kakki wrote:
> > Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, these are not my numbers but were part of the article I quoted, and it does seem high- > I've heard and read for years that this number is very false. I watched > nearly every hour of that war (even at work). Most of the Iraqi army > surrendered right away. Smart bombs targeted military and support > installations, not masses of civilians. Yebut yebut- Coverage of Desert storm was censored. Former Pres Bush said "we will not make the mistakes we made in Vietnam"....the subtext I read into that is that showing the realities of war, bloody corpses and burning villages was not appetizing to the American people and probably helped to halt the Vietnam War. So, realizing TV as the most powerful advertising tool there is, they created reporter "pools", meaning that one reporter got to go along on a military escort to film and document a few scenes that they (the military) wanted the people to see, and then all the reporters shared the material that was gathereed. You can argue security issues if you want to, but the reporters that were there know what it was- strategically controlled access. To say that watching CNN was giving anyone a true picture of what is going on....well, it has taken years for alot of what happened to come to light, including.... > >hundreds of US vererans are suffering from a mysterious disease, > > Which they now say is from the chemically-tipped scuds Saddam had fired on > them. Who is they? The desert is littered with radioactivity from the uranium tipped shells we used, which, I believe is against SOME kind of Geneva convention or something. The reason they use it, as I'm sure you know, is because it will pierce 18" of solid steel and penetrate tanks. Our guys had to handle this stuff in order to use it. The consequences are still being felt by the veterans as well as the civilians of the region. Add to that Saddam's chemically tipped scuds (though the veterans I have heard have not mentioned this, but it is certainly credible) and the experimental vaccination cocktails the soldiers were given.....what a nasty mess. Desert storm vets found out that what the Vietnam vets (the ones that are still alive) were saying all along was true: you are expendable. Though not a peculiarity of the US military, certainly. > > > and the Persian Gulf has been ravaged by the largest oil spill in history. > > Oil "spill?" I clearly recall watching hundreds of oil wells on fire as the > Saddam's army retreated. Yes that was horrible. You don't remember the spill? > Here's another way to look at it. The main charge of the Federal government > under the constitution is to protect the country. Okay, but following a military agenda is not protecting us, it is making the world more dangerous. Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex and it has come to pass. > And there are thousands of products other than > bombs made (satellites, software, radar, etc.) by defense contractors. I will do without them if we can have a peaceful world, but there is no reason these things could not have (or would not have) been developed outside of the military. > > What were people to think when it wasn't even reported in the > > US media? > > ?!! It was all over the news at the time and reported every day for several > weeks while it lasted. Many people were freaking out that he just sprung it > out of nowhere. Then many started accusing him of wagging the dog to get > Monica off the front page. Okay my bad on that one > for me was Chomsky's "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" > > I recommend it. > > > I've checked out some of his writings and to me, he is someone who has > nothing but contempt for most Americans and their country. I haven't seen contempt for most Americans. His main criticisms revolve around our foreign policy, which in short is kill the peasants, plant a despot, profit from the resources.
