French and Russian Collaborations with Saddam Hussein Begin to Surface

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus "An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation," Adolph Hitler asserted. "We must take steps to insure our domestic security and protect our homeland."

So (hypothetically) if Hitler said the sky is blue, and Bush says the sky is blue, that makes Bush a Nazi? The parallel you draw from this 'sig material' is equally ridiculous.

Also, you seem to be forgetting that Hitler was defending a fascist state while Bush is defending a democratic state. More importantly you seem to ignore that the 'threat' in Hitler's mind was a nonexistent Jewish conspiracy, while the 'threat' in Bush's mind are Islamic fundamentalists who wage war by deliberately targeting civilians. There is no comparison.

GePap's Hitler quote is very relevant to America, on the other hand.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Ned


CIA site. Really?

Really, really...

But anyway, give me a link.

What, you're unable to find the CIA site by yourself?

Ok, follow this link:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chile/index.html#5

[Pax]

If Hitler said the sky is blue and Bush said the sky is blue then they would both be in agreement that the sky is blue.

I am the last person to speak badly of any Commander in Chief. I think it is a valid point to look at similarities in speeches and actions of people to find out whether are not they think along the same lines.

You seem to forget that both are justifying there actions. Just because we call it a democracy does not mean everything is perfect and our leaders are justified in their actions. This is the same democracy that until recently in human history did not allow women and minorities to vote.

My point is that this is a democracy and if we are going to keep it that way, we are going to have to fight for it.

Germany did not turn into a fascist state overnight. The U.S. is a work in progress. How do we want our country to end up. I hope that makes sense

[Pax]

If Hitler said the sky is blue and Bush said the sky is blue then they would both be in agreement that the sky is blue.

I am the last person to speak badly of any Commander in Chief. I think it is a valid point to look at similarities in speeches and actions of people to find out whether are not they think along the same lines.

You seem to forget that both are justifying there actions. Just because we call it a democracy does not mean everything is perfect and our leaders are justified in their actions. This is the same democracy that until recently in human history did not allow women and minorities to vote.

My point is that this is a democracy and if we are going to keep it that way, we are going to have to fight for it.

Germany did not turn into a fascist state overnight. The U.S. is a work in progress. How do we want our country to end up. I hope that makes sense

[oedo]

any saddam collaboration thread is inclomplete as long as it doesn´t contain this picture:

just where do I know these two handshking guys from?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Serb


What, you're unable to find the CIA site by yourself?

Ok, follow this link:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chile/index.html#5

OK, Serb, the report says the exact opposite of what you seem to suggest, that the CIA was "supporting" Pinochet when it ousted Allende. Pinochet was not our boy. We had doubts about him.

The report does say, though, that some of the military were CIA agents who did participate in atrocities. They were "dropped," as soon as their participation became known.

" 1.
Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the assassination of President Salvador Allende in September 1973.

A. We find no information—nor did the Church Committee—that CIA or the Intelligence Community was involved in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende. He is believed to have committed suicide as the coup leaders closed in on him. The major CIA effort against Allende came earlier in 1970 in the failed attempt to block his election and accession to the Presidency. Nonetheless, the US Administration’s long-standing hostility to Allende and its past encouragement of a military coup against him were well known among Chilean coup plotters who eventually took action on their own to oust him.

2.
Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the accession of General Augusto Pinochet to the Presidency of the Republic of Chile.

A. CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency. In fact, many CIA officers shared broader US reservations about Pinochet’s single-minded pursuit of power.

3.
Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to violations of human rights committed by officers or agents of former President Pinochet.

A. Many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses following Allende’s ouster. Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military. The IC followed then-current guidance for reporting such abuses and admonished its Chilean agents against such behavior. Today’s much stricter reporting standards were not in force and, if they were, we suspect many agents would have been dropped."

[Spiffor]

Darius :

I completely agree with Pax. However, unlike him, I don't think Bush intends to turn the US into a dictatorship (the "work in progress" he is referring to), but I sure witness the attempts of his administration to turn the American people into bigoted, uber self-righteous, and conformist folk.

The permanent use of the "invisible menace" of terrorism in order to have the people stick with their president is exactly as scary, IMHO, as the permanent use of Hitler of the Jewish "invisible menace". Both rethorics are using paranoia and propaganda to have the people avoid too much criticism.

Again, I'm not saying Bush is Hitler, nor he is a nazi. But his permanent references to terrorism are dangerous and wrong IMO

[oedo]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Again, I'm not saying Bush is Hitler, nor he is a nazi.

errrr Spiffor, how does this quote match with your sig? I would say caught red handed.

[Spiffor]

In my sig, I'm just pointing out a very awkward similarity in the way Hitler bigoted his population and the way Bush is bigoting his population. That doesn't mean Bush and Hitler share the same objectives, or the same methods otherwise.

[oedo]

oh, ok. first I thought we only mixed up the sources in our sig-quotes.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by oedo
any saddam collaboration thread is inclomplete as long as it doesn´t contain this picture:

just where do I know these two handshking guys from?

Gee what an intricate case; irrelevant however since the problem with France's support is NOT that they supported a dictator. Yes, we have no room to talk since we did the same thing (and numerous times). The problem, rather, is that they supported a dictator against a supposed ally. At least when we supported Saddam against Iran we were very clear that Iran was our enemy. The matter is their betrayal, NOT their support of Saddam (at least to me, I can't speak for the France-bashers here).

Of course, not to mention the fact that Iran was an oppressive theocracy, although I guess many of you would say the U.S. now is as bad as Iran was then. That's a whole other argument that I don't want to waste my time with.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

You seem to forget that both are justifying there actions. Just because we call it a democracy does not mean everything is perfect and our leaders are justified in their actions.

The difference is that if a vast majority of the German people disagreed with Hitler's actions, he could still have stayed in power because his country was fascist. Bush, on the other hand, can be removed from power if his justifications don't hold water.

Anyway, that's moot mainly because the 'actions' in question are SO very different.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
If Hitler said the sky is blue and Bush said the sky is blue then they would both be in agreement that the sky is blue.

Precisely. If Hitler said that his country should stand protect itself from a threat and Bush says that his country should protect itself from a threat, then they would both be in agreement that countries should defend themselves against threats.

You only need to look at exactly what threats the two were referring to to see if there was any parallel. Since one was making up an imaginary oppressive Jewish conspiracy and convincing his people that it was a master race, while the other was responding to a hostile military force which had clearly attacked his country, the comparison is extremely weak.

Look at ANY leader in history, and you can probably find a quote of his that was similar to a quote from Hitler. I would bet dollars to donuts that if you scanned all the writings Hitler wrote throughout his life, and scanned all the writings Chirac, Putin, and Schroeder wrote throughout their lives, you could probably find a few striking similarities. Does that mean anything about the leaders in question? NO. It's nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence.

Originally posted by Spiffor
Darius :

However, unlike him, I don't think Bush intends to turn the US into a dictatorship

Well that's the immediate impression I got from your sig, and IIRC someone on another thread did as well. A specific disclaimer about your intentions would detract from the irony though, so I guess leave it as-is.

Originally posted by Spiffor

The permanent use of the "invisible menace" of terrorism in order to have the people stick with their president is exactly as scary, IMHO, as the permanent use of Hitler of the Jewish "invisible menace". Both rethorics are using paranoia and propaganda to have the people avoid too much criticism.

1) The Jews did nothing to the German people, while terrorism obviously did something to the American people. At least Bush's 'invisible menace' is a real threat instead of a figment of imagination.
2) More importantly, people seem to forget that the political capital gained by fear of terrorism won't last forever. Years from now, when Al-Qaeda is crushed to insignificance (I think it already has been, Bin Laden or no Bin Laden), a large portion of the Middle East is democratic and anti-terrorist, and it had been years since the last major terrorist attack, the people will realize that the threat of terrorism isn't big enough to guide our entire nation's policy, nor big enough for us to sacrifice civil liberties any longer. The administration at the time would pick up on this and stop playing the 'invisible menace' card. If they were stupid enough to continue playing it, another government would be elected.

Long story short, things will work themselves out naturally, because this country has checks and balances to prevent such justifications from getting out of hand, checks and balances which Hitler's Germany did not have. Also, since Americans have a heritage of freedom (and a protected right to bear arms) that Germans did not have at the time, IF (and that's a big if) this 'invisible threat' was used to create a dictatorship, the American people would revolt, including me. The 2nd Amendment is the greatest 'check' on the government, and you should take it into consideration when you get an 'inkling' that the U.S. is on a slippery slope to fascism. Relax.

[Pax]

Actually, If a vast amount of Americans disagreed with a Presidents actions he would not necessarily be removed from office.

I also have to state that I am not saying that we are specifically going to turn into a dictatorship or fascist state. Something intricately more complicated can happen. Some people will argue that it's already happened.

The main justification for the war in Iraq is that Iraq has/had WMD(not found). The truth is the administration already planned to attack Iraq prior to 9/11. This is reported in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution as well as planned in the Project for a new american century. Yet these facts are not on the front page.

What's on the front page is an article stating that a group of reporters were allowed to go into a building and rifle through classified information. Huh?? why would this area not be secured, so our intelligence teams can collect and investigate the information??
In short media control and control of dollars in advertising cannot tell us what to think, but it can control what we think about.

So little by little we are told what to focus on
little by little Patriot Acts are passed
and we start to accept and learn to live with the way things are. We in effect are herded in to places we never thought of going.

Read some books about the people living in Nazi Germany and you'll find that they were just like us. The real threat is that we vote away our rights the way our rights.

While we are relaxing, waiting for things to work out naturally, people are killing and dying in our name.

Things never work out naturally. All over the world people are born into a specific way of living. They never wake up in mass and decide that "today, we should not kill the jews, kill the Christians, circumsize our young females clitoris. It takes people to question the rule to make changes for the better or worse.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

The truth is the administration already planned to attack Iraq prior to 9/11.

I thought this was common knowledge.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

Huh?? why would this area not be secured, so our intelligence teams can collect and investigate the information??

They way I heard it British intelligence leaked these files to the Telegraph, and they made up a story about walking around in the Mukhaberat and Foreign Ministry. That doesn't change the fact that the files exist, and that (when released publicly) forgeries would probably be easy to detect. Also, if they were to forge documents, why not forge something more damning than this?

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

So little by little we are told what to focus on

I don't care if some people are stupid enough to think what the media 'tells' them to think. That's their problem.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
little by little Patriot Acts are passed

...and as the threat of terrorism gradually fades, and the Patriot Acts seem less and less necessary, little by little the civil liberties they took will be given back. Not to say that I support the Acts (I don't), but at the same time I think people make too big a deal out of them by ignoring the fact that they will be temporary, just like Lincoln's suspension of Habaeus Corpus and FDR's internment of Japanese Americans were both temporary.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

and we start to accept and learn to live with the way things are. We in effect are herded in to places we never thought of going.

Please use the words 'they' and not 'we'. Just because the Germans never expected to do what they ended up doing, that doesn't mean I can never credibly declare what I would and would not do.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

Things never work out naturally.

Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. I've given you two examples of wartime restrictions of freedom being released when wars were over (Habaeus Corpus and internment), and those are some of many. I'm confident that thanks to the checks and balances in our government, a progression like the one seen in Germany is not possible. If it were to happen, I'd take the guns I've been allowed to own and fight to the death to stop it.

We can agree to disagree, but in summary you have to consider that the Weimar Republic that Hitler perverted did not have certain things which the U.S. does:

1) A system of checks and balances in the government with the specific objective of preventing tyranny.
2) A heritage of freedom. The Weimar Republic was founded in what was viewed by many Germans as a socialist 'backstab', and they had dreams of returning to a Reich. The U.S., however, was founded in democratic and individualistic principles, and those principles are ingrained in the mind of most Americans. We don't have the history of Empire that the Germans had.
3) Lessons learned from history. Americans can look back at the rises of Caesar, Hitler, and Palpatine () and be sure not to follow in their footsteps. The Germans did not have that to look back on and be wary of.
4) Yet again, a heavily armed populace. Combine #2 and #4, and you scare the living **** out of a potential tyrant. The Founders knew this all too well.

[Pax]

Darius, I must admit you are far smarter than me.

You seem to agree that the administration wanted to invade prior to 9/11 and yet you feel as if we will get these rights back when the threat of terrorism fades.

Whenever I say we I mean America or Americans as in U.S. citizens as a whole.

Those are good points about habeas corpus and japanese internment.

I also agree that our founding fathers put checks and balances into the system to prevent tyranny.

Tyranny. My argument is that we(U.S.) can easily fall into the trap of tyranny.

We seek a resolution from the U.N. that would allow us to invade(this requires a vote similar to democracy) we are unable to get the votes so we declare U.N. irrelevant and invade anyway(similar to ?). Our next action in the U.N. is to vote against Peacekeeping forces in the Ivory Coast to halt the Civil War that is killing innocents. Is that hypocrisy.

Well, do you think that lying to your people to invade another country is tyranny, imperial, impeachable or just plain wrong.

People would say that the Boston Tea Party and the War for American Independance were terrorist acts. We wanted representation in our own affairs(power).

The seeds for this middle east terrorism were planted probably during the Roman Empire, The Ottoman Empire, or the end of WWII. I fail to see how the Patriot act is going satisfy the desires of the people in the middle east for power over their own affairs.

I also doubt that your gun collection is a match an M-1 or a Tomahawk missile.

We can agree to disagree. 10 years from now we'll know who was right.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus Darius, I must admit you are far smarter than me.

Don't be so sure; vocabulary =/= intelligence. You make some damn good points, it's just that the sides of this particular debate can't be proven right or wrong until after the fact.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
Darius, I must admit you are far smarter than me.

You seem to agree that the administration wanted to invade prior to 9/11 and yet you feel as if we will get these rights back when the threat of terrorism fades.

Whenever I say we I mean America or Americans as in U.S. citizens as a whole.

Those are good points about habeas corpus and japanese internment.

I also agree that our founding fathers put checks and balances into the system to prevent tyranny.

Tyranny. My argument is that we(U.S.) can easily fall into the trap of tyranny.

We seek a resolution from the U.N. that would allow us to invade(this requires a vote similar to democracy) we are unable to get the votes so we declare U.N. irrelevant and invade anyway(similar to ?). Our next action in the U.N. is to vote against Peacekeeping forces in the Ivory Coast to halt the Civil War that is killing innocents. Is that hypocrisy.

Well, do you think that lying to your people to invade another country is tyranny, imperial, impeachable or just plain wrong.

People would say that the Boston Tea Party and the War for American Independance were terrorist acts. We wanted representation in our own affairs(power).

The seeds for this middle east terrorism were planted probably during the Roman Empire, The Ottoman Empire, or the end of WWII. I fail to see how the Patriot act is going satisfy the desires of the people in the middle east for power over their own affairs.

I also doubt that your gun collection is a match an M-1 or a Tomahawk missile.

We can agree to disagree. 10 years from now we'll know who was right.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus You seem to agree that the administration wanted to invade prior to 9/11 and yet you feel as if we will get these rights back when the threat of terrorism fades.

Only because I think the two things are unrelated. The Patriot Act is meant to give law enforcement greater freedom in investigation of international terrorists, which have nothing to do with the war in Iraq.

If the Patriot Acts had provisions meant to quash dissent against the war, then the two things would be related, but alas they did not (unless I missed that part, very well might have).

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

Tyranny. My argument is that we(U.S.) can easily fall into the trap of tyranny.

I certainly understand the conclusion and I once thought we were a prime candidate as well. Our legacy of domination and primacy would make tyranny seem a natural result. However, our legacy of rugged individualism is much stronger.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

We seek a resolution from the U.N. that would allow us to invade(this requires a vote similar to democracy) we are unable to get the votes so we declare U.N. irrelevant and invade anyway(similar to ?).

Similar to whom? There wasn't a UN in the time of Hitler and the League of Nations was very different.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

Our next action in the U.N. is to vote against Peacekeeping forces in the Ivory Coast to halt the Civil War that is killing innocents. Is that hypocrisy.

It very well may be, but I won't call it that until I can hear the similarity between putting peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast and invading Iraq.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

Well, do you think that lying to your people to invade another country is tyranny, imperial, impeachable or just plain wrong.

I won't brazenly declare that we were lied to until after at least 6 months of searching for WMD. Then I'd be extremely suspicious, but not convinced, as the weapons could have been destroyed within days of the war (as Iraqi scientists say happened, which would mean that Saddam indeed didn't comply with inspectors), or perhaps just moved to another country.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

People would say that the Boston Tea Party and the War for American Independance were terrorist acts. We wanted representation in our own affairs(power).

1) We dumped trade goods into the sea and later fought a war against uniformed soldiers, we didn't deliberately murder civilians.
2) We were fighting for representative government and not Islamic fundamentalism.

Kinda-sorta a tad of a bit different.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

I fail to see how the Patriot act is going satisfy the desires of the people in the middle east for power over their own affairs.

The Patriot Act has nothing to do with solving the problems of the Middle East, it deals with law enforcement's efforts to apprehend terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks.

Gradual democratization of the Middle East is what will solve the root cause of terrorism; the Patriot Act is meant to deal with it in the meantime. The U.S. has a two-pronged approach.

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

I also doubt that your gun collection is a match an M-1 or a Tomahawk missile.

Tell that to the Minutemen, Viet Minh, Viet Cong, and Mujahedin.