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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
THE STORM : USA War Criminal
Malcom Lagauche
amiriyahlagauche2.jpg
Victims of the Feb. 14, 1991 U.S. terrorist attack on Amiryah civilian
shelter
January 17, 2006
January 17th marks the 16th anniversary of the first U.S. attack on
Iraq, dubbed Desert Storm by the U.S. administration. The destruction
and devastation were portrayed in the U.S. similar to that of a
Hollywood movie. The reality was far different.
Because so much has happened to Iraq since 1991 (the embargo, the March
2003 invasion, the current chaos, etc.), many people may not recall the
particulars behind the January 17, 1991 attack and the ensuing horror.
When the first bomb fell on Iraq at 2:00am on January 17, 1991, the
United States began the military implementation of years of deceit and
dirty tricks to attain a permanent foothold in the Middle East. George
Bush I enlisted, coerced and paid 27 other nations to help massacre
Iraq, depriving these newly-won allies of any ethical high ground.
If you look at some of the countries involved in the anti-Iraq
coalition, you will see that they varied greatly in their reasons for
becoming involved in the slaughter. Few came on board because they
considered it the right thing to do. As with the "alliance of the
willing" that participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many of the
"allies" of the 1991 campaign participated only to receive a payday from
Washington.
Egypt, a long-time backer of Iraq, initially declined. After George Bush
I told the Egyptians he would forgive a $7 billion debt, the once Iraq-
friendly Egyptian government changed sides. Syria entered the alliance
because of long-time animosities between its president, Haffas al-Assad,
and the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. Coincidentally, Syria was on
America’s list of countries that support terrorism, but that did not
affect Bush. Al-Assad’s payday came after the cease-fire was signed
between Iraq and the U.S. The Bush administration turned a blind eye to
Syria’s sending over 30,000 military personnel to Lebanon, leaving Syria
with a tremendous amount of influence in Lebanon, a country emerging
from the devastation of a 15-year civil war. Ironically, the Bush II
administration called for the exit of Syrian troops from Lebanon and
threatened Syria with military force if the troops remained. The
difference between then and now is that Syria’s former president al-
Assad died and his son, Bashir, inherited the presidency of Syria. The
young al-Assad did not share the same animosity with Iraq as his father
and the two countries were experiencing flourishing trade and political
relations up to the time of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Now, Syria
has to pay a price instead of being given preferential treatment.
Saudi Arabia, a country not exactly known for its progressive
government, quickly sided with the U.S. when Bush falsely told them that
Iraqi troops were stationed in Kuwait just across the Saudi border
waiting to pounce on the Saudis. On September 11, 1990, Bush told a
joint session of Congress, "We gather tonight witness to events in the
Gulf as significant as they are tragic. 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850
tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia."
The Defense Department outdid Bush with an estimate of 250,000 Iraqi
troops and 1,500 tanks. The only thing wrong with Bush’s and the
Pentagon’s ominous warnings is that they were based on falsehoods.
Soyuz-Karta, a Soviet commercial satellite agency, had pictures taken by
its satellite of Saudi Arabia on September 11, 1990, and of Kuwait on
September 13, 1990 that portrayed a different scenario. They showed no
Iraqi presence near the Saudi border and only a small percentage of
Iraqi troops in Kuwait compared to the U.S. estimates.
In December 1990, the St. Petersburg Times of Florida purchased these
photos from the Soviet agency. They had them analyzed by experts who
agreed that the U.S. estimate was based on lies. According to Peter
Zimmerman, who served with the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
during the Reagan administration, "The Pentagon kept saying, the Iraqi
troops were there, but we do not see anything to indicate an Iraqi force
in Kuwait of even 20 percent the size the administration claimed."
Jean Heller wrote a report for the St. Petersburg Times in January 1991
about the quandary. However, the national media ignored the report and
refused to publish it despite the newspaper’s editors approaching the
Associated Press twice and the Scripps-Howard News Service. According to
Heller:
The troops that were said to be massing on the Saudi
border and that constituted the possible threat to Saudi
Arabia that justified the U.S. sending of troops do not
show up in these photographs. And when the Department of
Defense was asked to provide evidence that would
contradict our satellite evidence, it refused to do so.
I think part of the reason the story was ignored was
that it was published too close to the start of the war.
Secondly, and more importantly, I do not think people
wanted to hear that we might have been deceived. A lot
of the reporters who have seen the story think it is
dynamite, but the editors who have seen it seem to have
the attitude, "At this point, who cares? If the war ends
badly with a lot of casualties, more than the
administration had led us to expect, you might hear of
this story again."
Coincidentally, the same photos that did not show proof of an Iraqi
buildup portrayed an American presence that was not supposed to be in
Saudi Arabia at the time. According to Zimmerman:
We could see five C-141s, one C5A and four smaller
transport aircraft, probably C-130s. There is also a
long line of fighters, F-111s or F-15s, on the ground.
In the middle of the airfield are what could be
camouflaged staging areas.
Several countries did oppose the overwhelming force that was brought
against Iraq, but they paid a price for such a lack of pro-U.S.
sentiment. Aid was quickly cut to Jordan. Its leader, the late King
Hussein, was under strong pressure from his country-people not to
support the U.S. and he followed their lead, even though he was at one
time, and again later became a U.S. ally and informant in the region.
When told about the cessation of aid, King Hussein stated, "We’re not
that cheap." In the years after Desert Storm, King Hussein was brought
back on board the U.S. ship of influence in the Middle East. Jordan
became, and still is, the main area for U.S. intelligence and other
operations in the Middle East. For a short time, however, King Hussein
asserted his independence from the United States and stood up for the
principles and ideas of his people.
Tiny Yemen was hard hit by the immediate severing of U.S. aid after it
voted in the United Nations against the use of force against Iraq. Cuba,
a long-time U.S. "enemy," brought the possibility of an invasion of the
island closer after it voted in the United Nations against "U.S.
interests." Ironically, since 1959, the U.S. has criticized Cuba for its
lack of democracy, yet when Cuba acted in a democratic institution (a
vote in the U.N. Security Council), it was lambasted for voting the
wrong way.
The U.S. version of democracy is selective — you are allowed to vote
freely, as long as the vote is in favor of the U.S. A few years after
the Gulf War, an incident occurred that depicted this U.S. murky view of
democracy. The first democratic elections ever were held in the Serbian
portion of Bosnia. When the results were announced, then U.S. Secretary
of State, Madeleine Albright quickly negated the election. When she was
asked by the press what made her decide to annul the results, she
stated, "The wrong side won." In occupied Iraq, we see the same
manipulation of democratic ideas occurring. In the first year of
control, U.S. authorities shut down many newspapers and magazines for
printing stories that were critical of the occupation. Democracy came to
Iraq in a watered-down version.
The concept of the U.S. using the United Nations as a forum was a sham.
Until November 1990, the U.S. considered the U.N. a useless organization
that catered to Third World interests. The U.S. was quite vocal about
its distaste for the U.N. and had refused to pay a substantial amount of
money owed to the U.N. Then, in an about-face, shortly before a November
1990 vote on the Iraq issue, the U.S. forked over $187 million to the
U.N. This "enlightened" action only constituted a small portion of what
it owed to the world agency.
Much of the U.S. seemed to have gone mad during the five weeks of
massacre in 1991. We watched as politician-after-politician talked
favorably about what was happening. At times, it appeared that a vast
portion of the U.S. political establishment was euphoric when describing
the destruction. Unfortunately, we did not see the millions of people,
both inside and outside the U.S., who were aghast at such actions.
Government ministers from France, Italy and Turkey resigned in disgust,
but the U.S. media did not deem their opposition newsworthy. There was a
virtual news blackout of dissent. We were not being told what was
happening, and what we were being told was mostly lies because the U.S.
military controlled the media. The day after the cease-fire was signed,
Norman Schwarzkopf publicly humiliated the U.S. media by stating, "You
guys were great. You printed everything just the way we said it." He
then went on to describe many incidents in which the U.S. lied to the
media.
"No more Vietnams!" we heard as the slaughter was occurring. This
definitely was not Vietnam. Iraq was a Third World country that happened
to be America’s chosen enemy in exorcising the ghost of Vietnam. After
the cease-fire, even some ardent supporters of Desert Storm felt empty
and confused. As one caller to National Public Radio stated on March 5,
1991, "The United States isn’t going to save its soul by a massacre in
the desert."
Despite the seemingly simple victory over Iraq in 1991, the U.S. has
seen the Vietnam analogy resurrected. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a
strong resistance has taken hold and many now see "another Vietnam"
taking place for the U.S. as the number of deaths of U.S. soldiers
steadily increases.
source:
http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html
===
-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW
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