On 2/2/07, soula avramidis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
the 1975 Algiers treaty meant the surrender of the Iraqi army to the north
and the relinquishing of sovereignty over its only water way to the shah.
the details of the diplomatic history when khomeini took over, the search of
iraqi vessels entering shat al arab, military flights onto southern iraq,
and in one instance Khomeini in a letter addressed the iraqi government as
heathens. and much much more. my point is that there was never a dull
moment. one must recall that the success of the US in destroying iraq is due
in great part to the mullahs sectarian policies that put anti sunnism before
anti imperialism and that gave reactionary arab regimes a platform a
sectarian platform that could only bolster the american position.
just look at the fate of nassrullah in lebanon. a sectaraian resistance
looses even if it wins. yesterday nassrullah called for a lebansese front
composed of all groups to liberate the shebaa farms. too little too late. he
displaced the communist based national resistance front with the support of
syria and iran, worst yet now syria is pulling away from iran and saying "
our relationship with iran is business like." there is no individual outside
histroy even saddam
The Iran-Iraq war devastated both nations -- the war killed 300,000
Iranians and 375,000 Iraqis, according to Eric Hooglund ("The Islamic
Republic at War and Peace," Middle East
Report, January-February 1989) -- but Iraq could have managed to
recover from it, just as Iran did. But almost as soon as that war was
over, Saddam Hussein was suckered by Washington into thinking that it
would tolerate his invasion of Kuwait. Then came the Gulf War, for
which Washington bought just about everyone -- including Iran and the
USSR -- except Cuba and Yemen* and for which it had Japan, Saudi
Arabia, etc. pay. That's the beginning of the end of Iraq, made
possible by capitalists, socialists, and Sunni and Shia Islamsits.
* <http://www.newstatesman.com/pdf/johnpilger.htm>
John Pilger reveals how the Bushes bribe the world
If you want to know how George W Bush will go about getting
international support for war, look at how his father did it 12 years
ago. By John Pilger
The making of a United Nations fig leaf, designed to cover an
Anglo-American attack on Iraq, has a revealing past. In 1990, a
version of George W Bush's mafia diplomacy was conducted by his
father, then president. The aim was to "contain" America's former
regional favourite, Saddam Hussein, whose invasion of Kuwait ended his
usefulness to Washington.
Forgotten facts tell us how George Bush Sr's war plans gained the
"legitimacy" of a United Nations resolution, as well as a "coalition"
of Arab governments. Like his son's undisguised threats to the General
Assembly, Bush challenged the United Nations to "live up to its
responsibilities" and condone an all-out assault on Iraq.
On 29 October 1990, James Baker, the secretary of state, declared:
"After a long period of stagnation, the United Nations is becoming a
more effective organisation."
Just as Colin Powell, the present secretary of state, is busily doing
today, Baker met the foreign minister of each of the 14 member
countries of the UN Security Council and persuaded the majority to
vote for an "attack resolution" - 678 - which had no basis in the UN
Charter.
It was one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the United
Nations, and is about to be repeated. For the first time, the full UN
Security Council capitulated to an American-led war party and
abandoned its legal responsibility to advance peaceful and diplomatic
solutions.
On 29 November, the United States got its war resolution. This was
made possible by a campaign of bribery, blackmail and threats, of
which a repetition is currently under way, especially in countries
such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In 1990, Egypt was the most indebted
country in Africa. Baker bribed President Mubarak with $14bn in "debt
forgiveness" and all opposition to the attack on Iraq faded away.
Syria's bribe was different; Washington gave President Hafez al-Assad
the green light to wipe out all opposition to Syria's rule in Lebanon.
To help him achieve this, a billion dollars' worth of arms was made
available through a variety of back doors, mostly Gulf states.
Iran was bribed with an American promise to drop its opposition to a
series of World Bank loans. The bank approved the first loan of $250m
on the day before the ground attack on Iraq. Bribing the Soviet Union
was especially urgent, as Moscow was close to pulling off a deal that
would allow Saddam to extricate himself from Kuwait peacefully.
However, with its wrecked economy, the Soviet Union was easy prey for
a bribe. President Bush sent the Saudi foreign minister to Moscow to
offer a billion-dollar bribe before the Russian winter set in. He
succeeded. Once Gorbachev had agreed to the war resolution, another
$3bn materialised from other Gulf states.
The votes of the non-permanent members of the Security Council were
crucial. Zaire was offered undisclosed "debt forgiveness" and military
equipment in return for silencing the Security Council when the attack
was under way.
Occupying the rotating presidency of the council, Zaire refused
requests from Cuba, Yemen and India to convene an emergency meeting of
the council, even though it had no authority to refuse them under the
UN Charter.
Only Cuba and Yemen held out. Minutes after Yemen voted against the
resolution to attack Iraq, a senior American diplomat told the Yemeni
ambassador: "That was the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast."
Within three days, a US aid programme of $70m to one of the world's
poorest countries was stopped. Yemen suddenly had problems with the
World Bank and the IMF; and 800,000 Yemeni workers were expelled from
Saudi Arabia.
The ferocity of the American-led attack far exceeded the mandate of
Security Council Resolution 678, which did not allow for the
destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and economy. When the United
States sought another resolution to blockade Iraq, two new members of
the Security Council were duly coerced. Ecuador was warned by the US
ambassador in Quito about the "devastating economic consequences" of a
No vote. Zimbabwe was threatened with new IMF conditions for its debt.
The punishment of impoverished countries that opposed the attack was
severe. Sudan, in the grip of a famine, was denied a shipment of food
aid.
None of this was reported at the time. By now, news organisations had
one objective: to secure a place close to the US command in Saudi
Arabia. At the same time, Amnesty International published a searing
account of torture, detention and arbitrary arrest by the Saudi
regime. Twenty thousand Yemenis were being deported every day and as
many as 800 had been tortured and ill-treated.
Neither the BBC nor ITN reported a word about this. "It is common
knowledge in television," wrote Peter Lennon in the Guardian, "that
fear of not being granted visas was the only consideration in
withholding coverage of that embarrassing story."
When the attack was over, the full cost was summarised in a report
published by the Medical Education Trust in London. More than 200,000
people were killed or had died during and in the months after the
attack. This also was not news. Neither was a report that child
mortality in Iraq had multiplied as the effects of the economic
embargo intensified. Extrapolating from all the statistics of Iraq's
suffering, the American researchers John Mueller and Karl Mueller have
since concluded that the subsequent economic punishment of the Iraqis
has "probably taken the lives of more people in Iraq than have been
killed by all weapons of mass destruction in history".
Today, the media's war drums are beating to the rhythm of Bush's
totally manufactured crisis, which, if allowed to proceed, will kill
untold numbers of innocent people.
Little has changed, and humanity deserves better.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
