From http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/859716/posts
Is this true? It was mentioned on a British debate prog Question Time last night and this is the hit I got while searching.
Kinda takes the gloss of all the BS they’ve been throwing around about the poor Kurds and big bad Saddam IMO.
Thus, while the UK, Australia and France were just not dismayed, the US administration was actively not dismayed. What’s that, then? “Delighted”?
Remember context.
In 1986, Iraq was in a war against Iran, and Iran was the worst country in the whole wide world, a title they held since the ouster of the Shah and the hostage situation ten years previously, except when Libya was the worst country in the whole wide world.
It would not have been proper to condemn Iraq for hitting Iran hard when the US disliked Iran more than they disliked Iraq.
Just one observation: nobody had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight when they were trying to create a Iran-Iraq War policy. There was a very good argument that letting either nation win that war would have destabilizing consequences throughtout the region and world. As we know “destabilizing” is the one thing everyone in power hates. But, there is a good reason, regional war is one consequence of instability.
So, if the idea was to have a schitzophrenic policy to make sure neither side won the war, mission accomplished.
On the chemical weapons thing, I don’t really care much. Bioweapons and nukes are what scare me. I can’t catch VX from someone.
I should clarify that.
Let me temper that statement: I don’t care if the Iraqis were condemned by the Security Council for using chemical weapons in their war with Iran. The gassing of the Kurdish civilians, to me, is more significant. I understand that using chemical weapons in war is a violation of some treaties, but it has been a part of warfare since WWI. Since the Iranians gassed the Iraqis, and vice versa, it was a ‘paradigm shift’* from anything I’m used to.
*I hate it too. Used for humor. I’m saying that once the gloves come off on both sides of a military conflict, it is a far different situation than gassing civilians.
In WWI, there were no treaties prohibiting chemical warfare. That being said, only powerless nations have the luxury of consistent international politics. One sure way to tell that a nation has no political clout is if it is able to consistently take the moral high ground.
Does the Bahamas have a biotech industry and a good relocation service?
Beagle, Dogface:
I guess your sentiments also applies to the British bombing of Iraqi kurds with mustard gas back in the days when the “gloves were off”.
Some years before, britain’s war secretary at the time Winston Churchill, had proclaimed: “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.”
So is it your position that there never can be peace in Northern Ireland because, in the past, all of the parties there took positions and espoused views antithetical to peace?
Because, you know, if different leaders 17 years ago said something different, you are bound to that for all time. Pretty soon, people in the US are going to wake up and realize that it was hypocritical and wrong for the US to outlaw slavery, because the Founding Fathers approved of it.
Sua
I thought I was pretty clear that bombing civilian targets, no matter what the ordinance, is not a legitimate way to wage war.
Didn’t both Iraq and Iran use gas on each other? I’m for punishing whoever ordered that. One or more may already be dead. But, gassing civilians, IMO still, is a different and worse crime.
I guess my real objection, which I should have made clear is:
Why should US policy in Iraq during the disco and punk eras affect everything we do now? I’m always foggy on that one.
Dunno about punk, but we should be continually punished for disco.
Sua
Keeping in mind that the UN Security Council never issues a resolution unless the US allows it, I offer the following:
Resolution 540; October, 1983:
Resolution 582; February, 1986:
Note that this was one month before the letter in question.
Resolution 588; October, 1986:
Resolution 598; July, 1987:
So, why did the US oppose the letter in question? I don’t know for certain, but if you read the letter it seems to single Iraq out for condemnation and the US probably wanted Iraq and Iran to be condemned equally.
I hope this is a somewhat fairer picture than that painted by the site in the OP.
SuaSponte I didn’t mean that at all. What I meant by taking the gloss off was that it looked like a example of the US dealing with real Politik and not the over emotional crap that is being thrown around at the moment.
zigaretten thanks for that link.
Different people, different time. We made mistakes; I do not agree with the Cold War policy of propping up dictators. I, however, have the knowledge that the USSSR was crumbling from day 1. I will not condemn those who made the choice, but I would not repeat it either.
Regardless, as they say in business, “Past performance is no indicator of future success.”
In other news, the US once supported institutionalized slavery and denied suffrage to women.
Is this the third or fourth time the civilian residents of Baghdad have had the opportunity to go Cruise missile spotting in the rubble of their city since '86 ?
And there’s heavy traffic on the M50 motorway. So what?
zig:
Well, maybe, but, on the other hand, why would should Iran be condemned for the continued use of chemical weapons if it had already stopped using them?
US officials originally denied that Iraq had used chemical weapons at all, laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Iranian military – in part, I suspect, to justify their continued support for the Iraqi regime. To my mind, the key is this passage:
My guess is that the US disagreed with the conclusions of this report issued by the UN’s Secretary General special mission, which investigated the Halabja site and concluded that the gas attack had been instigated by the Iraqis. US intelligence indicated otherwise, or at least so it was reported in the media at the time (YMMV). In addition, of course, it goes without saying that it would be politically inexpedient to provide military support for the Iraqi regime in its war against Iran, on the one hand, and to condemn their conduct of that war in the UN Security Council, on the other.
You may note as well that the wording of 582 does not explicitly lay blame at the feet of either of the two combatants; rather, it simply acknowledges that chemical weapons have been used in the conflict, and “deplores” that usage. After the fact-finding mission returned to point the finger definitively at Iraq, the US balked, claiming that the Iranians had done it instead. (For what it’s worth, the language of 598 does not specifically blame Iraq or Iran for the use of chemical weapons, either.)
All of this, of course, disappears conveniently down the memory hole when it serves the purposes of the US administration to blame Iraq for the attacks; but personally, I see no reason for the US to insist that Iran and Iraq be blamed equally for the use of chemical weapons, when we now know (and they undoubtedly knew, or at least strongly suspected, by March of 1986) that Iraq’s use of those weapons was, at the very least, far more extensive than Iran’s.
Neither do I. Significance?
Actually, it is an example of the Reagan Administration dealing with realpolitik.
But this leads to something I really need some help on. A large chunk of anti-war attitude is focused on the (actual or presumed) motives of the Bushies.
What is the signficance of those motivations? I certainly don’t agree with most of the motivations the Bushies have put out. But I still support the war.
Even if the worst of the alleged motives are true and the whole reason for this war is to make profits for American oil companies, so what? They will be making profits in a country where 60,000 civilians a year aren’t dying due to sanctions, where 100,000 citizens aren’t being killed by the security forces of the regime, where there are no genocides against the Kurds and the Ma’dan, where the new leaders don’t make or use chemical weapons.
If Hitler rescues a child who wandered into the middle of the street, you don’t kill the child just because Hitler rescued the child was because Hitler thought the child was the epitome of Aryan purity.
Sua
We ‘re talking in this thread about an action, by the US, in March of 1986. The Halabja incident didn’t occur until March of 1988.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear, but that’s the point I was trying to make. The US was happy to support resolutions which condemned both sides for using chemical weapons and only opposed the letter in question because it (the letter) singled Iraq out for condemnation.
I am under the impression that in 1986 the US believed that Iran (as well as Iraq) was using chemical weapons and I am under the further impression that that “belief” is still our position today.
I do not know that Iraq’s use of these weapons was far more extensive than Iran’s. I only know that for the past 12 years or so it has been talked about a great deal more, by both the media and the politicians, for fairly obvious reasons.
How can one be an apologist for chemical weapons one week, and not the next? Especially when we want to make a habit of pulling out statements from that very same time period to denounce the Iraqis. How can it be extremely important to denounce those statements then, but excuseable to not to denounce them when they were made?
Indeed, many of the exact same people were involved in the U.S. gov now as then. They should have denounced the use of those weapons then (and we certainly never should have sent them help on refining those weapons) just as they denounce them now. If their opinions have changed, then they should repudiate them, not beg off on “realpolitik” or even “that was a long time ago.”