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Old 12-27-2003, 11:57 AM   #1 (permalink)
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He lied

They tried to impeach Bill Clinton for having sex in the white house becuz he lied...does the fact that George Bush lied about Iraq trying to obtain uranium to show WMDs exist have any merit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...r=emailarticle
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Old 12-27-2003, 12:15 PM   #2 (permalink)
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The offense was that Clinton lied under oath, thus commiting purgery. Bush lies through his teeth, but not yet under oath.
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Old 12-27-2003, 12:17 PM   #3 (permalink)
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It depends on what the meaning of "IS" is.....

Really, Clinton said something he knew to be false, in a court proceeding, while under oath.

Bush repeated intelligence that at worst, he knew to be suspect, but you can't say that he actually knew it to be false. Intelligence analysts always hedge any information they impart, much like economic advisers.
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Old 12-27-2003, 01:50 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Man when is that meme going to disappear? Clinton was not impeached for sex, but for lying under oath. Gheee whizzzzzz. Learn your facts before you start shouting.
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Old 12-27-2003, 01:58 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Politics is about splitting hairs.
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Old 12-27-2003, 06:00 PM   #6 (permalink)
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For lying under oath.....the president of the United states is under oath all the gosh darn time....but still he lied.
Why is he allowed to do this?
Endymon32 don't you want to know why he made this stuff and why he needed to in order to attack a country?
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0350/mondo2.php
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Old 12-27-2003, 06:06 PM   #7 (permalink)
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No the president is not under oath all the time. I dont know what you mean with your last sentence. Can you clarify it for me, please? Thanks.
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Old 12-27-2003, 06:28 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Since i sometimes have a hard time explaining myself (just ask my girlfriend) i found some info on website that is talking about what i am trying to get across. So instead of plagarising it i thought i would site it.

The following is from here:
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/howtoimpeach.html

'Making statements about sexual affairs in sleazeball investigations is not a duty of the President. Yet, when President Clinton lied about a sexual affair, he was impeached
.
On the other hand, the State of the Union IS a presidential duty. In fact, it says so in the Constitution
:
Article 2, Section 3
Duties of the President
He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union...

Bush blatantly lied while performing this duty.

So now we'll see...is lying to Paula Jones' attorneys an impeachable offense, but lying to Congress and the American people, while performing one of the few explicitly enumerated duties of the president, in order to build support for a war on false pretenses is NOT an impeachable offense?

But he wasn't under oath...

unless you count the "I do solemly swear to faithfully execute the duties..." part of the swearing in ceremony...)

Yes, he was under oath

As you noted, it was the Oath of Office. '
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Old 12-27-2003, 06:52 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Interesting point, mrbuck12000...


I will have to consider this most carefully.
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Old 12-27-2003, 07:26 PM   #10 (permalink)
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That's a perspective I haven't heard before, mrbuck12000. Of course, it comes down to what you can prove to a majority of the House of Representatives, a legislative body so "whipped" by party leadership that it doesn't have a thought in it's head that wasn't put there by DeLay.
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Old 12-28-2003, 03:09 AM   #11 (permalink)
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This all boils down to the definition of lying. Are you lying when something *might* be false? And if you know it might be?

Lying, like everything on this planet, isn't a pretty black/white thing. Ex: If I told you that the earth was flat, I'd be lying. However, 400 years ago, I'd be telling the "truth" with that same statement, simply because nobody would have known it was a lie, including me...
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Old 12-28-2003, 03:32 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlich
This all boils down to the definition of lying. Are you lying when something *might* be false? And if you know it might be?

Lying, like everything on this planet, isn't a pretty black/white thing. Ex: If I told you that the earth was flat, I'd be lying. However, 400 years ago, I'd be telling the "truth" with that same statement, simply because nobody would have known it was a lie, including me...
I think that lying does include making statements one believes or suspects are false.

Rather, lying depends on one's intent. If you want to convince someone of your point or to take a course of action they might otherwise not do, then using information you suspect is false or intentionally refusing to research the claim (that is, "don't tell me if you find out this is wrong so my conscious can stay in the clear") is dishonest behavior.

Using your flat earth example:

If you don't know the world is round, then you are just wrong when you say it's flat. If you suspect, or if someone tells you, that it's round and you continue to claim that all known evidence points to the fact that it's flat, then you are being dishonest.

Worse, if you realize you are wrong but want to tell people the original claim, stating something like, "We have a report from our friends in Italy that says the earth is flat" is definately dishonesty even if you then claim, "well, we never said it was flat, they told us it was flat and we just relayed the information."

Last edited by smooth; 12-28-2003 at 03:37 AM..
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Old 12-28-2003, 04:17 AM   #13 (permalink)
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Ah, but Smooth... do you *know* that Bush knew/suspected the claims were false? You just assume that he knew, even though many people around the world assume, nay, know, that he's the dumbest person alive...

Until we can magically read his mind, we cannot know if Bush knows *anything*, and we cannot say for certain that he lied.
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Old 12-28-2003, 04:32 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlich
Ah, but Smooth... do you *know* that Bush knew/suspected the claims were false? You just assume that he knew, even though many people around the world assume, nay, know, that he's the dumbest person alive...

Until we can magically read his mind, we cannot know if Bush knows *anything*, and we cannot say for certain that he lied.
I was mainly answering your question as to what I thought constituted dishonesty.

In regards to Bush and Co., I can't magically read minds but I can draw inferences from the information that the media has given to the public.

The first piece of info is that the claims were researched by US intelligence officials and reported as false.

Secondly, references to our investigation were removed and the information gained was ignored. I read from a couple of sources that officials were pressured into finding what was already suspected. I doubt it was in the form of overt manipulation. More likely, revise and resubmit was the response and people became aware of what was needed or desired and wrote their reports accordingly. I wouldn't be surprised to find the best team players are the ones who will or have been promoted. Again, not due to some conspiracy, but rather due to the fact that people who were team players appeared to be the most efficient and knowledgable workers--even though they drew erroneous conclusions.

Thirdly, Bush claimed his information came from British intelligence rather than us, even though our own investigation had rejected it and British officials had seriously began questioning their information.

I think I can reasonably infer that Bush suspected or knew that the claim was tenuous, at best, and more likely than not to be false. In order to appease his conscious and/or the legalalities of any erroneous claims he made, he placed the source of his claim on a foreign agency instead of our own agencies.

I haven't heard anything else besides the fact that State of the Union addresses are the most carefully vetted speeches--from both liberal and conservative sources. I recognize that Bush certainly had motive to present this evidence even if he felt is wasn't entirely justified.

All of this leads me to believe that he was being dishonest. While I may not know if I certainly can suspect it and vote accordingly. No one can know what others think and do, anyway, and our jury system is built on the premise that we will make the best judgement in response to the available data. I'm disturbed that processes to ascertain exactly what everyone knew and didn't know are being hindered.

I am not one of the people who claim Bush is moronic--but I do claim that he isn't concerned or empathetic with my needs and concerns. I claim that he is more concerned with serving the interests of the wealthy individuals and corporations in my country than what I consider to be more important to social welfare. The legitimacy of the top slot in my government's structure is one of those elements of social welfare I am increasingly concerned about.
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Last edited by smooth; 12-28-2003 at 04:40 AM..
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Old 12-28-2003, 09:01 AM   #15 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by mrbuck12000
Since i sometimes have a hard time explaining myself (just ask my girlfriend) i found some info on website that is talking about what i am trying to get across. So instead of plagarising it i thought i would site it.

The following is from here:
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/howtoimpeach.html

'Making statements about sexual affairs in sleazeball investigations is not a duty of the President. Yet, when President Clinton lied about a sexual affair, he was impeached
.
On the other hand, the State of the Union IS a presidential duty. In fact, it says so in the Constitution
:
Article 2, Section 3
Duties of the President
He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union...

Bush blatantly lied while performing this duty.

So now we'll see...is lying to Paula Jones' attorneys an impeachable offense, but lying to Congress and the American people, while performing one of the few explicitly enumerated duties of the president, in order to build support for a war on false pretenses is NOT an impeachable offense?

But he wasn't under oath...

unless you count the "I do solemly swear to faithfully execute the duties..." part of the swearing in ceremony...)

Yes, he was under oath

As you noted, it was the Oath of Office. '
Too bad that information that Bush used has already passed the Senate house of intellegence committee three times ( which was populated by 51% democrates) so Bush was acting on intellegence that was scrutinized THREE times and passed to the president by normal channels.
Twice it was cleared and once used by Cinton. So you can not say Bush lied. The information was given to him in good faith. So no lie was committed, unless you wish to say that there was a senate conspiracy of both rebupblicans and democrates to make BOTH Clinton and Bush look bad.

This is another meme based in poorly understood information.
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Old 12-28-2003, 10:45 AM   #16 (permalink)
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There's not get too far away from the basic facts.

UN investigations found no weapons.

No weapons have been found even now.

Top intelligence sources told the UK and the US that Iraq probably had no WMD, and if they did they were very unlikely to have used them.

Bush may have the excuse that he could not have known for certain the WMD did not exist, but everything indicated to them they did not, and he told the American people he believed that they did. Either he is stupid (ie - he believed something that was wrong and he ought to have known was wrong) or he intentionally mislead America.

I say "Shame on Bush, Shame on You!"
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Old 12-28-2003, 10:52 AM   #17 (permalink)
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lets review the facts shall we, for the upteenth time

Saddam killed three million people.

He invaded a neigbhbor, and had plans to invade another.

He failed.

He signed a treaty that said he had to provide proof that he destroyed his WMD, and if he didnt, we could remove him.

He played games with inspectors for 12 years.

We asked him to surrender, he didnt


We took him out.

And we found biological weapons in his secrect espionage hideouts.


I say, shame on the UN.

I say, good for you Bush.
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Old 12-28-2003, 10:57 AM   #18 (permalink)
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The invasion of Kuwait was actually provoked by Kuwait cross drilling into neutral territory between the two countries if I remember. The Kuwaiti government is also undemocratic and resposnible for many human rights abuses.

More Iraqi's where killed by UN sanctions than Hussain, although I agree and have never denied Hussain was a butcher and America should have helped his people remove him a long time ago.

No weapons were found, only certain materials that COULD have been part of a weapons programme and which Iraq was forbidden to have - this is not the same as finding biological weapons.
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Old 12-28-2003, 10:58 AM   #19 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Strange Famous

No weapons were found, only certain materials that COULD have been part of a weapons programme and which Iraq was forbidden to have - this is not the same as finding biological weapons.
Once again, legally it is the same.
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Old 12-28-2003, 11:01 AM   #20 (permalink)
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Legally it may be, in terms of Bush's and Blair's statements to the people it is very different.
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Old 12-28-2003, 11:04 AM   #21 (permalink)
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You need to separate the actions of a country from the rhetoric used to justify those actions.
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Old 12-28-2003, 05:27 PM   #22 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Strange Famous
The invasion of Kuwait was actually provoked by Kuwait cross drilling into neutral territory between the two countries if I remember. The Kuwaiti government is also undemocratic and resposnible for many human rights abuses.

The Kuwaiti government is a constitutional monarcy. Same as Britian, They have a king, and a prime minister and a parliament of elected officials. So you are wrong,,,again. So you are saying that if there is a dispute among nations, war is justified? We can invade Canada cause they sold us Mad Cows? Why did Saddam not take his grievence to the UN? You live in a scary world.

Quote:
[More Iraqi's where killed by UN sanctions than Hussain, although I agree and have never denied Hussain was a butcher and America should have helped his people remove him a long time ago.
You are forgetting that Saddam bought medicine and food from the US in exchange for oil. He also choose to buy WEAPONS from France, CHina, Russian and Germany. This is why his people starved. They starved cause the UN failed Iraq, and three security council members bypassed their own resolutions and enabled Saddam to starve his people. I told you this numerous times and still you fail to see truth. You clearly dont wish to see the truth.
You leave out the fact that England and the US sold medicine and food to Saddam, and his people still starved. And then you blam the US for doing what it was supposed to do.


Quote:
[No weapons were found, only certain materials that COULD have been part of a weapons programme and which Iraq was forbidden to have - this is not the same as finding biological weapons.
Yet again, can you please tell me what purpose Crimean Congo Hemmorage Fever could possibly serve? Your adamant denial of the facts is scary.
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Old 12-28-2003, 05:51 PM   #23 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by rogue49
Politics is about splitting hairs.
i Guees rogue pretty much has summed this discussion up earlier. Its a he said she said thing....will we ever no, probably not but hopefully the american will decide far and square in the next election.

mr.b
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Old 12-28-2003, 07:00 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Kuwait is a nominal constitutional monarchy.

The prime minister and deputy prime minister are appointed by the monarch, who ascends the throne because of birth.
The current crop of elected officials (about 70%) are all allied as "monarchists"

Formation of political parties is illegal. Suffrage is only to adult males who have been naturalized for 30 years or more. Consequently, only 10% of the nation is eligible to vote.

Human rights
http://web.amnesty.org/web/web.nsf/p...wt-summary-eng
http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast_pub&c=kuwait

Why did Saddam not take his grievance to the UN? Because the UN wanted nothing to do with him because of his gross abuse of human rights. But he did have one friend, the USA. He took his grievance to us.

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html
Quote:
GLASPIE: We have many Americans who would like to see the price go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states.

HUSSEIN: The price at one stage had dropped to $12 a barrel and a reduction in the modest Iraqi budget of $6 billion to $7 billion is a disaster.

GLASPIE: I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?
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Old 12-28-2003, 07:05 PM   #25 (permalink)
This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
 
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Quote:
Yet again, can you please tell me what purpose Crimean Congo Hemmorage Fever could possibly serve? Your adamant denial of the facts is scary.
Wanna provide two sources for this being found right before, during, or after the war?
Can you?
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Old 12-28-2003, 07:07 PM   #26 (permalink)
This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
 
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There is a problem of that over there actually.

http://www.deploymenthealth.mil/depl...ar/crimean.asp

But it is a problem because the Iraqi ticks over there are infected with it.
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Old 12-31-2003, 01:45 AM   #27 (permalink)
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And the other problem is that it was undeclared to the UN, why is that? Out of all the medical research being done in Iraq does this dieasse make it into the Kay report? Remember Kay, a UN weapon's inspector? I assume you think that UN training can distinguish medical research and weapon research?
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Old 01-04-2004, 02:35 PM   #28 (permalink)
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he still lied
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Old 01-04-2004, 02:56 PM   #29 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by silent_jay
he still lied
Agreed.

Quote:
Imagine you’re a freshman Republican congressman who ran on principles of limited government. Imagine there’s a huge vote about to take place in Congress, one with enormous political implications for your party and its leader, the president of the United States. Imagine all of this hinges on a bill your own party drafted, but that happens to stand in direct opposition to everything you believe in. Now imagine that the president himself calls you -- a lowly first-term congressman -- and asks you why you’re not a team player, why you won’t support the prescription drug benefit, the biggest federal entitlement in 40 years. What do you do?

If you’re Florida Rep. Tom Feeney, you say to the president, “I came to Washington to cut entitlements, not to grow them.”

Unfortunately, Feeney’s stand means he’ll get no help from the GOP in his re-election campaign. Too bad. He’s the exact kind of guy the Republican Party needs right now. By the way, after Feeney explained to Bush why he couldn’t support the Medicare bill, the president replied, “Me too, pal,” and hung up on the congressman.
That 'Me too' appears to be a lie as he is spending money like a liberal. Of course the liberals won't give him any credit for it, but thats to be expected, only they are allowed to spend money foolishly
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Old 01-04-2004, 05:53 PM   #30 (permalink)
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Clinton lied and just happened to play hide the cigar tube with monica, oh yeah and he got a little hummer. Bush said Iraq has WMD and they were harbouring al-queda, where are the WMD where's the Al-Quaeda
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Old 01-04-2004, 06:31 PM   #31 (permalink)
Pissing in the cornflakes
 
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Quote:
Originally posted by silent_jay
Clinton lied and just happened to play hide the cigar tube with monica, oh yeah and he got a little hummer. Bush said Iraq has WMD and they were harbouring al-queda, where are the WMD where's the Al-Quaeda
You know as a right winger, I could care less who he got a hummer from. On the other hand Global Crossings, tech trades to communist china, Vince Foster (no I don't think he was murdered, I do think they took records out of his office), travel gate, Somalia, HilaryCare, military gutting, Tyson foods, Cattle futures, and lets not forget the pardons, makes me a bit upset.

Oh and those are just the ones off the top of my head without refreshing my memory from those lovely 8 years.
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Old 01-04-2004, 09:55 PM   #32 (permalink)
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i see your point but as a Canadian we don't have controversial politicians. the worst thing that happened was when Chretien's aide called i can't remember from the US government i think it was dumb.(probably true) that's why i love slick willy.
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Old 01-04-2004, 11:04 PM   #33 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Strange Famous
The invasion of Kuwait was actually provoked by Kuwait cross drilling into neutral territory between the two countries if I remember.
It's kind of hard not to "Cross-drill" when the contents of the natural border of an oil field do not match the borders that we drew over the middle of the field.
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Old 01-05-2004, 04:02 PM   #34 (permalink)
This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
 
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It's not hard to not "cross-drill" when you drill your shaft on an angle so that your shaft extends into your neighbors property to extract oil that could not be extracted by you any other way.
Which was the charge against Kuwait.
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Old 01-05-2004, 08:55 PM   #35 (permalink)
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so was it "neutral territory" or their "neighbors property". And regardless, did that justify - as strange famous would suggest, the gassing of 500,000 (or however many hundreds of thousands) of innocent Kurds. As if either one of them were hurting in their oil supplies - it would require: a)sneakily drilling on an angle and in the event you get caught b) gassing the entire offending country.

Strange Famous, when will you realize that America is not the enemy.
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Old 01-05-2004, 09:49 PM   #36 (permalink)
This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
 
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It wasn't just slant oil drilling.

Both Iraq and Kuwait were being tremendous assholes about it the whole way through.

http://www.serve.com/vitw/pages/why_...de_kuwait.html

Quote:
Why DID Iraq Invade Kuwait? -- A Brief History

By G. Simon Harak, S. J.

Of course it is impossible to undertake a full history of the Middle East, and of U.S. involvement there. So let me present a brief historical sketch which I believe will help our understanding of the Gulf War.[1]

1. Nationalism in the modern sense was largely unknown to the Arab world until the middle twentieth century. The maneuvering of powerful families and the interests of colonial powers often defined spheres of influence. To focus on the area of modern Kuwait, Britain had an agreement from 1899 with the ruling al-Sabah family that they would not cede or sell any territory without British consent. The al-Sabah family, always growing richer, kept trying to play British colonial interests off against the Ottomans, the Saud family to the west, and the provinces of Basra and Baghdad. It had been traditional in the Arab understanding to consider that the territory from Baghdad south to the Gulf (including what is now Kuwait) was "Iraq." The al-Sabah family (of modern Kuwait) wanted to "carve out" from that territory a fiefdom for themselves and their economic activities, free from any outside power -- Arab or colonialist.

2. After WWI, the secret Sikes-Picot agreement divided up the Arab world into "spheres of influence" between England and France. The Arab populaces, recently "liberated" from the domination of the Ottoman Empire by those powers, felt betrayed by this action when they learned of it. It still rankles today. The agreement was given official status by the League of Nations when the provinces of Basra and Baghdad became a British "mandate" (read: colony). Thus in 1922, Sir Percy Cox, Britain's steward in the Gulf, arbitrarily and unilaterally decided to "draw a line in the sand," creating modern Iraq. He made Iraq to include the provinces of Basra and Baghdad, but also included the Kurds to the north (abrogating the 1920 Ottoman-Allies Treaty of Sevres which promised the Kurds independence[2]). The same move "created" Saudi Arabia, and the country of Kuwait. The arrangement favored the free status of the al-Sabah family and deprived Iraq of easy access to the Gulf (the Shatt-al-Arab waterway was shared with Iran), ignoring the traditional understanding of Iraq's extension to the Gulf.

3. Achieving "de jure" independence from England (it was now a British protectorate) in 1932, Iraq tried, in the late 1930s, to "restore" Kuwait to Baghdad. In 1938, the Kuwaiti parliament agreed, voting to reunite with Iraq. The al-Sabah family immediately dissolved the parliament.

4. A sense of Arab nationalism began to grow in the post-WWII decade, evidenced by the nationalist revolution in Iraq in 1958. In 1961, Kuwait became formally independent from England, and the popular Abd al-Karim Qassim renewed Iraq's traditional claim to Kuwait. The British immediately sent its troops to the region and enlisted the help of the Arab League. After Qassim's overthrow and death, Iraq ended its boycott of the Arab League and formally recognized Kuwaiti independence in 1963.

5. But the United States was by then replacing Britain as the outside power acting in the Gulf area. The US power was at its peak after WWII, and it wanted to protect its oil assets. Its overall strategy was the same as England's and France's: keep the political families' sheikdoms, emirates and kingdoms just strong enough to fight with each other, but not strong enough to destabilize the region, or to have any one of them become a unifying force for all Arabs. That way the US could keep overall control of the oil in the area. A problem arose in that strategy when, for example, Iran (which is a Persian, not an Arab country) nationalized its oil companies in 1951. The US-CIA response was to overthrow the elected government of Muhammad Mossadeq, and to replace it with a dictatorship by the Shah.[3]

6. After the 1967 war, the Arab countries again saw themselves betrayed by US-Israeli interests. One result was the rise of militant nationalism in such places as Syria and Iraq. By 1969 the Ba'ath party had risen to power in Iraq. As Iraq became more powerful with its oil revenues, one US-CIA strategy was to arm the Kurds in northern Iraq, to keep Iraq internally weak enough so as to be unable to challenge Iran.

All that changed, of course, when the Shi'a Muslims overthrew the American-supported Shah in 1979. The US now needed a strong Iraq to oppose the newly inimical Iranians, and so (along with much of the West) supported Saddam Hussein in his eight-year (1980-88) war against Iran. The US therefore ignored Iraq's brutalities. One week before the invasion of Kuwait, the Congress sought to place trade restrictions on Iraq for its human rights violations, but Bush refused to go along with it.

7. During the Iran-Iraq war, the al-Sabah family gave some $17 billion to Iraq. It saw the Iranian Shi'a revolution as a threat to itself, and so financed a long-standing Arab-Persian (Iranian) conflict. But it also had established farms and settlements over the Iraqi border. Most important, the al-Sabah family was also drilling in the Rumailah oil field. The Rumailah oil field is 95 percent in Iraq, but the al-Sabah family brought in the most sophisticated American oil-drilling technology to "slant drill" in its 5 percent of Rumailah while the Iraqis were unable to drill during the war (some of my Arabist friends were fairly sure there was an agreement about this: oil for financial backing). It sold that oil, at below OPEC prices, to Japan and the US (Kuwait has always played this role: increasing its sale of oil to the importers in times of crisis). The al-Sabah family by now was unimaginably rich, with an estimated wealth of some 90 billion dollars. They had invested about 50 billion dollars in the stocks of US companies.

8. After the Iran-Iraq war, Hussein was increasingly isolated, politically and economically. He was some 60 billion dollars in debt from the war, and the West had cut off his credits after he had a British reporter executed as a spy. The West was also concerned that its overall strategy would be upset (see par. #5 above), since Iraq now had an army second in power only to Israel in the Middle East.

9. Meanwhile, the al-Sabah family continued to slant-drill, and to sell to the West at below OPEC prices, despite Hussein's actions in the Arab League and protests to OPEC. It continued to deny him access to the Gulf. By now, Hussein was requesting the use of the unpopulated Bubiyan and Warba islands, to avoid having to use Basra on the Shatt-al-Arab, since he shared that waterway to the Gulf with Iran. Finally, the al-Sabah family declared that the $17 billion it had given Hussein was not a gift (or an exchange for the Rumailah oil, see par. #7), but a loan which must be repaid.[4]


10. Hussein therefore began to think about using his armed forces to insist upon resolution of the border and monetary disputes. He threatened to do so about a year before the August 2nd invasion at OPEC and Arab League meetings; hence the now famous meetings with Robert Dole and other US senators[5] in April, 1990 and April Glaspie in July, 1990.


At that July meeting, less than a month before the invasion of Kuwait, Hussein complained that the borders of Kuwait and Iraq were drawn in colonial times, by colonial powers. Glaspie replied, “"We studied history at school. They taught us to say freedom or death. I think you know well that we... have our experience with the colonialists. We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."[6]


Hussein then began to mass troops along the border of Kuwait. The Arabs were concerned, and arranged for a conference at Jidda on July 31st, 1990.[7] According to Jordan's King Hussein, there was a pre-conference, closed door meeting at which the Al-Saud and al-Sabah families agreed to Hussein's terms (in addition to forgiving the debt, they were each to give $10 billion toward the Iraqi war debt). That agreement was then to be "arrived at" in Jidda. But on July 30th, Sheikh Sabeh Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, the brother of the Emir, and foreign minister, was speaking to Jordanian diplomats. He ridiculed the Iraqi forces, and when the Jordanians rebuked him, he said, "If they don't like it, let them occupy our territory ... we are going to bring in the Americans." Again, this was three days before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. At Jidda the next day, he announced to Izzat Ibrahim his intention to offer Saddam Hussein $500,000 (not the $10 billion agreed upon). The meeting broke up after two hours; two days later, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
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Old 01-05-2004, 11:14 PM   #37 (permalink)
Pissing in the cornflakes
 
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Hehe that website is amusing.

Nothing like trying to justify the invasion of Kwait. I wonder if theyalso try to justifiy what Saddams forces DID to the people of Kwait?
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Old 01-06-2004, 04:13 AM   #38 (permalink)
This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
 
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Location: Grantville, Pa
No, because the timeline stops when Iraq invades Kuwait.

That timeline isn't friendly to either side, it accuses both of lies, crimes and outright thuggery.

Do you have some image in your head of Kuwait being some innocent bystander to Saddams ruthless advances?
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Old 01-07-2004, 03:09 AM   #39 (permalink)
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Superbelt, that post is a great summary. People should read up on matters instead of making blanket statments and draw premature conclusions.
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