| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"disseminator" |
| Date: |
21 Dec 2004 06:45:58 PM |
| Object: |
Saint Churchill 1st to Gas Kurds - Our SOB Saddam was 2nd |
from: The Toronto Sun
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/home.html
Sun, December 19, 2004
West has bloodied hands
By Eric Margolis
Who was the first high government official to authorize use of
mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq?
If your answer was Saddam Hussein's cousin, the notorious "Chemical
Ali" -- aka Ali Hassan al-Majid -- you're wrong.
The correct answer: Sainted Winston Churchill. As colonial secretary
and secretary for war and air, he authorized the RAF in the 1920s to
routinely use mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in
Iraq and against Pashtun tribes on British India's northwest frontier.
Iraq's U.S.-installed regime has just announced al-Majid, one of
Saddam's most brutal henchmen, will stand trial next week for war
crimes.
Al-Majid is accused of ordering the 1988 gassing of Kurds at Halabja
that killed over 5,000 civilians. He led the bloody suppression of
Iraq's Shias, killing tens of thousands. These were the same Shias
whom former U.S. president George Bush called to rebel against
Saddam's regime, then sat back and did nothing while they were
crushed.
The Halabja atrocity remains murky. The CIA's former Iraq desk chief
claims Kurds who died at Halabja were killed by cyanide gas, not
nerve gas, as is generally believed.
At the time, Iraq and Iran were locked in the ferocious last battles
of their eight-year war. Halabja was caught between the two armies
that were exchanging salvos of regular and chemical munitions. Only
Iran had cyanide gas. If the CIA official is correct, the Kurds were
accidentally killed by Iran, not Iraq.
But it's also possible al-Majid ordered an attack. Kurds in that
region had rebelled against Iraq and opened the way for invading
Iranian forces.
What's the difference between the U.S. destroying the rebellious
Iraqi city of Fallujah and Saddam destroying rebellious Halabja? What
difference does it make if you're killed by poison gas, artillery or
2,000-pound bombs?
"Chemical Ali" was a brute of the worst kind in a regime filled with
sadists. I personally experienced the terror of Saddam's sinister
regime over 25 years, culminating in threats to hang me as a spy.
Saddam Hussein and his entourage should face justice. But not in
political show trials just before U.S.-"guided" Iraqi elections nor
in Iraqi kangaroo courts. They should be sent to the UN's war crimes
tribunal in The Hague, where Saddam should be charged with the
greatest crime he committed -- the invasion of Iran, which caused
one million casualties.
Britain, the U.S., Kuwait and Saudi Arabia convinced Iraq to invade
Iran, then covertly supplied Saddam with money, arms, intelligence,
and advisers. Meanwhile, Israel secretly supplied Iran with $5
billion US in American arms and spare parts while publicly denouncing
Iran for terrorism.
Up to their ears
Who supplied "Chemical Ali" with his mustard and nerve gas? Why, the
West, of course. In late 1990, I discovered four British technicians
in Baghdad who told me they had been "seconded" to Iraq by Britain's
ministry of defence and MI6 intelligence to make chemical and
biological weapons, including anthrax, Q-fever and plague, at a
secret laboratory at Salman Pak.
The Reagan administration and Thatcher government were up to their
ears in backing Iraq's aggression, apparently with the intention to
overthrow Iran's Islamic government and seize its oil. Italy,
Germany, France, South Africa, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Chile
and the USSR all aided Saddam's war effort against Iran, which was
even more a victim of naked aggression than was Kuwait in 1991.
I'd argue senior officials of those nations that abetted Saddam's
aggression against Iran and supplied him with chemicals and gas
should also stand trial with Ali and Saddam.
What an irony it is to see U.S. forces in Iraq now behaving with much
the same punitive ferocity as Saddam's army and police -- bombing
rebellious cities, arresting thousands, terrorizing innocent
civilians, torturing captives and sending in tanks to crush
resistance.
In other words, Saddamism without Saddam. A decade ago, this column
predicted that when the U.S. finally overthrew Saddam, it would need
to find a new Saddam.
Finally, let's not forget that when Saddam's regime committed many of
its worst atrocities against rebellious Kurds and Shiites, it was
still a close ally of Washington and London. The West paid for and
supplied Saddam's bullets, tanks, gas and germs. He was our regional
SOB.
Our hands are very far from clean.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/
Eric_Margolis/2004/12/19/790077.html
--
http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.amconmag.com/
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
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| User: "Docky Wocky" |
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| Title: Re: Saint Churchill 1st to Gas Kurds - Our SOB Saddam was 2nd |
21 Dec 2004 10:37:22 PM |
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disseminator sez:
"Who supplied "Chemical Ali" with his mustard and nerve gas? Why, the
West, of course. In late 1990, I discovered four British technicians
in Baghdad who told me they had been "seconded" to Iraq by Britain's
ministry of defence and MI6 intelligence to make chemical and
biological weapons, including anthrax, Q-fever and plague, at a
secret laboratory at Salman Pak..."
________________________________
Amazing how those British mil technicians working for MI6 blab to anyone
they meet in places like Baghdad, ain't it?
.
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| User: "disseminator" |
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| Title: Re: Saint Churchill 1st to Gas Kurds - Our SOB Saddam was 2nd |
22 Dec 2004 06:59:39 PM |
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"Docky Wocky" <mrchuck@lst.net> wrote in news:6S6yd.4202$hc7.210@trnddc06:
disseminator sez:
"Who supplied "Chemical Ali" with his mustard and nerve gas? Why, the
West, of course. In late 1990, I discovered four British technicians
in Baghdad who told me they had been "seconded" to Iraq by Britain's
ministry of defence and MI6 intelligence to make chemical and
biological weapons, including anthrax, Q-fever and plague, at a
secret laboratory at Salman Pak..."
________________________________
Amazing how those British mil technicians working for MI6 blab to
anyone they meet in places like Baghdad, ain't it?
Eric Margolis seems pretty well connected to folks
in the know. I've gotten plenty of insight from
everything that I've read by him.
Even without this article it has never been a secret
that the West enabled Saddam for his poison gas war
against Iran. It was "Frontline", I believe, who recently
documented how the US got Saddam started in bio-weapons
development.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis
/2004/12/19/790077.html
--
http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.amconmag.com/
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
.
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