	id AA21816; Sun, 9 Oct 94 20:21:47 CDT
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 37


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2  Num. 37
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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RETROSPECT ON IRAQ vs. U.N. (Round 1)
 
After the smoke had cleared, we last saw the champ strutting off, 
leaving Iraq stretched out flat on the canvas, apparently K.O.ed.
 
Yet the contender now has amazed us all by rising from the canvas 
and signalling that he is ready for more. So before we go into 
round 2 of the championship fight, let us take a moment to 
analyze the action thus far:
 
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Let us first seek the opinion of retired Brigadier General 
Russell S. Bowen (*The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime 
Family Exposed*, Carson City: America West, 1991) as to how he 
sees the first round.
 
    BOWEN: On July 25, 1990, eight days before the Iraqi 
    invasion of Kuwait, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie met 
    with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at the Presidential 
    Palace in Baghdad. The following is a transcript of 
    their discussion:
 
    GLASPIE: I have direct instructions from President Bush 
    to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable 
    sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the 
    immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. As 
    you know, I have lived here for years and admire your 
    extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know 
    you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is 
    that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your 
    country. We can see that you have deployed massive 
    numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be 
    none of our business, but when this happens in the 
    context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it 
    would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this 
    reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in 
    the spirit of friendship not confrontation regarding 
    your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very 
    close to Kuwait's borders?
 
    HUSSEIN: [sounds like, "Who's sane?"] As you know, for 
    years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement 
    on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in 
    two days: I am prepared to give negotiations only this 
    one more brief chance. When we [the Iraqis] meet [with 
    the Kuwaitis] and we see there is hope, then nothing 
    will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, 
    then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.
 
    GLASPIE: What solutions would be acceptable?
 
    HUSSEIN: If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al 
    Arab, our strategic goal in our war with Iran, we will 
    make concessions [to the Kuwaitis]. But, if we are 
    forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and 
    the whole of Iraq [i.e. including Kuwait], then we will 
    give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait 
    to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. 
    What is the United States' opinion on this?
 
    GLASPIE: (Pause, then she speaks very carefully) We have 
    no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your 
    dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker 
    has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first 
    given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not 
    associated with America.
 
    BOWEN: On September 2, 1990, one month after Saddam's 
    invasion of Kuwait, British journalists obtained a tape 
    and transcript of the above Hussein-Glaspie meeting. 
    Astounded, they confronted Ms. Glaspie.
 
    JOURNALIST 1: (Holding the transcripts up) Are the 
    transcripts correct, Madam Ambassador? (Ambassador 
    Glaspie did not respond).
 
    JOURNALIST 2: You knew Saddam was going to invade 
    [Kuwait], but you didn't warn him not to. You didn't 
    tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the 
    opposite, that America was not associated with Kuwait.
 
    JOURNALIST 1: You encouraged this aggression -- his 
    invasion. What were you thinking?
 
    GLASPIE: Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, 
    that the Iraqis were going to take *all* of Kuwait.
 
    JOURNALIST 1: You thought he was just going to take 
    *some* of it? But, how could you? Saddam told you that, 
    if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran [Shatt 
    al Arab waterway] goal for the "*whole* of Iraq, in the 
    shape we wish it to be." You *know* that includes 
    Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as an 
    historic part of their country!
 
    BOWEN: (Ambassador Glaspie said nothing, pushing past 
    the two journalists to leave.)
 
    JOURNALIST 1: America green-lighted the invasion. At a 
    minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some 
    aggression was okay, that the U.S. would not oppose a 
    grab of the al-Rumeilah oil field, the disputed border 
    strip and the gulf islands, territories claimed by Iraq?
 
    BOWEN: (Again, Ambassador Glaspie said nothing as a 
    limousine door slammed and the car drove off.)
 
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Let's bring in Sherman Skolnick, of the Citizens Committee to 
Clean Up the Courts. Sherman, I understand that beneath the 
surface, President Bush and Saddam Hussein were long-time 
business partners. Could you tell us about that?
 
    SKOLNICK: The press has published, without too many 
    details, that there was $200 billion in oil shipments 
    from Iraq to the West over the past five years and that 
    Saddam Hussein siphoned off kickbacks of 5 percent. 
    That's $10 billion.
 
    The press did not see fit to mention -- at any time -- 
    who [else] was involved in those kickbacks. It was none 
    other than Saddam's partner in private business ventures 
    -- George Herbert Walker Bush.
 
    ["Major Media Hides Bush-Saddam-BCCI Kickback Scam". 
    *The Spotlight*, August 19, 1991.]
 
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Hmmmm..... But what about those news stories we kept hearing 
about, well, for example, that Iraqi soldiers were tearing babies 
out of incubators and stealing the incubators? Let's ask Robert 
Parry, author of *Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist 
the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom* (New York: 
William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1992). What about those 
incubator babies?
 
    PARRY: A key witness, who alleged that babies were left 
    to die after being pulled from incubators, was 
    introduced at congressional hearings only as 'Nayirah,' 
    her last name withheld supposedly for security reasons. 
    [The witness was,] in reality, the daughter of the 
    Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington... Exhaustive studies 
    of the incubator issue by Middle East Watch and other 
    human rights groups concluded that the incubator claims 
    were false propaganda. However, as the war clouds built 
    in late 1990, the charges were effectively exploited by 
    the Kuwaiti government-in-exile and repeated by 
    President Bush in speeches, whetting the public's demand 
    for revenge against Saddam Hussein and his army.
 
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O.K. But at least it was a good, clean fight. We "whupped 'em 
good." Right? Let's ask Dr. Helen Caldicott. What about it, Dr. 
Caldicott. Was it a good clean fight?
 
    CALDICOTT: How can this country, with such noble 
    principles, have gone so astray? How can they have gone 
    to the [Persian] Gulf, using the weapons of highest 
    technology in the history of the human race, and 
    *slaughter* men who are running away? Who are driving 
    their trucks, getting away? Retreating.
 
    How could they have buried 250 people *alive*? Because 
    they wanted to drive their tanks over a trench full of 
    men.
 
    "Oh, well," a Pentagon spokesman said. "Well. It doesn't 
    matter. You either bayonet people or you shoot them or 
    you bury them alive. It doesn't make any difference."
 
    According to the Nuremberg principles, that man would be 
    hanged! (I don't believe in capital punishment.)
 
    But where the *hell* has this country gone? Of the 
    people who were killed who were civilians in Iraq, 60 
    percent were children. With their legs blown off. And 
    the men who flew the planes came back and said, "It was 
    a wonderful mission!" And they didn't see the blood. And 
    the whole country cheered and flew flags and tied yellow 
    ribbons on everything they could find.

    ["The New World Order". Talk by Dr. Helen Caldicott. 
    Available from Pacifica Archives.]
 
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Hmmm.... I see that round 2 is beginning. The combatants are 
approaching each other. So we'll have to thank our panel of 
experts and now we take you to ringside, where round 2 is about 
to begin...
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."
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