It's all adding up to war, isn't it?

[emma5721]

[MystaINCENSE]

Not meaning to trivialise, but

Did you know that Iran is the number one producer of liquorice root in the world?
During the 1990s the US Army Medical Corps did extensive research on Glycerhizin (the active ingredient in liquorice root) and found it to have huge potential regarding cures for AIDS, HIV, Cancer and then later other "modern" plagues such as SARS & Bird Flu

...... now think typical movie style plot (Goldfinger is a perfect example) if the US controlled the majority of raw material source for the world's deadliest contagious disease cures, wouldn't that be a boost for "National Security"

Now take a few steps further east and consider Condo Rice's drum beating about Burma - Burma has some of the largest production areas for rubber. Think about oil, and everything that uses oil (from motors to electricity produced from it) needs rubber at some stage of the distribution or use ...... hmmmm? Food for thought? OK - add in this - Burma and Thailand are long-term mutual aggressors, Thailand is very pro-US militarily, and Burma/Thailand between them have the lions share of global rubber output that is not from Muslim nations. Getting interesting?
Thailand's northeastern neighbours (Laos, Vietnam, China) are communist states - Thailand and the UN would never mandate US military action into those states from Thailand ..... but if the US had already gone into Burma to remove a despotic military regime and secure global rubber interests alongside the massive US tobacco interests already there .......... plots within plots ..... it's well known that China fancies Southern Burma as an Indian Ocean port for it's navy - ooh what an excuse for US intervention?

etc
etc
etc

And all of that before even getting into the long running DEA v CIA secret war in Burma over heroin and methamphetamine prodiction - the more the US DEA based in Thailand tries to stamp it out, the harder the US CIA in Burma facilitates its production - common gossip here in Northern Thailand. A repeat attempt of the British use of opium to undermine the Forbidden Palace a century ago? If so, it shows modern USA isn't as good at such activities as the Victorian British (snigger - couldn't resist the dig).


Going back to Iran - imagine the geo-economics if USA controlled Iraq + Iran. Get the map out and look what's "just" to the north of both - the much disputed Balkans oil fields and transnational pipeline that was blown up recently. Oo-er missus - now it's really getting interesting.

[MadcatwomanEnterprises]

That's food for thought, I hadn't even got as far as thinking about things like that worldwide.

In our politics lectures, we have covered a lot of interventionist stuff like:


Cuba 1963 to present day - US blockades island for 39 years. Numerous assassination attempts against leader. Continued actions condemned by Human Rights Groups and the United Nations General Assembly.

Australia 1973-75 - CIA interferes and manipulates free election process.

Chile 1973 - CIA backed coup ousts elected president, installs military Gen. Pinochet. Decades of human rights abuses follow.

Portugal 1974 - CIA funnels millions to destabilize and sabotage NATO ally.

Angola 1976-92 - CIA assists South Africa-backed rebels.

Afghanistan 1979-82 - US supports, arms, trains Mujahideen rebels including rebel leader Osama Bin Laden.

El Salvador 1980-92 - US aids government condemned for gross human rights violations.

Nicaragua 1981-92 - US directs and illegally supports contra war, mines harbor. Allows open flow of narcotics into US. US actions condemned by the United Nations World Court.

Chad 1982 - US supports overthrow of government. CIA supported secret police kill and torture tens of thousands.

Libya 1982 - USA shoots down 2 Libyan jets.

Honduras 1982 -90 - US builds bases near borders, supports government that uses Death Squads against its citizens.

Lebanon 1982-84 - US bombs and shells Muslim positions, expels PLO from territory.

Grenada 1983-84 - US military invades tiny island. 400 Grenadians killed. "Gross violation" of international law condemned by United Nations.

Iraq 1987-88 - US supports and arms Saddam Hussein's Iraq in war against Iran.

Iran 1988 - US shoots down Iranian passenger airliner, killing 290 civilians. Claims it was an "accident".

Libya 1989 - US bombs capitol Tripoli killing 55 civilians. Calls it "collateral damage".

Philippines 1989 - US supports corrupt government of Ferdinand Marcos against citizen uprising.

Panama 1989 - US invades with 27,000 soldiers. Kills 3000+ Panamanians. Illegal US actions condemned by nearly unanimous United Nations and Organization of American States.

Kuwait 1991 - US invades Middle East, contradicting its position by intervening in inter-Arab affairs. Returns Kuwaiti Monarchy accused of human right abuses to throne.

Iraq 1990 - ?

Bulgaria 1991 - CIA funnels millions to destabilize one of the first freely elected governments.

Somalia 1992-94 - US sends in humanitarian aid. Becomes involved in Civil war, takes sides attacking one Mogadishu faction. 500+ Somalis are killed.

Peru 1992 - 2001 - US provides military support, millions of dollars to corrupt Fujimori government. Drug kingpin Vladimir Montesino on CIA payroll while serving as Intelligence Chief.

Colombia 1992 - present - US supports Colombian military, heavily involved in drug trafficking. 1,640 pounds of cocaine lands in Ft. Lauderdale Florida hidden inside Colombian Air Force cargo plane. Nearly 20,000 people killed by US supported military and para-military so far.

Bosnia 1993 - US naval blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.

Haiti 1994 - US blockades island government, CIA supports military coup to remove elected President Aristide, then forcibly re-installs Aristide as President after he agrees to US conditions of rule.

Sudan 1998 - US bombs Aspirin Factory in Khartoum killing civilian workers.

Afghanistan 1998 - US missiles kill 28 civilians

Yugoslavia 1999 - US laser-guided bombs destroy Chinese Embassy in Belgrade killing three Chinese journalists.

Afghanistan 2001 - ?

Iraq 2003 - ?

****

That doesn't even include the things that the UK are guilty of, such as Falklands conflict, and who can forget the cowardly UK sinking of the General Belgrano?

[MadcatwomanEnterprises]

Forgot to add the UK's biggest travesty this century which was Northern Ireland, with internment and the Maze prison etc being our version of Guantanamo Bay. So I am not anti-US, or anti-UK or whatever, I am anti-governments and politicians playing games with people's lives.

[thisnthatz]

You also forgot the cowardly sinking of the Sir Galahad by the argentines, which left lots of British dead. Oh, and the bombs that terrorists activated in England and the shootings that were conducted at British servicemen by Members of an certain Irish group.

The 1990 war in Iraq, was started by Sadam by invading Kuwait. You know the person, the one now standing trial for war crimes, the same person who gassed all the Kurds and the innocent people living in the marshes in southern Iraq. The one who decimated villages and the population in them as well. Westerners only got involved in 1991, January to be exact when the liberation of Kuwait commenced. Unfortunately the cease-fire came into force in March of 91'. If it hadn't and the war continued perhaps we would not be in the situation we are now in Iraq.

Let us not forget the thousands killed in New York, when those same religious people who are now looking at building a nuclear weapon in Iran, and the people who were innocently murdered by the tube bombers and the one on the bus. I suppose that was the government’s fault as well

If it helps I don't like governments either that go to war under false pretences and I certainly don't agree with the latest Iraq situation. Having 2 sons out there does make me slightly biased. You never know we may have been stood next each other in the anti war demonstration.

Think I’ll stop here and reflect on the lives lost by people who were killed by none government intervention.

[MadcatwomanEnterprises]

The only reason there was a war against Iraq in 1990 was because Iraq had invaded Kuwait. All the previous human rights abuses in Iraq had been cosily ignored by a "civilised" world because they didn't want to sour the multi-billion dollar loans for arms they had sold to Iraq that they were waiting to be paid back.

Post-1990 Iraq war, certain sanctions were put in place to keep Iraq in line. These included shortages of basic medical supplies such as anaesthetic, painkillers, cancer treatments etc. Babies in Iraq were dying because there were no incubators. Adults and the elderly were dying because there was a ban on certain medications. The only reason the people of Iraq got fed was because of the Oil for Food programme, if Iraq hadn't agreed to it, millions of the ordinary men, women and children of the country would have died of starvation. So the West allowed food to go into the country in return for getting our dirty hands on oil. Would that be enough to turn anyone to getting revenge on the West that was causing it? Well, if I had to watch my kids die because of a foreign governments' rules, I would be pretty p***ed off too.

9/11 came about when a bunch of Saudi-Arabians hijacked planes and hit the Twin Towers. Did the West immediately slam the Saudis for it? Nope. Why? Could it be anything to do with the fact that the Saudi's own over 25% of the US economy? Instead, it was suddenly all Afghanistan that was at fault, closely followed by Iraq.

What the leadership of Iraq has done to its own people is disgusting. What the West have done to decimate it is no better. Our hands are as bloody as Saddam's. As you say, Saleman, if it had been all finished properly after Iraq invaded Kuwait, it would have been a lot better than the mess it was left in. It could have been finished then and avoided most of what has happened over the past 15 years. We in the West had a chance to make it right, to stop the human rights abuses that Saddam was causing in Iraq, and we blew it.

Instead, we have armed forces in there fighting to clear the way for companies like Bush's Haliburton to grab multi-billion dollar contracts. It is shabby for us in the West to be risking the lives of our armed forces - someone's son or someone's daughter - just to grab a few contracts and the US$180bn of oil that the West are getting out of it. It's not a true war with a noble cause the way it was after Iraq invaded Kuwait, but it is an economic war, and that is a waste of human life.

[Paulwillhappy]

ITS FARGIN WAR !

http://www.moviequotes.com/repository/titles/76007.html

[razamakaz]

I have a € sign on my keyboard

[cutpricegoodies]

I've got a ¼, ½, ¾, and a ╬ but no Euro

[razamakaz]

It's on the No.4 key, next to the $ sign - you have to use ctl+alt+4 to use it.