[ExI] The Death Toll Imbalance in the Mideast War

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 11/06/2009 10.24, BillK ha scritto:
> On 6/11/09, John Grigg wrote:
>> This is where you and I really part ways.  A people can be *held
>> hostage* by their own government and utterly terrorized.  And in
>> such cases they need to be freed!  If not for the cost in lives
>> and money, I would be very much for an invasion of North Korea.  As
>> the world scratches their head in trying to appease the dictator
>> there, so many of his subjects starve or are imprisoned and
>> killed.

>> We sadly cannot invade everyone, everywhere.  ;  )

> I think Stathis is making the point that many dictatorships were
> created or massively supported by the US under the foreign policy
> that at least dictators were better than communist supporters.
> Supported dictators were, of course, supposed to do as they were
> told by US advisors. Some rebelled and had to be dealt with.

This could be.
But Saddam was never a US supported dictator.
It was a national-socialist dictator supported by USSR mainly.
Iraq was supported by the USSR after the killings of the royal family.
The support continued after Saddam take power in the 1978 and invaded
Iran from September 1980 to August 1988.

Interestingly I just found this allegation on the Wikipedia:
> In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East,
> then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also
> interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green
> light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of
> Jordan."[33] U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski met
> with Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint
> efforts to oppose Iran, Kenneth R. Timmerman and former Iranian
> President Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr. According to Saddam Hussein
> biographer Said Aburish however, at the Amman meeting Saddam Hussein
> met with three CIA agents, not Brzezinski personally.

President Carter was and is a Republican? :-)

> Former Carter official Gary Sick denies that Washington directly
> encouraged Iraq's attack, but instead let "Saddam assume there was a
> U.S. green light because there was no explicit red light."[34]

Ante-litteram Obamian rhetoric? Or classical Democratic rhetoric?

This would also explain because he believed Bush sr. gave him a green 
light to invade Kuwait when the ambassador of the US tell him the 
"confine disputes" with Kuwait were matters between Iraq and Kuwait and 
the US would not interfere.

Mistakes, misunderstanding abound in history.

But returning to the point of Saddam ties with US.

Can we compute "support" on how many weapons were sold to Iraq?
This could place the US very low in the list, USSR, Europe countries and 
east Asia countries would come before.

Iraq tanks were sold by USSR, the same for Iraq air plane; France sold 
air plane and missiles (and nuclear technology); Germany sold the 
technology to produce fertilizers and nerve gas and so on.

> Imported weapons to Iraq (IRQ) in 1973-2002
> Country 		$MM USD 1990 	% Total
> USSR 			25145 		57.26
> France	 	5595 		12.74
> China 		5192 		11.82
> Czechoslovakia 	2880 		06.56
> Poland 		1681 		3.83
> Brazil 		724 		1.65
> Egypt 		568 		1.29
> Romania 		524 		1.19
> Denmark	 	226 		0.51
> Libya 		200 		0.46
> USA 			200 		0.46
> South Africa 		192 		0.44
> Austria 		190 		0.43
> Switzerland 		151 		0.34
> Yugoslavia 		107		0.24
> Germany (FRG) 	84 		0.19
> Italy 		84	 	0.19
> UK 			79 		0.18
> Hungary 		30 		0.07
> Spain 		29	 	0.07
> East Germany (GDR) 	25 		0.06
> Canada 		7 		0.02
> Jordan 		2 		0.005
> Total 		43915	 	100.0

Why no one ever blame Qadaffi for his support to Saddam during the 
Iran-Iraq war? He is on par of the US for weapons sold to Iraq.

Mirco
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