Iran marched jointly against the Kurdish people. The reward for the "support" by Iran has been Halpaca. In Halpaca and
other places in Northern Iraq, thousands of Kurds were slaughtered.”
archives.econ.utah.edu...

(This is a bad source in my opinion but there for variety, it makes the quoted statement about a page and a half away from the very end).

From Google search: “Iran supported the Kurds”

Summary…
So not only has Iran supported the Kurds, bribed them and armed them as a tool against Iraq, but they have also done so on more than one occasion (about 3: before 1970, 1974, 1980-1988 Iran Iraq war).


Point 4: Saddam tried to negotiate with the Kurds.

This is mentioned in quotes 1 and 2 under point 3. Although Saddam was not president he was very much in Iraqi politics at the time, and had been involved in the issue. Basically it failed because the Iranians merely increased the Kurdish bribes. This lead to Saddam negotiating with Iran and handing over a large section of the river “Tiaras” (not sure about that being the right name), before demanding it back because the Iranians had not stopped supporting the Kurds. Ironically this was apparently because of Saddam being pro American at the time.


Point 5
Kuwait had been part of Iraq for over 5200 years up and till 1921.

1. a. Maybe we could acknowledge that Kuwait had been an integral part of Iraq for 3,000 years before some British cartographer carved it out for geopolitical reasons in the 1890s.
We might recognise some of the debt-related problems between Iraq and Kuwait after the Iran-Iraq War. We could try to understand the charges of slantdrilling of Iraqi oil by Kuwait in the border area.
www.transnational.org...
(2nd and 3rd paragraph)

2. Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman Empire for 350 years. The Turks administered it as part of the province (vilayet) of Basra, which in turn was one of three vilayets into which Mesopotamia was divided, the others being Baghdad and Mosul. Whenever Turkish control was lax, local power filled the vacuum. But always the legitimate government was that of the Sultan in Istanbul, who was also to be respected as titular head of Islam.
members.aol.com...


3. Yes, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Well, this had something to do with oil. Apparently, Iraq seems to think that before the Europeans embarked on their game of world conquest - Kuwait used to be a part of Iraq for, like, 4,000 years.
www.iowastatedaily.com...
(2nd paragraph)

4. Saddam sold oil futures contracts before and after Desert Storm/Kuwait back in 1991 and angered the Western Oil trusts. He sought American permission to go into Kuwait, which was a part of Iraq for thousands of years - until the British Empire took it away. In fact, Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia debated using poison gas in Mesopotamia in the 1920's. Remember, Saddam is an ex-CIA asset, assassinating communists inside Iraq in the 1960's and then fighting vs. Iran. Saddam wanted the CIA to allow Iraq to take out the radical Islamic sect in Saudi Arabia.
www.sierratimes.com...
(This is about a page in)

5. Kuwait was part of Iraq for 4000 years so dont give me that stuff about Sadam trying to take Kuwait. How can you take something that was already yours. Sadam went into Kuwait because Kuwait was historically a part of Iraq. ENGLAND used Kuwait as a desert mail route from 1775-1889 .During that time the place was barren meaning not that many people lived there.England provided their own security during this time. England supposably gave Kuwait their independence back in 1961 during those years Kuwait was still Iraq. So for you to say Sadam tried to take Kuwait makes you sound real uneducated. Why dont you pick up a book before you type a word.
photomatt.net...
(This is from a forum so is a relatively bad source. It’s about 10 pages in but shows I'm not alone).

6. American reasons for turmoil in Iraq are endless; yesterday it was Iran's Shiites, then it was the Iraqi waterfront (known as Kuwait, a part of Iraq for 5,000 years), then it was non existent WMDs, then it was democracy (American style), now it's "terror" (whose terror is that? Have Iraqis been driving around the streets of America, shooting US citizens?).
www.patriceayme.com...
(End of 4th paragraph)

From Google search: “Kuwait part-of-iraq-for-5000”

Summary
You might ask why the discrepancy over how long Kuwait was part of Iraq?
Well all it depends on you perspective of history, but regarding the territory of Iraq this is true. Quote 2 is quite good for explaining Iraq’s more ancient past.


Point 6
It was only the Uqair Protocol of 1922 that defined Kuwait’s borders between Iraq, and between Kuwait and Nejd.

1. The Uqair Protocol was issued on December 2, 1922, in response to the Wahhabi Bedouin raiders, operating from Nejd, under Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Saud. The British High Commissioner to Baghdad, Sir Percy Cox, met with ibn Saud and the British Political Agent to Kuwait, Major John More, at Uqair where he imposed the Uqair Protocol which defined the boundaries between Iraq and Nejd; and between Kuwait and Nejd.
www.infomutt.com...
2. The Uqair Protocol was issued on December 2, 1922, in response to the Wahhabi Bedouin raiders, operating from Nejd, under Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Saud. The British High Commissioner to Baghdad, Sir Percy Cox, met with ibn Saud and the British Political Agent to Kuwait, Major John More, at Uqair where he imposed the Uqair Protocol which defined the boundaries between Iraq and Nejd; and between Kuwait and Nejd.
www.textsheet.com...

3. In response to the various Bedouin raids, the British High Commissioner in Baghdad , Sir Percy Cox , imposted the Uqair Protocol of 1922 which defined the boundaries betweenIraq and Nejd; and between Kuwait and Nejd.
On April 1 , 1923 , Shaikh Ahmad al-Sabah wrote the BritishPolitical Agent in Kuwait, Major JohnMore , "I still do not know what the border between Iraq and Kuwait is, I shall be glad if you will kindly give me thisinformation." More, upon learning that al-Sabah claimed the outer green line of the Anglo-Ottoman Convention ( April 4 ), would relay the information to Sir Cox.
On April 19 , Six Cox stated that the British government recognized the outerline of the Convention as the border between Iraq and Kuwait. This decision limited Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf at 58km of mostly marshy and swampy coastline. As this would make it difficult for Iraq to become a naval power (the territory did not include any deepwater harbours ), the Iraqi King Faisal I did not agree to the plan, however, as his country was under British rule, he had little say inthe matter. Iraq and Kuwait would formally ratify the border in August. The border was re-recognized in 1927 .
therfcc.org... (about a page and half in)

Point 7…
Kuwait had been slant drilling into Iraq’s oilfields and this was one of the major reasons for Saddam trying to reunite Kuwait with Iraq thereby causing the 1991 Gulf War.

1. BAGDAD (AFP) - Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing its oil for the third day running Sunday, with one report saying it involved 300,000 barrels of crude a day taken from oil fields in the border area.

"The theft of Iraqi oil by Kuwait is not new," Saad Qassem Hammudi, a senior member of the ruling Baath Party told AFP.
www.rense.com...

2. Conflict in the Middle East triggered yet another international crisis on August 2, 1990, when Iraq invaded and attempted to annex neighboring Kuwait as its nineteenth province. Leading up to the invasion, Iraq complained to the United States Department of State about Kuwaiti slant drilling. This had continued for years, but now Iraq needed oil revenues to pay off its debts and avert an economic crisis. Saddam ordered troops to the Iraq-Kuwait border, creating alarm over the prospect of an invasion. April Glaspie, the United States ambassador to Iraq, met with Saddam in an emergency meeting, where the Iraqi president stated his intention to continue talks. Iraq and Kuwait then met for a final negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait.
en.wikipedia.org...(1988-present)
(about a page in, second paragraph under the sub section entitled “The Persian Gulf War”)

3. The Gulf War of early 1991 didn't change much. Our old buddy, the despotic Emir of Kuwait, is back on his throne. Our former buddy, Saddam Hussein, while knocked down a peg or two, is still in power and as brutal as ever. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, hundreds of US veterans are suffering from a mysterious disease, and the Persian Gulf has been ravaged by the largest oil spill in history. The question naturally arises, could any of this have been avoided?
The whole dispute started because Kuwait was slant-drilling. Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief Brent Scowcroft's old company, Kuwait was pumping out some $14-billion worth of oil from underneath Iraqi territory. Even the territory they were drilling from had originally been Iraq's. Slant-drilling is enough to get you shot in Texas, and it's certainly enough to start a war in the Mideast.
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
(This is probably the least good source, but is still factually correct).

Finally: A Little Bit about Kuwait…
“Kuwait's modern history begins with the 1710 founding of Quarain (Little Fort) by various clans of the Anaiza, who had wandered north from Nejd and Qatar, fleeing a drought. They settled in the Iraqi territory of the Ottoman Empire, along the northern shores of the Persian Gulf, where they engaged in pearling and sea-trading.”
Source: www.worldhistory.com...


[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]

[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]

[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]

Just on the topic of number of deaths - there doesn't appear to be any reference in your post to the effects of depleted uranium - a crime against both the environment and against humanity.

If I included everything we have done, or even provided a more detailed account of Iraq's less reported history; this post would be virtually infinite. It took me a few hours to put this together and I don't have weeks or months at my disposal.
But that's the alarming thing. What I have put here is by no means everything you should know about Iraq, let alone enough to judge it, us or for that matter Saddam more wisely.
The way I see things is that even if the highest estimates for Saddam’s killings are true we will still have killed more people than he did. This is almost certainly true with regard to things before this particular war such as the U.N sanctions which alone are thought to have killed over a million Iraqis (possibly between 1.2 and 1.5 million according to the U.N).

As for depleted uranium we used approximately 300 tonnes in the first Gulf War, and at least 1500 tonnes this time round. Half of it will still be radioactive in 4.2 billion years time (about the time the solar system collapses). During the first Gulf War some areas experienced an increased cancer rate of 1000 percent although it is thought to be a 50 percent increase nationwide. Problem is we used it in far more built up areas this time as well as 5 times as much.
There are many conflicting studies on the effects of DU but one for thing is certain. The arms manufactures cloth their most exposed staff in protective clothing from head to toe. DU only releases Alpha and Beta particles. Alpha can be stopped by a sheet of paper, and Beta with a sheet of aluminium. Problem is when a shell hits a tank the DU metal vaporizes into microscopic particles that once inside the body releases radiation onto cells at point blank range. Like lead DU is also soluble in fat which means it accumulates up the food chain, so a cow eating DU contaminated grass would end up hundreds of times more contaminated than the grass it eats.
Though there's not too much grass in Iraq its a problem for goats in places like Afghanistan where we used over 3000 tonnes.

The longer our military and politicians can deny the effects of DU, the longer they can put of massive compensation claims which will hopefully only happen when they themselves are no longer in office.

ANYONE doubting what I am saying should type "DU" or "Depleted Uranium" on Google and see for themselves.

US troops should be particularly worried because they have no legal right to claim compensation for "injuries received during combat". However the US military does give them support anyway (e.g. provides their deformed kids with learning support). But “surprisingly” the military has mostly failed to provide this support for those troops who have publicly spoken out against DU’s use the most. Of course they have no legal leg to stand on when it comes to demanding this support. This is in contrast to Britain where the NHS prevents this "blackmail" from working. So apparently it is the US troops who now end up getting exposed to DU the most.

I could care less if he deserved it or not. Find me one conflict in the history of man where all sides agreed that the invaded or attacked party deserved it. You cannot because it’s never happened.

I’m certain if you talk to the "right" people and skew your research a certain way you could argue that Hitler was a nice guy doing the world a favor. I bet if you interviewed some Germans back then they would have thought they didnt deserve invading either.

Hey, you did some great research there, but its moot. Meaningless. I am certain if I talked to and quoted Kuwaitis I could put together an equally compelling piece of "facts" that tell a completely different story.

Great work, but hardly "fact"

Oh, and about DU: For every source you can find that speaks about the hazards of its use, you can find an equally reputable one that says otherwise. It’s moot.


EDIT:
You present this list of "facts", and very little of what you psoted is actual confirmed fact. Facts are relative dependant on who records them, or who recants them. And your list is clearly biased.

[edit on 27-9-2005 by skippytjc]

Why I Did This
Partly to respond to an earlier post www.abovetopsecret.com... in which I felt a bit ridiculed. But my main reason for going to all this effort is to show you how unworthy you are of judging the actions of Saddam or his government if all you receive is edited information from our western media. Because that’s what I used to do when I used to support the war in Iraq.
I understand the mainstream media to be a bad source. Partly because too few people own its many branches, because through they “can’t” make up the truth there is no law against media owners and politicians doing deals with each other. For that matter there isn’t even a law against bias, and if there was it would be a very hard charge to prove.....

Thats not quite true.

Legal precedant has been established.

The media has no obligation to tell the truth.

They can openly lie to you all they want, and they do it every day.

Accepting a defense rejected by three other Florida state judges in at least six separate motions, a Florida appeals court has reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information.

In a six-page written decision released February 14, the court essentially ruled the journalist never stated a valid whistle-blower claim because, they ruled, it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

In the lawsuit filed in 1998, Akre claimed she was wrongfully terminated for threatening to blow the whistle to the FCC. After a five-week trial that ended August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that she was indeed fired for threatening report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows.

In overturning the jury on what amounts to a legal technicality, the court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers. Nonetheless, the station aired a report in wake of the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.

The "threshold issue," the court wrote -- and all it ruled upon -- was whether the technical qualifications for a whistleblower claim were ever met by Akre. In Florida, to file such a claim, the employer misconduct must be a violation of an adopted law, rule or regulation. Fox argued from the first -- and repeatedly failed in front of three different judges -- to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news.

In essence, the news organization owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to even lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. In it's opinion, the Court of Appeal held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.

The court let stand without comment the jury verdict that awarded nothing to Steve Wilson, Akre's husband and co-plaintiff in the case. He aggressively represented himself at trial, paving the way for Fox attorneys to suggest he was as aggressive in the newsroom as he was in the courtroom and perhaps that was why he was fired.

See the ruling at:
www.2dca.org...

I think everyone should be REALLY CAREFUL HERE...
your tickering on the line of being UN AMERICAN, BUSH and American BASHING..

And when that get said it'll get worse because the MODS Will warn them for name calling, I think we should scrap threads like this because all it does is bring out the hatred in people..

How dare people speak there opinion on this website.
HOW DARE YOU!!!

You'd think this was a public forum or something?

Thanks ArchAngel for making the point that the Western media can legally lie.
If you put that into context with what I was saying about the few owners of our many media outlets being virtually legally unrestrained from doing deals with our politicians you can see why its necessary for people like myself to do hours of research in order to remind others of the broader picture.

But complaining about our biased media is already hot topic frequently covered in other posts. What I want to know is what you think about the modern historical information I have dug up.
Did you know Kuwait had been part of Iraq for thousands of years up and till the early part of this century?
Did you know that the people Saddam is alleged to have killed through oppression are still less than those our government is known to have killed through its actions, in Iraq, over the last 14 years?

Don’t you as intelligent human beings feel outraged that no matter how long you watch the mainstream media these truths are unlikely to enter your mind? You should be outraged because as long as this state of affairs exists most people will be incapable of judging Iraq (and especially our actions) simply because they lack the knowledge to understand the context of what we are doing.

Does anyone disagree with my education tour of Iraq’s history? Because if you do please tell me what fact it is that lacks enough links or enough substance.
I have tried to be balanced. I gave sources supporting my claim that Saddam killed 250,000 as those claiming more than that. And I tried to put into context by reminding you that U.N sanctions are thought to have killed between 1.2 and 1.5 million Iraqis over the 12 years they where introduced (at least according to the U.N anyway).

Skippytjc
Ok you make the good point that no matter what an argument may be there will always be two sides of an argument. I just hope that in this case I got across the other side of argument regarding Iraq.
You seem to think my research is biased because I focus on this other side of the argument. Well all I'm doing is focusing on the largely unreported. You can turn on the TV and get different extremes of pro war propaganda (liberal, conservative) here is one of the times my attention has been focused in the holes in that propaganda. If focus is bias then it’s a type of bias that in this case should have been ten times more informative than what we normally get on the media or for that matter call “biased”.
After all; I did not focus my research to create some points; rather I focused it to show some points. Do you challenge that? If so on what grounds?

Yes Skipptic (as you pointed towards) even the Nazis had their alleged “upsides” although whether their historical context gave them much sympathy for their actions is something else. Problem is that regarding Iraq (unlike the Nazis) these upsides are pretty much unknown, and that as I have tried to show the historical context for Saddam’s actions gave him quite a bit more sympathy than the Nazis. Apart from the historical basis for saying “he tried to re-unite Kuwait with Iraq” rather than simply “invade it”, there are other things which I have not found time to mention. Cutting that short, Saddam took over a country that was in anarchy like it is today, and before the Gulf War had brought it political stability and living standards found only in the West (92% literacy at that time). And Kuwait had been slant drilling oil from Iraq’s oil reserves and continued to do so at a phenomenal rate during the sanctions, and I believe may still be today.

Back to the Subject Again...

Thanks ArchAngel for making the point that the Western media can legally lie.
If you put that into context with what I was saying about the few owners of our many media outlets being virtually legally unrestrained from doing deals with our politicians you can see why its necessary for people like myself to do hours of research in order to remind others of the broader picture.
................

Sorry if it was off topic.

I thought it relevant to this, and many other threads about the media and propaganda.

You are right that one must spend a lot of time researching to come to Truth.

It should be a right for everyone, not a hard earned prize....

Liberal:

Don’t you as intelligent human beings feel outraged that no matter how long you watch the mainstream media these truths are unlikely to enter your mind?

I honestly think you have to actively get interested and do some research and just try to find perspective. And ask the questions that are hard to answer.

What exactly does Democracy mean to your average person in the Middle East? Would the Iraqis be able to elect a totally 100% Islamic government, with a strong anti-American side, if this was in fact representative of the demographic of the country? If not, then how can they be free at all?

What moral high ground does the US stand on that says that they know best? That THEY are a country that can do successful nation-building? That the most powerful military in the world can say "Oh, he's got weapons TRAINED on us, so we're going to go in, fight his Third World army, and hopefully not kill more than, say 10,000 civilians, and we're going to disarm him of the weapons we are SURE he has hiding."?

In 20 years, what will people be saying about the main reason behind the War in Iraq? How will they look upon the War on Terror?


They don't all have answers, and some of the answers are muy complicado.


jako

Oh, and read Robert Fisk a lot.

www.robert-fisk.com...



[edit on 29-9-2005 by Jakomo]

APOLOGY…
Sorry ArchAngel if I sounded a bit harsh. I wasn’t really talking to you directly because I'm very grateful for your post; as you demonstrated to us that the media can lie completely legally. I should feel ashamed for having given those children of deception too much credit through conservative remarks!!!
But I did think the combination of different replies I received at the start was in danger of leading the thread of the subject; (hence the title of my previous post).

I liked your challenging thoughts Jakomo!

REPORTING QUALITY
Yet it’s such a shame that you need to research the truth so much; rather than say, have it delivered to your door with morning newspapers.
Problem is I question if things where ever any different. We have had the same government structure for well over a hundred years. The only thing that’s much different now is how few people own the mainstream media. Rupert Murdoch owns 4 of the 12 national newspapers in the U.K, a large stake in terrestrial channel 5 (one of only 5), over 200 sky channels and around 172 newspapers worldwide (all of which supported the war in Iraq).
But how much difference that makes I don’t know.

Certainly the lack of reporting on “uncomfortable facts” wasn’t much worse in the past than it is today. We used to run an empire believing that all blacks and Indians were inheritantly inferior, that our slave trade, colonisation of other countries was all a good thing. I have few newspapers over 80 years old and not one makes a reference to imperial crimes.
Some discuss the wisdom of what we are doing (much they do with Iraq today) but never have I obtained one that criticises the actions of the troops.
Yet in the 1920’s the British RAF would frequently bomb Kurdish and other people’s villages for things as basic as not paying their taxes. And we behaved like this nearly everywhere we conquered; which is quite something given that at it’s the British Empire covered 25% of the world’s surface.

ROMANS
Look at Roman propaganda (I assure a surprising quantity survives but suggest you do your own Google research). Because when they occupied Britain; massacred the British tribes, destroyed a whole religion (to my mind its one that’s almost better than Christianity), and massacred over 2000 Druid priests on Salisbury plain (as well as commit many other crimes) the people of Rome did not think that there military was doing a bad thing.
It’s the same with Nazis, or the colonial British, or the Americans using Napalm, Agent Orange, and indiscriminate bombing of villages in Vietnam.

CHAIN OF COMMAND
When you ask “why the general public always supported the actions of their troops?” It’s not because the people then where any less human than they are today, rather it’s because the reasons then are almost exactly the same ones in use today.
In all the examples mentioned above it was the absence of reporting that was to blame. The Romans for example would imbed reporters in their military, and the commanders would ensure that whatever they sent back, or where allowed to see was as good a picture of what was going as possible. Remind you of anything?
It’s the same with the Nazis “they had press officers” and so did the Soviet Union. Today we have imbedded journalists. What a difference a name makes? If you’re a journalist working for the BBC or CNN and you don’t report things as your editor wants you can loose your job “bad journalism” or “refusing to obey orders” (just like you can in any job. And if you’re an editor or a controller, director or whatever the men and woman above you may always choose to sack you. It’s a chain of command pure and simple.

RETRIBUTION
Look at Greg Dyke former director of the BBC. He lost his job for wait…
“Backing-up!!!” a journalist who accused the government of “sexing-up” the case for the war in Iraq.
Can anybody tell me that the government did not sex up the war in Iraq? When they said “it is a completely undisputable, undeniable fact” that Saddam had WMD’s, or that the troops would be “welcomed with flowers” or that “Saddam could kill them with WMD’s in 45 minutes”. Where they not “sexing it up”?

Yet look what happened to the top-man at the BBC who backed up a journalist who said the government they had. He lost his job; it was his reward for sticking up for the truth. Anybody who questions why somebody doesn’t betray the system should know (that to date at least) those who do loose their employment very quickly.
The staff of the BBC might have protested when Greg Dyke was sacked, but that was about as far as public demonstrations went.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFICATION
Regarding Iraq Jakomo asked “what moral high ground does the US stand on, that says that they know best”.
Well here’s an answer you won’t get in the media: In Iraq they had democracy once, in the U.S they have democracy twice (their government should be called “DemoRep”). And in Britain we have democracy 3 times (after all there are 3 major political parties to choose from).
But since all 3 political parties in Britain aren’t much different from one another; we have democracy less than 3 times. In America this is just as true, so they have democracy less than twice. And of course it can never be less than once as Saddam’s Iraq demonstrates!

In Iraq 60% of the population are Muslim fundamentalists, so you can imagine how much choice that gives the other 40%. And if Iraq had only two big political parties (rings of America) then mathematically democracy in Iraq would be 60% more than once. Therefore for the sake of democracy let’s hope Iraq doesn’t go the political way of America any time soon. Doing so would surely give our invasion even less justification?

Liberal1984: Great post, some interesting points you make.

Personally, I think the best way for the US media to accurately reflect what is going on, they have to show the REALITY of war.

American men and women, some of whom are still practically children, fighting and dying in the sands for nothing. Iraqis are not more free, America is not more safe, and heck, the price of oil is RISING.

The reality of war is blood. Horror. Bodies so shredded that they don't look human anymore. People screaming as they try to stuff their intestines back into the ruin that used to be their stomachs.

People who will be the walking dead for the rest of their lives, due to the horrors they have witnessed and the actions they have taken.

Anybody who has been in active wartime duty who says that it is anything but terrible is a masochistic murderer who should seek psychological counselling.

War RUINS people. Forever. On both sides.

That is the reality of war, and if CNN showed it, you would not be in Iraq anymore.

"Oh look, we opened up a cool looking school. Oh and also, look at this smoking crater in the middle of a Baghdad highway. See those blackened stumpy looking things? That's 6 dead American GI's, you can still see the last moments of fear on their burnt faces."

THAT'S the reality. If you can't handle seeing your countrymen DEAD and DISFIGURED then you cannot handle the reality of war.

I dragged up this old post because I was going to start my own. The slant drilling into Iraq was an evil thing to do and seems to have started most of the problems. These problems only benefited a few oil barons and cost me, the American tax payer, a trillion dollars. The slant drilling was dismissed by the world. Did anyone know the border was redrawn by the UN and Iraq lost a navy base, some oil wells and some farms? This stuff was a secret. You could see visible indications of this on Google Earth. It is obviously censored now. Have a look in the area and note that the pictures from users do not match the terrain. These are the censored areas AND IT MAKES ME EVEN MORE ANGRY.
you read now:
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
deoxy.org...

If anybody is in Eastern Kuwait, can you still see the slant drilling rigs? My Google Earth has been tampered with.