What is the best way to deal with suicide bombers?

No.

The brief period during which the US aided the Iraqis against Iran, mainly with intelligence, came during the late '80s, when Iraq appeared to be the verge of a catastrophic defeat. The Israelis bombed the Osirac reactor in 1981.

I am not aware that the US sold helicopters to Iraq. Please provide a link or other evidence to that effect. Of course, in the case of helicopters, there were other potential sources for Iraq.

The chart I've attached depicts the total proportion of US arms aid to Iraq from the period 1973-2002. The US contribution comes to around 1%. 57% came from Russia/USSR. Another 25% from France and China.

 

Oh my God...ALERT THE PRESSES!...Mondo Makes some sense! However, since my wife is involved with the Isreali government, I can only respond with this....they CONSIDER themselves to be a "theocracy". You are right about Iran being a true theocracy. But in Israel, the term has a different meaning. Semantics only. Shabbat (sabbath) is a national day of worship. As are the High Holy Days. Citizenship is based on Judaism (as far as immigration laws). Etc.

No, Israel is not like Iran. But it is not like the US either. It is the Jewish Homeland. And while they have no clear constitutional declaration of theology (they, for all real purposes have no constitution ... not in the sense the US does), their reason to be is as a theocratic nation. Which does not exactly translate to a theocratic government. Which works out fine. Arab women who are citizens of Israel are the only Arab (Muslim) women who have the right to vote in the middle east.

All true!

Hey alfonso, you are catching on (not)!!!! Yes, of course they are cowards! Unless you believe suicide is an act of courage, in which case we have no base line for discussion.

These are pathetic "freedom fighters" (to really give the term a bad name) who haven't the guts to actually fight and live to fight another day. Who haven't the drive to achieve success to provide for their families. Easier to go out as a "martyr" and go to the "paradise" they have been brainwashed into believing in, and at the same time provide for their families' some assistance to their meager financial needs.

When Arafat himself or Saddam, or any leader becomes a suicide bomber, then we can discuss this from a different perspective. Of course, this will never ever happen. These "brave leaders" send others to their deaths. Their family receives a small stipend, and the leaders count their billions of dollars. What a way to achieve your ends.

Truly Sickening!

 

Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.


...

The U.S. tilt toward Iraq was enshrined in National Security Decision Directive 114 of Nov. 26, 1983, one of the few important Reagan era foreign policy decisions that still remains classified. According to former U.S. officials, the directive stated that the United States would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran.

"US Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup"
Michael Dobbs

Washington Post 12.30.02



U.S. officials insisted in 1989, for instance, on playing down the importance of a scandal involving an Atlanta-based bank and more than $5 billion in unauthorized loans to Iraq, including $900 million guaranteed by the U.S. government. They even intervened in the case to prevent indictment of the Central Bank of Iraq while the Persian Gulf War was raging.

Despite stiff opposition from some officials inside the administration, senior policymakers pushed ahead with $1 billion in fresh agricultural credits for Iraq under a Commodity Credit Corp. program. They also pressed for continued Export-Import Bank financing despite congressional sanctions and kept sharing intelligence information with Baghdad until a few weeks before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

"Gonzalez's Iraq Expose"
George Lardner

Washington Post article archived by FAS

 

Just did a Google search and one of the first pages I found was this: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm

 

KymarFye:` I am not aware that the US sold helicopters to Iraq.´

of course not - because the USA´s only export items are "freedom" and "democracy"


Most glaring is that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq as the 1984 UN report was issued and said nothing about the allegations of chemical weapons use, despite State Department “evidence.” On the contrary, The New York Times reported from Baghdad on March 29, 1984, “American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.”

A month and a half later, in May 1984, Donald Rumsfeld resigned. In November of that year, full diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US were fully restored. Two years later, in an article about Rumsfeld’s aspirations to run for the 1988 Republican Presidential nomination, the Chicago Tribune Magazine listed among Rumsfeld’s achievements helping to “reopen U.S. relations with Iraq.” The Tribune failed to mention that this help came at a time when, according to the US State Department, Iraq was actively using chemical weapons.

Throughout the period that Rumsfeld was Reagan’s Middle East envoy, Iraq was frantically purchasing hardware from American firms, empowered by the White House to sell. The buying frenzy began immediately after Iraq was removed from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism in 1982. According to a February 13, 1991 Los Angeles Times article:

"First on Hussein's shopping list was helicopters -- he bought 60 Hughes helicopters and trainers with little notice. However, a second order of 10 twin-engine Bell "Huey" helicopters, like those used to carry combat troops in Vietnam, prompted congressional opposition in August, 1983... Nonetheless, the sale was approved."

In 1984, according to The LA Times, the State Department—in the name of “increased American penetration of the extremely competitive civilian aircraft market”—pushed through the sale of 45 Bell 214ST helicopters to Iraq. The helicopters, worth some $200 million, were originally designed for military purposes. The New York Times later reported that Saddam “transferred many, if not all [of these helicopters] to his military."

In 1988, Saddam’s forces attacked Kurdish civilians with poisonous gas from Iraqi helicopters and planes. U.S. intelligence sources told The LA Times in 1991, they “believe that the American-built helicopters were among those dropping the deadly bombs.”

 

rs7, I was responding to the suggestion that Arab's rhetoric far outweighs their willingness to fight.

Surely someone willing to give his life is an act of immense courage.

I don't think that's even debatable.

Certainly we may find such acts utterly deplorable, but we should not let these emotions cloud our judgements about the committment of these people to their cause. (whatever we may think of that cause.)

 

Alfonso:

posting sh*t on elite trader is not the solution to your problems.

You should go to a psychiatrist because you have a big fat pathological case of inferiority complex.

Maybe you have been raised to believe that argentina is a developed, civilized country, but the truth is argentina is not only among all the pathetic miserable 3rd world countries, it is the most stunning riches to rags story, because at the beginning of the 20th century it was among the 10-20 richest countries, 100 years later it's among the poorest.

So it is laughable that pathetic failures like you criticize America, and you better spend your time fixing things in your own country, and please, channel your jealousy towards a truly 1st class country somewhere else.

Maybe you feel like venting some of that humiliation your people endured during the (british) Falklands war, but this is not the place.

 

Actually Buzz, I'm all too aware of Argentina's story. I'm not wearing any blinkers in regard to that, I can assure you.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, Argentina's problems, government actions -- be they corruption or whatever -- tend to affect people in Argentina.

US government decisions, on the other hand, tend to have dire consequances for people on Planet Earth.

That's my gripe.

If you happen to think it's "sh*t" (just have the fucking guts to say the damn word!), I welcome you to refute it. (With something more substantive than "Alfonso, you suck man...guf guf guf guf")

 

So the US government should be unconcerned by attacks like 9/11, or the fact that an oil billionaire tyrant in Iraq has the power and the means to kill Americans?

What a f*cking idiot.

 

The "power to kill Americans" alone is justification for a war?

The fact that no plans to actually do so have yet been (or will they ever be, it seems) uncovered; that no links to Al-Q have yet been (or will ever be, it seems) demonstrated, is inconsequential to you?

What a fUcking idiot.