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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on April 03, 2004, 11:24:24 am

Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Flipside on April 03, 2004, 11:24:24 am
http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=world&cat=iraq

Don't really know what to say about this one..............

:D
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: an0n on April 03, 2004, 11:31:36 am
*shock*

:blah:
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Gank on April 03, 2004, 11:36:37 am
Wouldnt mind but the brits actually sold the things to Iraq.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: an0n on April 03, 2004, 11:40:46 am
........No, we sold them guns and tanks. The US sold them the chem weapons.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Gank on April 03, 2004, 11:46:05 am
The trailers arent chem weapons, they're for making hydrogen for artillery weather ballons, part of a system sold to Iraq by Marconi in 1987. And you didnt sell guns or tanks, part from that stupid big one and the yanks didnt sell them chemical weapons.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: mikhael on April 03, 2004, 11:50:11 am
Actually, we did sell them chemical and biological weapons AND trained them how to use them AND fed them classified intelligence so they could use them effectively against Iran.

Did you like totally miss the 80s?
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: an0n on April 03, 2004, 11:53:18 am
Well, yes.

I was only 0-5 at the time.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Gank on April 03, 2004, 11:59:11 am
Really? afaik Iraqi weapons were homemade, US only supplied technology relating to their construction, technical diagrams and the like. What weapons did they sell?

As for the 80s, bit young to be worring about this sort of stuff back then, do remember all the fuss about who armed Iraq during the first gulf war though.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: an0n on April 03, 2004, 12:04:01 pm
I remember watching Iraq get its ass kicked day after day and everyone talking about Desert Storm, but that's about it.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: aldo_14 on April 03, 2004, 12:25:17 pm
Quote
Originally posted by mikhael
Actually, we did sell them chemical and biological weapons AND trained them how to use them AND fed them classified intelligence so they could use them effectively against Iran.

Did you like totally miss the 80s?


US (specifically) gave Saddam spy satellite photos of Iranian troop positions, IIRC.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Zeronet on April 03, 2004, 12:47:52 pm
Quote
Originally posted by an0n
........No, we sold them guns and tanks. The US sold them the chem weapons.


Since when were T-72s and AK-74s/42s british exports?
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: karajorma on April 03, 2004, 12:50:39 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Zeronet
Since when were T-72s and AK-74s/42s british exports?


Who said they ONLY bought british?
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: mikhael on April 03, 2004, 12:51:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Gank
Really? afaik Iraqi weapons were homemade, US only supplied technology relating to their construction, technical diagrams and the like. What weapons did they sell?

As for the 80s, bit young to be worring about this sort of stuff back then, do remember all the fuss about who armed Iraq during the first gulf war though.


We gave them chemical and biological weapons in direct violation of certain treaties we were party to at the time. I think someone thought it would be a good way to 'dispose' of them and get use of them at the same time. When you consider that the Reagan/**** administration (though they aren't the first) considered Ayatollah Khomeni a huge threat to US (and British) interests in the reason (remember, he took over from the Shah, who the British--or was it the US, I can't recall--installed in place of the "dangerous" socialist--though democratically elected--government of Iran), its not surprising that the Reagan/**** administration handed Hussein the weaponry, training and intelligence. If they hadn't, Iraq would have lost the Iran/Iraq war, and we'd have had to deal with larger Islamic fundamentalist theocracy.

All in all, I think we would have done better to let the Ayatollah stomp Iraq. The Iranians have mellowed over the years and are actually more progressive than our "friends" the Saudis and the like. Besides, had we not interfered in Iraq (over and over and over), we'd likely have a hell of a lot more good will in the region.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: karajorma on April 03, 2004, 01:10:28 pm
It was the Americans who installed the Shah. That's the main reason that they started hating America in the first place.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: aldo_14 on April 03, 2004, 04:39:56 pm
Quote
Originally posted by mikhael

All in all, I think we would have done better to let the Ayatollah stomp Iraq. The Iranians have mellowed over the years and are actually more progressive than our "friends" the Saudis and the like. Besides, had we not interfered in Iraq (over and over and over), we'd likely have a hell of a lot more good will in the region.


Clerics are pretty much blocking the reformists in Iran, tho (such as barring reformist candidiates from standing in the last election, IIRC)... but there is, from a very outside perspective, a proper reformist opposition forming there to the hardliners.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: karajorma on April 03, 2004, 04:52:28 pm
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
Clerics are pretty much blocking the reformists in Iran, tho (such as barring reformist candidiates from standing in the last election, IIRC)... but there is, from a very outside perspective, a proper reformist opposition forming there to the hardliners.


The theocracy only gained power cause of the whole overthow of the goverment/installation of the Shah so had america not meddled they wouldn't have had the power to make that necessary.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: an0n on April 03, 2004, 04:54:16 pm
No middle-eastern country has yet approached the levels of barbarism which were the fundamental foundations of such collosal ****-ups as the Spanish Inquisition and/or medieval England.

They may be ****ed up, be we were more ****ed-up, for longer, long before they arrived on the scene! :p
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 03, 2004, 04:54:29 pm
Which is one up on rest of the region, which seems to be getting more conservative day by day.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Rictor on April 03, 2004, 05:02:28 pm
If Mossadegh had never been overthrown in Iran, the Middle East would an altogether different place than it is today. There would have been no need to support Saddam to fight Iran, and he would have likely lost by popular vote or been overthrown by now. Well, thats what you get for medelling.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Carl on April 03, 2004, 05:04:25 pm
yay! another one of these threads!
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Ace on April 03, 2004, 05:09:55 pm
Saddam would most likely still be in power in that situation, but a minor dictator.

He very well might have still invaded Kuwait (to gain the seaports) and then be condemned by the US/Saudi Arabia/Iran.

Most likely ****#1 still wouldn't have disposed of Saddam and this second war would still have occured.

It'd be a less messy middle east, a very different one, but many things would still be the same. (The existance of Al Qaida, etc.)

However, this is all hypothetical since I don't happen to have any books on psychohistory, and neither does anyone else :)
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: mikhael on April 03, 2004, 10:36:11 pm
I don't think Saddam would have still been in power. Iran would have rolled over Iraq without US help. They had, at the outset, superior numbers and superior hardware. US intervention "fixed" that.

We make a lot of bad choices when we decide to intervene in various places. We screwed up with Chile, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Beirut (the second time, not the first, though in reality the second time might have been necessary because of the first), Korea, Vietnam... I'm not saying we should be isolationist, but I think somewhere along the line, somebody should have stood up and laid the pimp-hand down on a couple of presidents and presidents' advisors.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Taristin on April 03, 2004, 10:41:53 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Carl
yay! another one of these threads!


*does the happy dance*
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Gank on April 04, 2004, 06:50:57 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040404/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_23

Looks like things are getting a bit heated over there. If the shi'ites start fighting the americans things will get nasty real quick.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Zeronet on April 04, 2004, 06:54:57 pm
Mad dogs are nasty, i just hope everything calms down, quick.
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Kamikaze on April 04, 2004, 07:10:57 pm
Quote

Posted by Somebody

****


WTF? Shrub's filtered out?
Title: Errrrrr...... Ooooops!
Post by: Gank on April 04, 2004, 07:20:26 pm
Aye but **** isnt :confused: