Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad
 

This time, to give a pep talk and a photo-op serving hot meals to the troops for five minutes.

http://img496.imageshack.us/img496/7...raqpool0ws.jpg

This visit was a bit less formal than his visit back in 1983, and he didn't get to meet with his old buddy Saddam Hussein this time.

http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/5...ysaddam4xk.jpg

Re: Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad
 

Are those the special $23 a plate Halliburton Special hot meals?

Re: Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad
 

Most retarded post of the week.

I suppose you think Jessie Owens was a Nazi because he tried to shake hands with Hitler.

Stu

Re: Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad
 

Did Jesse Owens help put Hitler in power and keep him there?
Did he sell Hitler any arms?

Re: Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad
 

[ QUOTE ]
Did Jesse Owens help put Hitler in power and keep him there?
Did he sell Hitler any arms?

[/ QUOTE ]

Henry Kissinger once said during the war between Iran and Iraq, that it was the kind of conflict where you want to supply both sides with arms and hope they keep fighting as long as possible, because they were both enemies. Strategic priorities and alliances change over time for all countries, excpet the for the truly close friendships like we share with Britain. When you keep a snake around to kill the mice, you do take the risk of the snake turning on you when it runs out of mice. So then you get a mongoose or you kill it yourself.

Kissinger of Death
 

[ QUOTE ]
Henry Kissinger once said during the war between Iran and Iraq, that it was the kind of conflict where you want to supply both sides with arms and hope they keep fighting as long as possible, because they were both enemies.

[/ QUOTE ] I don't have that particular Kissinger quote - but I will not dispute it : It sounds exactly like the kind of self-effacing, profile-mending statement that the old war criminal would make after the fact.

The truth, of course, is that, at the time, the United States regarded the radical regime in Tehran as Enemy Number One and wanted to see it defeated in the Iraq-Iran war, and if possible eliminated totally. This is why the U.S. propped up Saddam Hussein's regime repeatedly during the war, sometimes offering direct help.

If the Iraqis were at any time close to winning the war, the U.S. would NOT have stopped them, as Kissinger's logic would have it.

Re: Kissinger of Death
 

[ QUOTE ]
This is why the U.S. propped up Saddam Hussein's regime repeatedly during the war, sometimes offering direct help.

[/ QUOTE ]

In short, hypocrisy posing as morality.

Re: Kissinger of Death
 

[ QUOTE ]
The truth, of course, is that, at the time, the United States regarded the radical regime in Tehran as Enemy Number One and wanted to see it defeated in the Iraq-Iran war, and if possible eliminated totally. This is why the U.S. propped up Saddam Hussein's regime repeatedly during the war, sometimes offering direct help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't be so naive Cyrus. If the United States wanted Iraq to win the Iran-Iraq war it would have happened. We wanted a stalemate and thats exactly what we got.

Stu

One snafu after another
 

[ QUOTE ]
Don't be so naive Cyrus. If the United States wanted Iraq to win the Iran-Iraq war it would have happened.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, sure. Ever since installing Shah Pahlevi in 1953, assisting the Ba'athists chase the "Arab Left", guiding SAVAK in the elimination of the secular Itanian opposition and spawning the muslim jihadists in Afghanistan, the United States has been guiding developments in the fertile crescent with clarity of purpose and a sure hand.

Who's being naive here ?

Re: Kissinger of Death
 

[ QUOTE ]
If the United States wanted Iraq to win the Iran-Iraq war it would have happened. We wanted a stalemate and thats exactly what we got.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

If US would actively attack Iran, Iraq would have won. However, it is not certain that even if the US wanted Iraq to win and provided military and financial support that it would be sufficient. Remember that you had one army (Iraqis) who suffered from lack of motivation battling a near-fanatic army (Iranians).