FLASHBACK - The lies they gave us for the first Gulf War

[clem_c_rock]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html

Not to mention the Gulf of Tonkin, or the 8 step plan to get us involved in WWII

<snippit>
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.

"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.
</snippit>

[FloridaPat]

1. To say nothing of the lady who told congress about the Iraqi

soldiers coming into Kuwait hospitals and trowing the babies from the incubators on the floor. That was a advertising companies story it was found out later.

Then there was the small fact that Sadam actually asked if it was OK to settle the border dispute and the American diplomat said Bush didn't care.

Then there is the aftermath. Originally around 250 soldiers were killed, half by friendly fire. The death toll is now 10,000. Of the 350,000 troops that were over there for the 6 weeks, 150,000 are on disability and another 50,000 have applied.

That war was war crimes against the Iraqis and against US citiziens - the soldiers whose lives have been ruined by republican creeps in the white house.

[clem_c_rock]

2. Yeah - that was a great story

And we always are so ready to buy their stories everytime.

[clem_c_rock]

3. Any takers?

[donkeyotay]

4. It is important to remember that the lies didn't just start

because some people seem to buy the bushshit that although we were lied into Iraq, it was "worth it" and excuse the lies or minimize them as if they were an accident. If one closely examines the media's role in the first Gulf War, it's easy to see that we don't have a free press and aren't going to have one until the 'Mercan people buy a vowel or a clue.

I especially remember how important the fake story about babies being ripped from incubators was to whip up the righteous indignation to lynch mob strength.

[applegrove]

5. I think when Hussein invaded Kuwait it left the door wide open for

all the tools of war in response: propaganda during a war is like a gun.

As too the Bush War propaganda and WMD - they knew they had back up reasons to go to war so it allowed them to 'wish' proof of WMD. Because they had been dealing with Saddam Hussein and had been played by him so they expected him to be lying. But sometimes a psychopath tells the truth. In the end... it will not matter. There is enough horrid stuff that Saddam did (some like invading Iran may have been encouraged by USA and killed I don't know how many) and he committed war crimes that it simply doesn't matter.

I for one would not want to see UN or world law changed so that genocide and human right abuses are not reason for war. Bush and co used the tools of humanists to get the war they needed - and I believe the war was more about hiding their career long mistakes in the Middle East which did nothing but produce well funded Islamist Fundies who wanted to take over the whole Arab countries (not just the mid East but in Asia too).

We simply cannot erase Saddam true crimes. So international law will not be able to call this an unjust war. Manipulators will use your 'human rights tools' against human rights activists. That doesn't mean we throw out the truth or the tools. It means we figure out ways to more clearly define and call out 'made up' reasons in the future. And that we make tools to keep the Kool-Aid drinkers in line. An MRI test would do it very easily I think. It means we have to fight for the UN. It means we have to be on the tail of the new UN ambassador.

The truth is on our side. Humanity does improve itself by upping the norms to higher & higher ideals. We will not let them take that away from us.

[Solon]

6. The thing that kills me is this...

We "saved" an absolute monarchy from a dictatorship, when the dictator in question asked permission from us to invade first. Bush could have said no and avoided the fiasco before it started. Of course they could have also stopped supplying both sides with WMD during the Iran-Iraq war in the '80s. Every time we're involved, things turn to shit, we need to STOP being involved, we're too corrupt for this.

[applegrove]

7. I think the 'stop being involved' in destabilizing anything that hurst

big oil is what is causing peace to break out.

[LynnTheDem]

9. Sorry but you are wrong.

In FACT, international law DOES call this an illegal and unjust war.

You need to learn what the FACTS are on international law, what constitutes legal justification for war, the Geneva Conventions, and the ICRC.

There is NO LAW that says you can invade a nation because of PAST crimes.

As you know perfectly well, the ICRC and the AI and the HRW have already made it clear; Iraq IS NOT a "humanitarian intervention".

Please, explain this to me; if there were NO mass killings going on for several years PRIOR to invasion, and if there were NO imminent threats of such mass killings, how the hell do you call such an invasion a "humanitarian intervention"???

WHAT ARE YOU INTERVENING? Actions done during a war from TWENTY YEARS AGO??? I don't think so. And neither does international law. Neither does the UN.

As for the UN, you do know they already declared bush's invasion of Iraq as being ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW and the UN charter, yes?

Just whose "international law" are you basing your remarks on???

Regardless of what you think should be, the fact is international law does deem bush's invasion of Iraq ILLEGAL and UNJUST.

And that's just FACT.

[LynnTheDem]

8. 7 senators referred to the bogus "babies" story; war approved by 5 votes.

IF the "incubator babies" lie perpretrated by Poppa Bush's Saudi PR firm (same firm Duhhhbya uses) had been discredited in time or IF they hadn't lied in the first place, I very much doubt Gulf War would have happened.

And IF Powell hadn't YET AGAIN LIED (Mai Lai massacre...IraqGate...Iran-Contra) with his "Iraqi troops massed on Saudi border", there is NO WAY the Gulf War would have happened.