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PhilMaHole

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1 minute ago, Peppino Impastato said:

Such as?  Do you think the British government genuinely believed Iraq had wmd?

Probably, with less certainty than they claimed. I think even Saddam thought they still had WMD, his Generals were too scared to tell him they'd either been destroyed or rotted away. Otherwise he could just have shown the inspectors the remains. The Iraqi opposition leaders like Ahmed Chalabi did a cracking job of convincing America that he had WMD with barefaced lies. I met his cousin once, said he counted his fingers after shaking his hand.

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10 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Probably, with less certainty than they claimed. I think even Saddam thought they still had WMD, his Generals were too scared to tell him they'd either been destroyed or rotted away. Otherwise he could just have shown the inspectors the remains. The Iraqi opposition leaders like Ahmed Chalabi did a cracking job of convincing America that he had WMD with barefaced lies. I met his cousin once, said he counted his fingers after shaking his hand.

You think Saddam thought he had some?  Really?  The inspectors were given full access to everything, they said themselves we need more time give us that and we can give you an unequivocal answer, we refused (a cynic would say cause that would have removed our pretext for invasion).  

Mohammed el baradei head of the IAEA said unequivocally they definitely don't have any nuclear materials that was ruled out, we would have got a similar answer with chemical weapons (which we sold him btw) but our government refused to let the inspectors do their job.

You'd think when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dead civilians and trillions of dollars it might be worth waiting an extra few months but we said no.  I think you have to be pretty naive to think our governments didn't have 100% nefarious intentions right from the very start.

I also believe Dr David Kelly was probably murdered by mi5 on the instructions if our government. Again, I think it's naive to just assume these things don't happen.  

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Even if he had WMD it wouldn't be an excuse for war, he hadn't used them for 15 years and wasn't threatening any neighbours. Loads of countries have chemical weapons. I don't see what the Government had to gain by killing Kelly, he'd already spilt the beans. They just hounded a fragile man into suicide instead.

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8 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Even if he had WMD it wouldn't be an excuse for war, he hadn't used them for 15 years and wasn't threatening any neighbours. Loads of countries have chemical weapons. I don't see what the Government had to gain by killing Kelly, he'd already spilt the beans. They just hounded a fragile man into suicide instead.

No it wouldn't but that was their excuse.  They had decided they were going to invade regardless and needed a pretext so wmd was it as they didn't have anything else.

I think they were clearly worried, given Kelly was pretty much the world's leading authority on Iraq's armaments and decommissioning, that he could expose their lies and therefore was snuffed out.  Though your scenario is also plausible.

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One of the staple propaganda techniques of the warmongering establishment is to have us believe the current baddie will commit the most senseless, strategically pointless act at the worst possible time for himself and the best possible time for his enemies. So in 2013, apparently Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians after inviting UN chemical weapons inspectors into his country, who were only a few miles away from the scene of the attack. 

Along the same lines, Putin had Boris Nemtsov murdered yards from the Kremlin, knowing it would result in the world's media camped out on the bridge with the Kremlin as the backdrop for weeks. Likewise, in times of even more Russophobic hysteria across the western media, he chose a time just before the Russian presidential election to order the poisoning of a spy in the UK. Somehow the fact this happened 7 miles away from the UK's own chemical weapons labs isn't even news.

 

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1 hour ago, Zetterlund said:

One of the staple propaganda techniques of the warmongering establishment is to have us believe the current baddie will commit the most senseless, strategically pointless act at the worst possible time for himself and the best possible time for his enemies. So in 2013, apparently Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians after inviting UN chemical weapons inspectors into his country, who were only a few miles away from the scene of the attack. 

Along the same lines, Putin had Boris Nemtsov murdered yards from the Kremlin, knowing it would result in the world's media camped out on the bridge with the Kremlin as the backdrop for weeks. Likewise, in times of even more Russophobic hysteria across the western media, he chose a time just before the Russian presidential election to order the poisoning of a spy in the UK. Somehow the fact this happened 7 miles away from the UK's own chemical weapons labs isn't even news.

 

This is worth a read. I personally don't think Putin gives a f**k if people think he ordered the assassination of a traitor in London or an enemy by Red Square. It's good for his strong man image at home with an election coming up, and the sanctions don't look like going away anyway.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil?utm_term=.ivd9Qa8pB#.ji0wMv5Dq

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Interesting to read "A History of the World since 9/11" by Dominic Streatfield.

Basically it stated that Iraq tried to buy some aluminium tubes from Australia that were manufactured in China.
The Americans were easedropping and tried to guess why the Iraq would want them.
Some reached the conclusion the tubes were to use to make centrifuges for enriching uranium in order to make weapons of mass destruction (or nuclear weapons as they use to be known).
Some argued this was not the case.  However, some in America, who needed little persuasion were convinced Saddam was up to no good and had to be stopped.

The UK government believed it was a good idea to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans on everything and were easily persuaded that Saddam had whatever the Americans said he had.

Hence the Iraq War.

That was one chapter in the book.  The other chapters were also interesting to read.

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I remember when Clinton bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan on bogus intelligence that it was producing VX gas. He was accused of doing it to distract attention from the Lewinsky scandal. Think that might be stretching it a bit.

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1 hour ago, Zetterlund said:

One of the staple propaganda techniques of the warmongering establishment is to have us believe the current baddie will commit the most senseless, strategically pointless act at the worst possible time for himself and the best possible time for his enemies. So in 2013, apparently Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians after inviting UN chemical weapons inspectors into his country, who were only a few miles away from the scene of the attack. 

Along the same lines, Putin had Boris Nemtsov murdered yards from the Kremlin, knowing it would result in the world's media camped out on the bridge with the Kremlin as the backdrop for weeks. Likewise, in times of even more Russophobic hysteria across the western media, he chose a time just before the Russian presidential election to order the poisoning of a spy in the UK. Somehow the fact this happened 7 miles away from the UK's own chemical weapons labs isn't even news.

 

Tremendous post

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3 hours ago, Fullerene said:

Interesting to read "A History of the World since 9/11" by Dominic Streatfield.

Basically it stated that Iraq tried to buy some aluminium tubes from Australia that were manufactured in China.
The Americans were easedropping and tried to guess why the Iraq would want them.
Some reached the conclusion the tubes were to use to make centrifuges for enriching uranium in order to make weapons of mass destruction (or nuclear weapons as they use to be known).
Some argued this was not the case.  However, some in America, who needed little persuasion were convinced Saddam was up to no good and had to be stopped.

The UK government believed it was a good idea to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans on everything and were easily persuaded that Saddam had whatever the Americans said he had.

Hence the Iraq War.

That was one chapter in the book.  The other chapters were also interesting to read.

I think the reason for the war was a load of neocon advisers and Whitehouse staff were convinced that American power was so vast and that people left to their own devices would love America and what it stands for, so they could transform the Middle East into something like Texas, and be welcomed for doing so. The Israelis would also be very happy, as would Halliburton, Dick Cheney's firm. They had one chance to get the American public behind the project, while they were still raging about 9/11 and they could dog whistle a link. Any evidence for WMD was latched onto, any contrary evidence was dismissed. The clincher was that Saddam had tried to assassinate Bush senior in Kuwait after his war. 

P.S. Dubya's Dad advised him against it, for the same reason he didn't go on to Baghdad after kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait. One, the road was full of burnt corpses he'd targeted while retreating, and two, it would create an inevitable civil war between the Shia, Sunni and Kurds that would cost a shit load of money to do anything like control. He managed to get the Saudis and Kuwaitis to pay for the whole war up until the end. His choice was to encourage the Kurds and Shia to rebel against Saddam and take his army home. They got slaughtered.

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Interesting to read "A History of the World since 9/11" by Dominic Streatfield.
Basically it stated that Iraq tried to buy some aluminium tubes from Australia that were manufactured in China.
The Americans were easedropping and tried to guess why the Iraq would want them.
Some reached the conclusion the tubes were to use to make centrifuges for enriching uranium in order to make weapons of mass destruction (or nuclear weapons as they use to be known).
Some argued this was not the case.  However, some in America, who needed little persuasion were convinced Saddam was up to no good and had to be stopped.
The UK government believed it was a good idea to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans on everything and were easily persuaded that Saddam had whatever the Americans said he had.
Hence the Iraq War.
That was one chapter in the book.  The other chapters were also interesting to read.


I recently did a presentation and seminar paper on the sanctions regime and the cruelty of the US beggars belief. Things like ambulances being rejected because they could theoretically be used as vehicles to transport troops meaning that children were dying because they couldn’t be moved to hospitals. Disgusting behaviour.
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2 hours ago, NotThePars said:

 


I recently did a presentation and seminar paper on the sanctions regime and the cruelty of the US beggars belief. Things like ambulances being rejected because they could theoretically be used as vehicles to transport troops meaning that children were dying because they couldn’t be moved to hospitals. Disgustng behaviour.

 

Madeleine Albright acknowledged sanctions were responsible for the death of half a million Iraqi children but said it was'a price worth paying'.  That's what sort of people run our countries.  People who think we're the good guys are deluded.

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We also ran the oil for food programme.  Classy bunch us in the west.  


It’s embarrassing how much we acted as lapdogs to the US sanctions regimes. We could always be relied upon to support the Yanks.
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Syria has been under pretty severe sanctions too since before the war started, making it near impossible to properly supply hospitals with modern equipment and medical supplies. Of course the regime-change crowd are now raging about the need for humanitarian aid.

I read something about there being a desperate need for ambulances but they were blocked from importing them. Now, British ambulances are turning up in jihadi-controlled areas that the government is taking back. It's some clusterfuck of a situation we've managed to create over there.

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On 10/03/2018 at 16:39, Zetterlund said:

One of the staple propaganda techniques of the warmongering establishment is to have us believe the current baddie will commit the most senseless, strategically pointless act at the worst possible time for himself and the best possible time for his enemies. So in 2013, apparently Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians after inviting UN chemical weapons inspectors into his country, who were only a few miles away from the scene of the attack. 

Along the same lines, Putin had Boris Nemtsov murdered yards from the Kremlin, knowing it would result in the world's media camped out on the bridge with the Kremlin as the backdrop for weeks. Likewise, in times of even more Russophobic hysteria across the western media, he chose a time just before the Russian presidential election to order the poisoning of a spy in the UK. Somehow the fact this happened 7 miles away from the UK's own chemical weapons labs isn't even news.

 

Russian state news channel's take on the Salisbury incident.

Quote

Russian state television has warned “traitors” and Kremlin critics that they should not settle in England because of an increased risk of dying in mysterious circumstances.

“Don’t choose England as a place to live. Whatever the reasons, whether you’re a professional traitor to the motherland or you just hate your country in your spare time, I repeat, no matter, don’t move to England,” the presenter Kirill Kleymenov said during a news programme on Channel One, state TV’s flagship station.

“Something is not right there. Maybe it’s the climate. But in recent years there have been too many strange incidents with a grave outcome. People get hanged, poisoned, they die in helicopter crashes and fall out of windows in industrial quantities,” Kleymenov said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/russian-state-tv-warns-traitors-not-to-settle-in-england

Maybe I don't get the Russian sense of humour.

 

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33 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Russian state news channel's take on the Salisbury incident.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/russian-state-tv-warns-traitors-not-to-settle-in-england

Maybe I don't get the Russian sense of humour.

This is being  reported like it's an official Kremlin announcement. It doesn't look to me like it's meant to be entirely serious ("maybe it's the climate") but is at best in poor taste and probably an indication of the host's personal lack of sympathy.

I imagine being a spy is a messy business, and making a career of it will probably create a long line of people who would like to off you.

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