A contained rogue elephant, your talking 12 years ago gees
----- Original Message -----
From: "P Boylan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "James Schulte" <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 9:43 PM
Subject: JOHN MARTINSON'S VIEWS


> John:
>
> I agree with much - though perhaps not all - what you say.  (I think you
> are plain wrong about the very genuine efforts made by the National Museum
> staff, and some of the other stories being spread around - not by you -
> suggesting that the staff themselves stole the collections and trashed the
> museum to cover their tracks are beneath contempt.)
>
> However, both Americans and the British (my own nationality) ought to be
> feeling extremely uncomfortable about both the building up and the long
> survival of the Saddam Hussein regime.  When there was the clearest
> possible evidence that he started the Iran - Iraq war which cost over a
> million lives over 8 years our governments both lied and insisted that the
> Iranian "mad mullahs" had made un un provoked attack on our close ally,
> Iraq.
>
> When there was the clearest possible evidence that chemical weapons
> were not only being made with US, German and British technology and
> chemical supplies, and were being used against Iran, with an estimated
> 100,000 killed or permanently disabled by these chemical weapons, our
> governments denied it, even when victims were brought to the West for
> diagnosis and treatment.  Then when "Chemical Ali" killed 5,000 Kurds
> within northern Iraq, again this was vehemently denied by both our
> governments, and serious efforts were made to destroy the reputation of
> the independent Western journalist who visited the site and first reported
> the attack.
>
> Throughout almost two decades our countries supported and supplied Saddam
> Hussein and his regime with both conventional and chemical and biological
> weapon supplies.  Why was the USA so certain that Iraq has weapons grade
> Anthrax?  Because they supplied it.  In the United Kingdom a Government
> Minister finally admitted in Court that he had - in effect - told a
> British company to lie on an export licence in order to get the necessary
> permit to supply prohibited equipment to Iraq.
>
> The final arms delivery from Britain arrived just weeks before the 1990
> invasion of Kuwait and occupation of Western property, particularly the
> oil-fields. Only with that invasion did our two countries finally switch
> their previously unswerving support for Iraq and Saddam Hussein, and
> suddenly "discover" that for eight years or more Iraq had been using
> chemical weapons, and was probably developing biological and nuclear
> weapons as well.   Before that Saddam Hussein and his regime had been
> protected because he was the enemy of the West's then current bogey man,
> Iran. As President Johnson is reported to have said when briefed on the
> gross criminal activities of Gen. Diem and his South Vietnam regime: "Yes,
> he's a son of a bitch, but he's OUR son of a bitch".
>
> I was one of very many around the world that was denouncing Iraq's gross
> violations of international law and of human rights almost 20 years ago,
> so I don't need any lessons or reminders about what the Saddam Hussein
> regime has been up to.
>
> I just think that we British and Americans - along with citizens of quite
> a number of other Western powers - need to show a bit of humility about
> our nations' pretty deplorable history of not just tolerating it, but
> actively supporting and supplying it through the 1970s and 1980s.  Indeed,
> is the recent unique level of hostility to Saddam Hussein (in a world
> where there are quite a lot of other extremely nasty and dangerous people
> and countries), because with the attack on Kuwait he broke away from our
> countries' control and influence and became a dangerous "rogue elephant"?
>
>
>
> Patrick Boylan
>
>

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