Harold Pinter on U.S. Foreign Policy and Iraq

After a brief skim, do I really to refute statements like this?

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At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began.

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2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.


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Like our military goes around doing nice things for people.

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Try reading the news before you post stupid crap like this. Check for "Pakistan earthquake" "Hurricane Katrina" or less recently "Indonesia tsunami."

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Like our military goes around doing nice things for people.

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Try reading the news before you post stupid crap like this. Check for "Pakistan earthquake" "Hurricane Katrina" or less recently "Indonesia tsunami."

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You mean I should read the propaganda? Edit: [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
What do you think our special forces are doing in Columbia?

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What do you think our special forces are doing in Columbia?


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I suppose nations like Columbia would be paradises in the absence of any US intervention?

[andyfox]

Pinter's point (agree with it or not) was that the U.S. has all too often supported fascist governments. And that it really didn't care about what kind of government Saddam had.

Also, and again say what you want about Pinter's viewpoint, he certainly wasn't sitting on the fence.

[Chris Alger]

I understand your argument to be this: If a country is led by a sadistic leader, then that country is fair game for conquest by the U.S. and it is ridiculous to argue that any such effort could be illegal or constitute "state terrorism." Why? Because unlike every other aggressor the appeals to noble motives -- as they all do -- statements by U.S. leaders must be greated with ironclad acceptance.

It gets worse when you consider the role the U.S. had in bringing Saddam to power and keeping him there when the worst of his atrocities were public knowledge. So now we have the following argument from you (please correct me if I'm wrong):

The claim that the U.S. is an illegal aggressor in Iraq is obviously false because Saddam was a criminal head of state and has been invaded by a former accomplice who now denounces him and hopes to replace him with a more pro-American government. Therefore, the U.S. has to be a liberator and cannot be an aggressor. Any other alternative is impossible, something worthy of ridicule.

This is an example of what I mean by being so addled with propaganda that war supporters do not even have the tools to articulate a coherent position.

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"And these people support the Saddam Hussein regime and basically hold these folks up as shining examples of freedom fighters."

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This is an example of what I meant by outright lying. You have been called on this before and know full well that virtually no American who opposes the war is guilty of supporting Saddam and promoting terrorism. You also can't identify a single example of any antiwar leader saying anything of the sort. Yet you continue to libel me and all other antiwar activists as promoters of dictatorship and terrorism.

[Chris Alger]

"Those words mean very specific things."

Perhaps they should but the propaganda apparatus has turned them into buzzwords. "Terrorism," for example, is by definition something the U.S. never does (at least, not any more). So it doesn't make any difference that key officials implicated in contra terror remain in government, presumably part of the "war on terror," which would mean war on themselves if the word had any substance. As for "democracy," the often translates into "propping up pro-American autocracies." The U.S. gives military and police aid to help the house of Saud maintain its chokehold over Arabia and calls it "promoting democracy in the Middle East."

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Proponents of the war don't deny these things, they just see a greater good behind them.

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They don't "see" any greater good they just hear the President or the MSM assert it and accept it as gospel. For what "greater good," for example, did the U.S. help turn Latin America's oldest democracy into a brutal military dictatorship replete with all the characteristics of a fascist takeover? Further, if you alter this question and ask the average war supporter if it happened at all, my guess is that they'd have no knowledge of it. And the ones that do invoke the same crude utilitarianism you do, the same line used by Stalinists and promoters of Victorian workhouses. Of course, when it comes to their own objects of contempt (like the terrorism they don't like), utilitarianism goes out the window, replaced by the lofty rhetoric of bright-line moral supremacy.

[Cyrus]

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The Personal History of Saddam Hussein


According to reports by Hanna Batatu (a government reporter), Hussein rose quickly through the ranks, due to his extreme efficiency as a torturer.

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That's only part of the picture. Torturers do not usually become heads of state.

Saddam Hussein rose through the ranks and became chief honcho of Iraq for two main reasons:

1. He was the most cunning and ruthless at manoeuvering for power, and

2. He was an ultra-nationalist and a fierce anti-communist.

The latter endeared him no end to the people in Washington, who subsequently assisted any way they could (without upsetting the Israeli lobby), just as they did with most Ba'athists of the Right, in places such as Syria or Libya, who were equally anti-communist. Washington actively helped Hussein to fight off the secular, patriotic, "leftist" opposition and effectively remain in power.

This has passed under the bridge a long time ago...

[Il_Mostro]

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Those words [liberation, terrorism, democracy] mean very specific things.

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Define them,please

[andyfox]

"freedom is not given, it must be earned by killing the fascists, communists, and other evils. Something the soft belly libs will never understand."

The soft belly libs fought the fascists and communists harder than anybody. They won the second World War, ran our foreign policy during the Cold War, dragging the hard belly conservatives along with them kicking and screaming all the way, created the military-industrial complex, and turned the United States into the military power it is now.

The idea that liberals are soft on foreign policy issues is a fallacy.