Ronald Reagan debate threads....

[august spies]

Haha, sorry cant let this one go on without puking.

Sorry to wake some up to reality and facts (i know reagan said "facts are stupid") but just bare with me for a second.

This is a man whose ties to terrorism in one country alone are far greater and more distructive than bin ladens ties to the 9/11 hijackers. Regean had ties to terrorists in dozens of countries, and throughout the planet. the body count his is responsible for is off the charts, it would be off the charts if we were just counting the children killed.

This is a man who gave us a 3 trillion dollar debt, this is a man who was a systematic liar, this is a man who was so stupid he actually said that trees cause pollution.

This is a man who gutted social programs and dumped americans into poverty and debt.

god bless god for taking reagan away from us
ps. saddam and bin laden also send their condolences

[KoocheeKoo]

Originally posted by august spies
Haha, sorry cant let this one go on without puking.

god bless god for taking reagan away from us


The only thing that makes me feel ill is your totally classless, disrespectful post regarding the deceased. I wouldn't gloat over the death of anyone; not even my worst enemy....thank God my mother taught me better manners than that.

You just gave every member of TMF a vivid example in disrespect and total lack of class....and dishonored both yourself and family in the process.

[august spies]

The only thing that makes me feel ill is your totally classless, disrespectful post regarding the deceased. I wouldn't gloat over the death of anyone; not even my worst enemy....thank God my mother taught me better manners than that.

Sorry dude, some times the world is a much better place when some people are dead, especially evil and powerful people like reagan. I would have been very happy if i were alive when hitler shot himself, and id be happy to hear that osama was killed because he step on a landmine that he and reagan put all over afghanistan. and im happy to hear that reagan a leading terrorist is dead, its a shame he wasnt put on trial.

and please, im sure you support the death penalty.

[venray]

Originally posted by august spies
Haha, sorry cant let this one go on without puking.

but just bare with me for a second.



No thanks. I have no desire to "bare" with YOU.. LOL

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/bare.html



Ray (tired of those who respect nothing..least of all the sanctity of life)


As for your further comments about us being better off with some people dead, I couldnt agree with you more.....:rolleyes:

[Jimblast]

Anyone who would be gleeful during a time for mourning for a great President's death deserves to have his head examined. That nutcase should be thanking him that you live in a country as great as this is. I had a feeling an individual the calibur of that moron would slither his way into this thread to prove himself to be a classless idiot. Not only does a person like that show horrible taste, he also shows a horrific and demented sense of history, politics, and economics. The only thing he had right are the three people that are happy to see the former President deceased: Osama, Saddam, and of course the August person. He, like the other two should be put in front of a firing squad. If you hate this country so much pal, move to Syria, I'm sure they'll love ya'. Friggin' classless lowlife.

[venray]

Post your debates here and not in the other. That thread is for paying respects only. All other posts there will be deleted.

Ray

[Psycho]

Damn Aug. Would you go into a memorial service for someone and start complaining about all the stuff they did wrong and joyfully make fun of their death.

LOL Venray, funny link.

BTW aug I noticed your signature. Are you an anarchist? I would like to debate your opinions on this one day.

Anyways see yall later.

Psycho

[Neutron]

august spies isn't all that bright is he, I love it when people take history, and draw a conclusion without looking into the facts.

1: The Trillion Dollar deficit was going to become a reality without Reagan. Carters next proposed budget exceeded a Trillion. The question wasn't whether to exceed a trillion, the question was WHAT are we gonna get for our trillion.

2: Social programs are Unconstitutional. Reagan didn't GUT the programs, he LEGALLY let them expire. Each program has an expiration date and no single government is required to renew them, This is a check to ensure one governments decisions cannot affect governments far into the future.

3: At the time defense had to be a priority. Whereas Carter preferred to spend the money on research, Reagan felt we needed hardware. The oney was going to be spent anyways.

4:Under no way shape or form was Reagan a war criminial. To put him on the same page as Bin Laden et al is pure ignorance.

5: I love a good strawman argument. So what exactly does supporting Reagan have to do with supporting the Death Penalty. Arguments like this weren't valid in the 4th grade, they're less valid now.


Tron

[august spies]

what is an e-thug?

i think it would be more permitting to discuss reagan, an actual thug.

social programs are unconstitutional? well screw the constitution and screw reagan

Defense? are you insane? try government pork and terrorist imperialism

To put him in the same page as bin laden is a bit ignorant for reagan caused much more death torture and destruction than bin laden could possible dream of. I only used bin laden because most people know who he is.

Would i mock someone who died? of course, i dont care if they are dead or alive, hitler is dead and ill mock him ever day of the week and twice on sunday. You dont seem to understand that this is not just about reagan, its about his crimes and those crimes still exist after his death.

uh jim by ill assume you mean an actual sense of history and politics accordint to reality which to you would of course be demented or a "thought crime"

I didnt say saddam and osama were happy i said they would be sad to see reagan die as he was their former strong ally.

[august spies]

i would also just like to point out, that your beloved terrorist is so well liked that you have to censor his death thread from criticism, and even posts outside of that thread (one which i posted just detailing some of his foriegn policy actions) had to be deleted by mods. facts can be dangerous things.

Also the club i was at on sat night, the dj thanked us for comming out to celebrate the death of reagan, and the crowd cheered loudly. You cant fool people that easily, i still have faith.

[Neutron]

On one hand you say Reagan was a poor president because he didn't do for the people, YET on the other hand you says screw the Constitution, which specifically is a government by the people for the people.

Who exctly did Reagan torture and kill? Please provide dates, times and a reliable source.

Also, how could Reagan EVER have been Osama Bin Ladens ally? This makes me very curious because Bin Ladens network and terrorist activities did not even start until the first Bush Era, and were triggered NOT by the US but Saudi Support for the first Gulf War.

Again, facts please, and a bit less Strawman argument. I could care less what you think of Reagan, what I'm challenging is you posting ignorance, and presenting it as fact without any proof.

And exactly how much pork do you think Reagans government had over any other. If I remember right Reagans government was the first to start challenging pork.

I also note Pork wasn't part of your original post, so not that your first Strawman claims are burned to ashes you now introduce new claims? None of which you can back.

Tron

[KoocheeKoo]

Originally posted by august spies

Also the club i was at on sat night, the dj thanked us for comming out to celebrate the death of reagan, and the crowd cheered loudly. You cant fool people that easily, i still have faith.


You honestly make me very thankful to reside in Georgia. If you and those other disrespectful punks in that club are examples of what lives in New Jersey, I'd rather go to hell than live there.

[qjakal]

Originally posted by august spies
facts can be dangerous things.




Why not at least dwell on the Iran-Contra scandal? That way you'd have at least some of those precious "facts" at your disposal? Going off onto psuedo tangents doesn't present much of a case....hope you're not the best the anarchists have in the way of a debate team. Arms dealing to Nicarauga, or better yet, the disaster in Lebanon would be a much better launching spot for critisizing Reagan.

Hey, btw, at 3 a.m. you can get a dance club to basically cheer any statement that ends with the words "1/2 price drinks for the next hour"...

Q

[Neutron]

"Anarchists are opposed to violence...The main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations. It is life based on the freedom of the individual, without the intervention of the police. For this reason we are enemies of capitalism, which depends on the protection of the police to force workers to allow themsleves to be exploited...We are therefore enemies of the State, which is the coercive, violent organization of society."


-- Errico Malatesta, Umanita Nova, August, 25, 1921


Yet Malatesta was a member of the group, and authorized the violence which resulted in the assassination of Archduke Ferdinad, and ultimately resulted in the second bloodiest war in history and created the conditions for the bloodiest war in history. Do you post stuff blindly without researching the historical reality? Also, Malatesta did not understand what anarchy is. Anarchy is NOT an enemy of captitalism, or communism. Anarchy is in fact a method of government which allows total freedom of expression, it's the ultimate in individual power, which usually ends up in a totalitarian state. One cannot exercise Individual power without wanting to eventually exercise group power. This isn't an idealistic world we live in. Getting back to my point, Captipalism and communism are ECONOMIC SYSTEMS not governmental systems, therefore Anarchy cannot be their enemy. Note how convoluted the logic of a very violent man becomes when he's trying to convince others he hasn't sinned.

Tron

[Cosmo_ac]

Perhaps agaust is refereing to number of weapons, money and chemical againts Reagan gave Saddam to use on his own people, kurds, and Irans? list Just a thought.
Oh, on a side note, and incase anybody is wondering, i don't get any pleasure from the man's death. Like a person or hate a person, i always dislike the loss of life.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

[Neutron]

The US did not give those weapons to Iraq with the purpose of using them on his own people. Throughout history countries have been allies with countries in order to support a greater good, WW2 is a classic example.. Let's remember, at that time Iran was considered a FAR greater danger, they had in fact attacked US Territory, took US hostages and threatened to destroy the region.
Also remember the world at large was afraid of what the Soviets would do, they'd already started a war in the region, we certainly couldn't stage an Army there, AND we needed an ally, otherwise it was feared with Irans help the Soviets would overrrun the region. In retrospect the danger probably wasn't as great as feared (at least from the Sovs) BUT Reagan couldn't have known that, in had to rid us of the greater danger. By putting pressure everywhere he did exactly that. Also, initially Saddam was not gassing his own people, he didn't really start that until AFTER the Reagan administration. So how does one tie to the other? Quite simply it doesn't. It' Strawman logic.

By the way no one has explained exactly how feeling grief for Reagans death ties to supporting the Death Penalty.

Tron

[august spies]

neurton lets stick to reagan, im not about to start a debate on anarchism, something you dont know much about, maybe a different thread i can explain anarchism to you.

yea cosmo gives an example, and as i said before i had a post with several examples, including a detailed example from el salvador, but of course that was deleted by the mods (and no it was not in the praise reagan thread).

and qjakal, my deleted post did include nicaragua, and the rejoicement at the club did not end in free or half price drinks.


neurton after reading your last post i think i understand where our differences lie, it is with the definition of terrorism.

to you a terrorist is a non state actor who kills americans or american mercenaries and soldiers.

to me, a terrorist is any group of people or individuals who through, violence, toture, rape, and destruction "terrorize" any civilian population, not just americans.

so to you when bin laden and his mujha hadeen network were running around afghanistan blowing up schools and hospitals, this wasnt terrorism, because the victims were mainly civilian afghanis. And when reagan mano blanco were running around the country side and the cities of el salvador cutting of womans breats and mens genitals, this wasnt terrorism, because they were connected to the military dictatorship and funded by reagan.

Well we anarchists feel the world would be much better if terrorism including all human civilians and not just one group of rich people. After all the civilian victim suffers no matter what.

and here is a thinking point, your definition of terrorism (just people like bin laden post 9/11 or post gulf war) who of course no doubt fit my definition of terrorism also, many times are connected to people like reagan, as bin laden and early al queda was. In other words they fuel each other.

another reason to stop all terrorism and hold all terrorists accountable

[august spies]

neurton get real, the us government knew exactly what kind of man saddam was, and btw, they armed both sides of the iran iraq war. Saddams al anfal campaign began in the late 80s and weather it was reagan or bush makes no difference to me. Also, saddam had been brutal well before his campaign of northern agression.

Before saddam became an official enemy of the us, people who tried to expose his crimes and weapons capabilities were silenced by the us government. Media analyist noam chomsky gives excellent examples of this, in fact he gives a key government statement regarding a journalist trying to expose hussiens evil pre enemy status. the government actualy told saddam that his problem is with "a few journalists and not the us government" which apparently was pleased with his actions.

We are talking about a government that send torture specialist to latin america who kidnapped people off the street and tortured them in classrooms of totalitarian societies. I think its safe to say that the us government and human rights in foreign policy is something we can all agree dont mix.

[august spies]

ps. i have a kurdish friend from turkey, which is a country in the last 10 years created 2 million kurdish refugees raized hundreds of kurdish villiages and killed tens of thousands of kurdish civilians, its still illegal to speak kurdish in turkey (ask lela zana, a kurdish member of parliment still rotting in prison just for speaking the kurdish language) however turkey is a godsend to people like bush and clinton who supported the terrorism and continue to.

the hypocracy of government is endless, which basically is my point all along, reagan was just a part of it.

[Neutron]

To Iran, then defeated the ability of that country to use those arms. Witness the F14s they still cannot fly!

I'm not saying we did not know what kind of man Hussein was, HOWEVER we could not have predicted the man he would become. To say otherwise would be the same as blaming the Brits for WW2. They knew what Hitler was, but did not and COULD not predict the man he would become.

Again you make these claims, Would you provide some proof please?????????? You keep changing your argument when you're confronted with easily available facts. Try this. RESEARCH, then base your opinions on that!. You haven't done anything but make unprovable accusations.

Am I saying the Us Government is always innocent. Hell no. I'm not naive and certainly know better. HOWEVER prior to making a claim I can at least back it up. Hell man, you have a quote at the end of your posts from someone who routinely used violence, yet you think the quote has some meaning.

Try being less a Strawman. I could care less what you believe, it is after all your right to believe as you choose, BUT at least provide legitimate basis for your beliefs. Otherwise you sound like J LO and Ben Affleck when they'd discuss their "marriage" plans.

Tron

[Neutron]

Clinton didn't take action to stop a threat, that's different from supporting terror. AND how is making war on terror the same as supporting it.
Again sometimes you need to use a smaller evil in order to fight a larger one. Please use FACT. The Kurds have many times resorted to terrorist tactics against Turks. ALSO the Turks are under NO obligation to take Kurdish refugees. That's simple International Law.

Now you've introduced acts by current foreign governments to support a claim you made about Reagan. Do you ever stop to think before you post? Strawman logic strikes again.

Tron

[august spies]

the us armed both sides of the iran iraq war, that was my point and i see you except it. i dont see what you mean by we "defeated that counties ability to use the arms" after all they were involved in a very bloody and pointless war after being attacked by iraq, which was armed more.

This is where you are wrong "predicted the man he would become" this again proves my point about definitions. Saddam was always a ruthless killer and always used torture and there were always thousands of political prisoners rotting in his jails (built by the british). however he only becomes evil to you once he turns agains the us (or misunderstood orders, see amabassador april gilespees comments to saddam regarding his invasion of kuwait).

Sorry tron my argument has not changed one bit, if you would like me to go into a certain point in more detail ill be glad, just give me a specific example.

The second post is where you are blantenly wrong, your right, clinton didnt take action to stop turkeys terrorism, he took action to support it, turkey outside israel is one of the largest recepient of us aid and dick sucking in that part of the world.

i dont really think you need to use smaller evil to defeat larger evil, however your point about turkist state terrorism being a small eveil as compared to kurdish resistence (and sometimes terrorism) is totally backward, at most kurdish resistence killed a few dozen turkish civilians, as opposed to the turkish state which killed tens of thousands. the term refugees reffering to the kurds was wrong, your right, i only used to because most people do not know the difference between internally displaced peoples and refugees, refugees is just a more common word. so i apologize, i didnt think you would know the difference.

The turkish goverment created 2million kurdish IDPS with their scortched earth terrorist campaign.

for those who dont know an IDP is somone displaced in their own country, to give another examlpe Sudans terrorist actions against the people of the south displace them inernally (within Sudan) so they are not refugees but IDPs. however if fighting in the Congo intensifies many congolese will flee to neighboring countries, this makes them refugees.

[august spies]

yea and you keep attacking poor malatesta, i dont know where you get these crazy ideas that he "routinley used violence" he was actually one of the anarchists who came out against all violence. but lets save the political discussion of anarchism for another time

[Neutron]

He was behind the plot to assassinate Ferdinand, Hardly a peacable gesture.

Again please provide proof for your claims, all you've done is restate your claims with extremely poor spelling. I did not EXCEPT anything, NOR did I accept anything. I merely pointed to a fact, that we armed Iran, then when it became they were a danger we took action to Unarm them.

And yes sometimes you need a smaller evil to defeat a bigger one. It's been that way thoughout world history, but you wouldn't know that because it's apparent you've never bothered learning it. How sad...

As for Hussein, no, he wasn't known as a tortuer when he was "promoted" He was a relatively minor player who the US supported because they felt he could control him.

The Turks do not receive the second amount of Foreign aid. Where exactly do you get that?

Again please provide SOURCES and not allegations.

You're proving an old adage. Never debate an idiot, they'll drag you to their level and beat you with experience.

Also please tell me exactly how grieving for Reagan equates with supporting the Death Penalty? You made that claim earlier. I'm curious how a Strawman backs that up..

Tron

[august spies]

i actually didnt proofread my posts because i assumed all your could criticize would be spelling errors, i guess i was right.

Nuetron, your smart enough to realize that saddam was a known torturer, and you can take those pretentious quotations off of the word promoted, we know our history. Every human rights report and even state deptartment human rights reported from that time denounced him as a torturer.

the lesser evil remark i shouldnt even bothered making, that was just a tangent that i should have known you would have attacked instead of going after the key point, that the turkish government was the greater evil, not the kurds.

The Turks do not receive the second amount of Foreign aid. Where exactly do you get that?

the above statement must be you getting desperate, i never said that, now you are just making things up. but it doesnt matter to me because its irrelavent. i said the turks are one of the largest recipients of us aid, its in the billions, epypt and israel get more, but billions in aid to a terrorist state is wrong and thats my point.

you havent given me any specific statements you want me to back up so heres one people always find shocking. Its regarding the toture specialist who worked with brazil during its totalitarianist dictatorship.

btw, this is from a report by the catholic church, not the most anarchist friendly organization in the world.

[URL=http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0292704844/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-1324084-6384126#reader-page]

page 14, look for the name dan mitrione.

i really know im really taking your bait here, but where on earth did you here of malatestas plot with the serb nationlist who killed the archduke (and please dont limit your response to this alone)

[Psycho]

aug stop changing points. Tron didn't mean that the Kurds where the greater evil. He was pointing out that you have to use a smaller evil (ex: the kurds or saddam) to defeat a greater evil (ex: the Turks or the Soviets) He was relating the 2. Did you not say "Turkey, outside of isreal, is the largest recipiant of US aid and dick sucking"? Scroll down buddy its there. Anyway stop changing the subject for god sakes. What does the Kurds, Clinton, and the Death Penalty have to do with you celebrating Reagan's death. Also since when is anarchism anit-violent. I dont know who the hell would buy that. Also you haven't proven anything that you have said. You said Reagan is a terrorist that he supported raping, beating, and torturing, but you havent given any examples of him supporting any of these. I hate to say it because Tron said it so many times it sounds repetative, but he is right. Straw Man. KoocheeKoo your right I am proud to be born southern. Those damn yankees dont know a damn thing and dont respect a damn thing either.

Psycho

[Neutron]

Well said, and thank you for getting the point.

Tron

[Neutron]

"turkey outside israel is one of the largest recepient of us aid and dick sucking in that part of the "


Implies you're saying Turkey IS the second largest receiver of US foreign aid. Otherwise you should have mentioned other countries.

Also, when we talk terrorism let's stick to the LEGAL definition ok? Anyone who performs acts in order to cause a state of terror or unrest outside normal military channels and without consent of a legally recognized government.

Otherwise it comes down to your uninformed strawman opinion.

I have asked for sources and proof after EVERYONe of your threads. Hell just pick one of your mindless statements and prove it. Your choice. And please let's stick to what legally recognized organizations use when it comes to definition, then again you'd be out of luck wouldn't you?

PLEASE tell me what supporting the death penalty has to do with grieving over Reagan. I've asked you to do that many times. Specific enough for you?

By the way, what other parts of the Constitution should we throw out? Maybe the part that allowed your DJ buddy to ask for applause for an ex presidents death?

Tron

[Strider]

Yeah,he just had to go and win the Cold War.

[KoocheeKoo]

Originally posted by Psycho

KoocheeKoo your right I am proud to be born southern. Those damn yankees dont know a damn thing and dont respect a damn thing either.


I can't say that about all folks from the north....my brother in law hails from Oregon and he's a great guy....so are his folks. IMO "august the anarchist" is just a punk with no class and less manners. One thing is for certain....he's darn lucky to live in New Jersey. We don't tolerate such blatant disrespect of the dead down here.

[august spies]

this thread turned into me making fun of a bunch of southern fascists? wow i would have never guessed that.

nuetron all of your arguments are strawman, either that or you just make up things, or you focus on things that are completely irrelavent to the point.

what legal definition of terrorism is that? george bushs? lets use the definition that most of the world goes by.

but lets humor you, even with your own definition of terrorism reagans contras were not a state. reagans connection to them was far greater than bin ladens to 9/11 and they caused far more terrorism and death.

i just gave you proof of a point i made, a fairly important one that sets a context, however of course you choose to ignore it. and i said it a million times but ill say it again, i wrote another thread detailing reagans actions, it was deleted by the mods because they have a bias and they dont hide it.

i not going to cite everything i say, ill be here all night, if you dont believe something look into it, if you dont find it, ill cite it for you, but be specific.

i dont support the death penalty, im sure you do.

the dj can say that because he believes in freedom, as do i. not because a piece of paper tells him he is allowed. that thinking gets you idiots who say,"healthcare isnt in the constitution so its bad". well sorry f the constitution.

ps. he didnt ask for applause, it came naturally.

psycho:
aug stop changing points. Tron didn't mean that the Kurds where the greater evil. He was pointing out that you have to use a smaller evil (ex: the kurds or saddam) to defeat a greater evil (ex: the Turks or the Soviets) He was relating the 2. Did you not say "Turkey, outside of isreal, is the largest recipiant of US aid and dick sucking"? Scroll down buddy its there. Anyway stop changing the subject for god sakes. What does the Kurds, Clinton, and the Death Penalty have to do with you celebrating Reagan's death. Also since when is anarchism anit-violent. I dont know who the hell would buy that. Also you haven't proven anything that you have said. You said Reagan is a terrorist that he supported raping, beating, and torturing, but you havent given any examples of him supporting any of these. I hate to say it because Tron said it so many times it sounds repetative, but he is right. Straw Man. KoocheeKoo your right I am proud to be born southern. Those damn yankees dont know a damn thing and dont respect a damn thing either.

Of course he ment the kurds were the greater evil, if he ment it the other way he would be agreeing with me and not bush, and i doubt its that.

and no i didnt say turkey outside israel is the greatest recipient of us aid, i said it is ONE of the greatest recipients of us aid. i also said that if its the 4th greatest the 5th the 3rd or the 2nd doesnt matter, the point im making is it is ONE of the greatest recipients of us aid, agreed? can we move one?

anarchists are not monolithic in their tactics, malatesta believed in non violence, some didnt.

what do the kurds have to do with celebrating reagans death? the kurds are just one example of an opressed people, who are opressed because of people like reagan. so if this opressor dies, although the opression doesnt end because somone else takes over (clinton) im still happy reagan is gone.

as i said a million times i posted a thread detailing reagans terrorist activities but it was deleted, and no it wasnt in the praise reagan thread.

Reagan was very close to, trained, funded, direceted, and even created many thug like terrorist groups, mainly in latin america who were responsibly for the death of up to a million people. the mano blanco of el salvador were one, the contra mercenaries were another, the guatamalan genocide squads were another.

the el mozote massacre was one of the most brutal terrorist attacks, about 1/3 the casualty rate of 9/11 but most were woman and children, most were raped, and most were tortured. the terrorist group responsible, the salvadoran atlacatl battalion, was reagans brain child.

here is a quote from one of their leaders:

"You know you're not going to be able to work with the civilian population up there, you're never going to get a permanent base there. So you just decide to kill everybody. That'll scare everybody else out of the zone. It's done out of frustration more than anything else."

terrorism plane and simple, include the rape and torture, and you have the most barbaric form of terrorism possible.

[venray]

you call this details..lol It was pulled by one of the mods because it duplicated your meaningless tirade in the thread meant to pay respects to the dead....

August's restored post:

leading terrorist dies
ronald reagan, former head terrorist dies.

bin laden, saddam, mano blanco, august pinochet, general suharto, somoza, marcos, mobutu, all send condolences.

lets take a look at his lovely record of war torture racism,and fascism.
remember, all the ties to these terrorists are equal or greater than bin ladens ties to 9/11.

el salvador- 75,000 dead
nicargaua-30,000 dead
guatamala-200,000 dead
chile-5,000 dead
argentina-30,000 dead
bolivia-40,000 dead
zaire-1,000,000 dead
south africa-1,000,000 dead and the legitamacy of racism.
indonesia-1,000,000 dead
phillipines-tens of tousands dead
afghanistan-6billion dollars and al queda later, the country is destroyed and islamic fascism takes power 1,000,000 dead


just to put this terrorism into context ill just give one story

its about a peasent woman from el salvador, who returned to her house to find her entire familiy decapitated and sitting at the diner table with their heads in front of them on dinner plates (including children). this was the work of reagans "mano blanco" or white hand terrorist hit squad.

well i could go on by my hands are getting tired.


This is nothing more than a list that YOU attribute to Reagan...once again you have backed up nothing with fact, you just spew forth drivel..to say "this was the work of reagans "mano blanco" or white hand terrorist hit squad.." when this organization started long before the man even thought of politics let alone the Presidency, shows you know nothing of history...give it up son or PROVE at least one point you are trying to make..you havent yet, and quite frankly your lack of good grammar and spelling skill makes your posts both difficult and painful to wade through...

Ray :rolleyes:

[Strider]

August,you are aware that we were in The Cold War(World War 3)at the time of the actions you're describing.That you're also getting facts completely wrong,you're either being intentionally disingenuous you simply don't know what you're talking about,I really don't know,nor do I particularly care.

For instance,on the subject of El Salvador,you obviously think backing Duarte and the PDC was the wrong decision,fine;your reason for this seems to be their ostensible brutality,for some reason you don't take into account that the FMLN has admitted they fabricated atrocity stories,nor do you bother to differentiate between the PDC and the paramilitaries,but I'll ignore that for now.So,you say we should not have backed the PDC due to their repressive nature,but if that's your argument,the burden then falls on you to make the argument that had the US extended no support and the FMLN been allowed to overrun the country,the outcome would have been markedly better off were the Salvadorans.Frankly,I don't believe that's possible.The eventual outcome due to support of Duarte's government-which,for all it's flaws,was certainly a better option than the caudillos so traditionally popular in the area-was democratization in 1984,and an eventual end to the civil war in 1991.Today,the FMLN can run uncontested in Salvadoran elections.If it had been the other way around,would the PDC be able to function above ground today?The actions of Ortega's clique in the FSLN would indicate otherwise.

Another example,on your death totals,you simply take the entire number dead in any given conflict and attribute every death to the US as if some men in black suits are secretly micro-managing every last one of these events and local causes and the agendas of regional leaders don't actually matter.For instance,the subject of the Chilean military coup in 1973 has been so willfully lied about it's mind blowing.Popular mythology would have you believe the UP regime was running some wondrous arcadia in early 70s Chile until the CIA single handedly prodded Pinochet into action.To say this leaves a few things out is perhaps the understatement of the millenium.Without understanding the circumstances surrounding the Statute of Democratic Guarantees,it's impossible to understand how this affair played out.But the people who continue to push the 'CIA installed Pinochet' myth have probably never even heard of that particular document.

Some of the totals are also significantly larger than I've ever seen.For instance,you say 200,000 deaths in Guatemala.But you're ostensibly referring to deaths due to actions directly orchestrated by Reagan,and 200,000 is the number of deaths in the entire Guatemalan Civil War,on all sides,both military and civilian.Of course,you simply attribute every last one of them to the US.You also neglect to mention Reagan had an arms embargo on Guatemala during the worst repressions in the early 80s.In Nicaragua,the 30,000 figure sounds about right.But once again,you take every single casualty in a civil war,whether military or civilian and act as if the US is single handedly responsible.That is asinine.Also,if you're interested,the Sandinistas themselves admitted that three quarters of the people the Contras killed were military targets.Naturally,you also neglect to mention the Sandinista persecution of the Moskitos,but that's not surprising really.In Salvador you do the exact same thing.(The Real Contra War-Tim Brown;Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family-Shirley Christian;Shattered Hope:The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States-Piero Gleijeses)

In Chile,you claim 5,000.The Chilean Truth and Reconcilliation Committee lists 3,197.Naturally,I suppose whether those people executed were members of the MIR or Altimiranos is irrelevant to you.Seriously,you could at least attempt to learn about the situations you're discussing.(http://www.amnesty.it/AIlibtop/1996/AMR/22200196.htm;The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile:1964-1976-Paul Sigmund)

I don't know where the hell you got the number on Bolivia.Banzer's regime executed probably 400 people,but that was in 1971-1978,before Reagan was in office.Meza's regime was in power in the first year of Reagan's first term;Amnesty Internatioal estimates his regime killed around 1,000 people in 1980-1981.So please,let me know where you got 40,000.In Zaire,once again,I don't know where the hell you got one million,Mobutu's regime probably executed around 8,000 people.Anyway,I won't bother with anymore of these,if you care enough about history,you'll trouble yourself to research it.(NY Times,1999;UK Guardian,2002)

[august spies]

ven, im not stupid. the thread was pulled for political reasons because the conflicted with the right wing mods beliefs. the post had its own thread entitled leading terrorist dies. and frankly i wouldnt care if it was in the jerk off reagan thread, but it wasnt and thats a fact.

If it had been a thread priasing reagan it would never have been taken down.

the reagan death count is a fact. those people are dead.

the specific example is a fact, her familiy is dead.

the death squad killed them, thats a fact, they brag about it.

reagan supported them, thats a fact.

salvadorian terrorism didnt start with reagan, just like islamic terrorism didnt start with bin laden. does that mean bin laden is ok?

salvadorian terrorism got extermely bloody and intense under reagan because of his intense support for it. its that simple.

[august spies]

strider im not going to debate death counts with you, if its 300 people, its too many so for arguments sake ill agree with all your totals.

i dont care about the fmln fabricating stories, there are enough real stories to make any human being sick to their stomach. if you want to endulge fantasys about latim american fascists and their love for democracy thats another story.

the cia was heavily involved in pinochets demoracy to dictatorship transition and they brag about it.

im sure the sandinistas killed a few dozen miskiots, but i never praised their human rights record, up against el salvadors it looks like a paradise. but your missing the point, YOUR RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONSIQUENCES OF YOUR OWN ACTIONS, THE CONTRA REIGN OF TERROR WAS DIRECTED FUNDED AND FUELED BY REAGAN AND OUR GOVERNMENT, THE FSLN WAS NOT

[venray]

You say you have given facts...Give sources to prove them

You say you have given specific examples...give their source and prove them....

You say Reagan the man, the president supported the death squads..give a source to prove your statement..

You say you arent stupid....no source necessary, just dont act it.


You have proven nothing nor can you give a source that shows that 5000 chileans died at the hands of Reagan. This it what you SAY, but cannot prove. This is why people dont listen to you or those like you that continuosly throw out what you call facts with no supporting source.

You take a "fact" and twist it and make it fit into the point you are trying to make, but it doesnt work , son....


Ven

[Neutron]

Can verify I don't "make facts up". I'm an astute student of history and will be the first to separate that which I know as a fact, from that which is my opinion. You've stated very biased opinions and haven't given ONE source outside of Everyone knows it to be true. That argument wasn't valid in the 5th grade, and is less valid as adults.

I never once said Kurds were an eveil, I suggest you reread that post. I'll not explain it to you, you don't seem to understand the concept of international balance.

As for my definition of terrorism, that's the definition as used by International Law, defined when treying to post an international subpeona for Carlos The Jackal. It is in fact the currently used LEGAL definition, and the one must prove when attempting to extradite a terrorist.

Again please cite sources for your "facts" Your post was pulled because it didn't belong in that thread. Note no one has deleted your posts in this thread.

Tron

[venray]

To clarify: The post was pulled by one of the mods because of redundancy. His points were made in the Reagan passes thread and then this other was posted. Since the comments have been moved from the other thread to here I have restored that which August claims to explain his points.

The thread has been restored within my above post. It neither explains nor backs up anything that he has said thus far. No sources have been cited, perhaps because there are none.

Ray

[Neutron]

An "anarchist" Bemoans the Reagan administration "gutting" social and social welfare programs. This implies he's bemoaning lack of government intervention for a social situation. I'm sort of amused in that aren't government intervention and anarchy mutually exclusive?

Tron

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by Neutron

Also, when we talk terrorism let's stick to the LEGAL definition ok? Anyone who performs acts in order to cause a state of terror or unrest outside normal military channels and without consent of a legally recognized government.


Umm, I might be way off target here, but the way I see this is if the US supported the Contras, which were armed opponents of the democratically elected government, and if the Contras struck at targets not considered military in nature, then the US was indeed supporting Terrorism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair

In the Iran-Contra Affair, United States President Ronald Reagan's administration secretly sold arms to Iran, which was engaged in a bloody war with its neighbor Iraq from 1980 to 1988 (see Iran-Iraq War), and diverted the proceeds to the Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the leftist democratically-elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Those sales thus had a dual goal: appeasing Iran, which held American hostages and supported bombings in Western European countries, and funding an anti-Communist guerilla war.

Both actions were contrary to acts of Congress which prohibited the sale of weapons to Iran, as well as in violation of UN sanctions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras

The Contras (Spanish contrarevolucionario, "counter-revolutionary") were the armed opponents of Nicaragua's revolutionary and democratically-elected Sandinista government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle and the ending of the Somoza family's 43-year rule. The label was commonly used by the US press to cover a range of groups with little in the way of ideological unity; thus some references use the uncapitalized form, contra.

They were considered terrorists by the Sandinistas and many Nicaraguans and many of their attacks targeted civilians. There are allegations that Reagan's US administration incited the targeting of "soft" or civilian targets by Contra militants, for example farm co-operatives (which are comparable to Palestinian guerrilla attacks on civilians in kibutz in Israel).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America was a case heard by the International Court of Justice in which it was alleged that the United States had violated international law by supporting Contra guerrillas in their war against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The Court ruled in Nicaragua's favor, but the United States refused to abide by the Court's decision, even though it was obligated to do so under international law. After the Court's decision, the United States withdrew its declaration accepting the Court's compulsory jurisdiction.

On June 27, 1986, the Court found that:


The United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.

The United States of America, by certain attacks on Nicaraguan territory in 1983-1984, namely attacks on Puerto Sandino on 13 September and 14 October 1983, an attack on Corinto on 10 October 1983; an attack on Potosi Naval Base on 4/5 January 1984, an attack on San Juan del Sur on 7 March 1984; attacks on patrol boats at Puerto Sandino on 28 and 30 March 1984; and an attack on San Juan del Norte on 9 April 1984; and further by those acts of intervention referred to [above] which involve the use of force, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to use force against another State.

The United States of America, by directing or authorizing over Rights of Nicaraguan territory, and by the acts imputable to the United States referred to [above], has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to violate the sovereignty of another State.

By laying mines in the internal or territorial waters of the Republic of Nicaragua during the first months of 1984, the United States of America has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State, not to intervene in its affairs, not to violate its sovereignty and not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce.

The United States of America, by the attacks on Nicaraguan territory referred to [above], and by declaring a general embargo on trade with Nicaragua on 1 May 1985, has acted in breach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956.

The United States of America, by producing in 1983 a manual entitled 'Operaciones sicológicas en guerra de guerrillas', and disseminating it to contra forces, has encouraged the commission by them of acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law; but does not find a basis for concluding that any such acts which may have been committed are imputable to the United States of America as acts of the United States of America.


Now I am NOT saying that this puts Ronald Reagan on the same level as the bin-Laden's of this world, only that a case can be made that his administration did indeed support terrorism, a charge that, 17 years later, was given as a reason for invading Iraq in 2003.

Originally posted by Neutron

The US did not give those weapons to Iraq with the purpose of using them on his own people.


Again, I might be off the mark but why give them to him in the first place? Surely you don't give a country chemical weapons and not expect them to be used against SOMEONE. When they were used, the administration downplayed the reports and when the media confirmed them, the response was:


"Everyone in the administration saw the same reports you saw last night. They were horrible, outrageous, disgusting and should serve as a reminder to all countries of why chemical warfare should be banned."


But if the US had any part in supplying those chemicals then they should have shouldered part of the blame. They didn't and left the Kurds to face an enemy that the US had a major hand in creating, a pattern that would be repeated after the first Gulf War with the Shiites.

Originally posted by Neutron

And yes sometimes you need a smaller evil to defeat a bigger one. It's been that way thoughout world history.


I've got a question about this that I think you can answer, your knowledge of history has a far wider base than mine does after all. How many times when a small evil has been used to defeat a bigger one has the smaller evil gone on to take the place of the larger one it has displaced?

[Psycho]

Ok there is not point argueing anymore on my part. There is alot I would like to say but it will just get ignored by august. So I will give an example of august's debating strategy.

Say I where to create the following thread trying to prove that Aug is a terrorist. Say Tron (just for the sake of having a name to use) where to argue with me about it. If I where to used August's debating strategy it would look something like this.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Psycho: August Spies is the most evil terrorist ever alive. He supports death squads in Isreal killing 600,000 Jews a year. His August Blood Cobras crew raped hundreds of jewish women and tortured their kids and husbands.

Tron: That isn't true. No where in history is there any proof of any of this. Can you provide proof?

Psycho: I did create a thread with proof but the mods deleted it.

Venray: restored thread-
August is evil.
Jews killed-600,000 a year.
Raped-300,000
tortured-1,000,000

see there is proof.

Tron: that isn't proof. This doesn't make any since. Nothing like that ever happened.

Psycho: yes it did and I provided proof but the mods took it. August Spies is a murderer. Just look at last year when he went to Idaho and personnally shot 5 million people. You want more proof? Well I don't support the death penalty or abortion.

Tron: you still haven't given any proof.

Psycho: yes I have. August Spies in one story killed a womans whole family and sat them at the dinning table with their heads in the bowls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

You see. In your own logic I have just proven that you are a terrorist.

Psycho

[Neutron]

However by international law terrorism involves NO government in any way shape or form. It also has no real political backing outside of an agenda by a special interest group. It also has to be against civilian targets. By definition one cannot strike "terror" into the military.

The US did NOT supply Chemical weapons, we supplied planes, taks, bullets, and missiles. So far as I know the US does not supply WMD to anyone on the basis that it could potentially be used against an ally.

The US did NOT promise support to the Kurds. Granted it promoted them to rise against Hussein, BUT once the war was ended we had no right to interfere in a civil matter. One cannot say, We're not gonna take Husseoin out, then provide military backing to that group which rises against him. Had we backed them fully we would have been Middle Eastern Paraihs, In fact to keep the peace with our allies we specifically agreed not to militarily back anyone.

In the last case I agree. Note I never raised the ultimate end to the scenario. However, in some cases the smaller evil has not become a bigger evil. It's situational, for instance do I agree with the Turks treatment of the Kurds? Nope. As a whole are the Turks a threat to the world because of their treatment of the Kurds? Nope, the Turks have never been a threat to the modern world and there's no reason to believe they'll start. Let's remember, part of their repression of the Kurds is justified. I guess it's just a matter of who is being evil to who. Another way to look at it, During WW2 the US supported Mao Tse Tung along with Chang Kai Chek. It was recognized Tung might drive the Chinese to Communism, BUT he was necessary to fight at least at the beginning of the war Japanese agression. In the end the Japanese were beaten and by 1949 China was communist. But were the Chinese a threat to world peace? Nope, they never have been a serious threat, AND have never shown the inclination to be one. In this case the smaller evil did not spread, and in many cases ended up being a stabilizing force in the region.
Even the Soviets in WW2 did not spread into a bigger evil. Granted the cold war happened and granted the Sovs did invade other nations, but look closely, in Europe they never invaded anyone that hadn't provided a path from Germany to Russia, Stalin vowed after WW2 the Germans would never threaten his country again, and he made damn sure of it. In this case the smaller evil DID NOT replace a larger evil, Russia was never the threat the Germans were.

Tron

[august spies]

i somone just lost a giant post, and im not rewritng it.

it basically stated their is no point arguing with tron because he mind is made up, i dont even think he is reading what im saying.

thats why he still thinks my post was pulled because it was in the praise reagan thread which i said a million times it wasnt.

i didnt cite one source? i gave you a catholic church report on torture featuring your hero dan mitrione.

the us armed the contras, they armed the death squads, and they armed the dictatorships, period.

[Neutron]

Tron

[Neutron]

And exactly how does that Catholic Church report prove anything? PLEASE provide a recognized source (journalist) newspaper, Author, Internation Report. SOMETHING!!

And how exactly is Dan Mitrione my hero? I don't believe I ever condoned torture. I read the nonsense you posted. I only asked you back it up. Hell look at the fine job BOFH did, AND you could actually read his!

Now answer the last question, How exactly can an "anarchist" bemoan Reagans decision to "gut" social programs. It seems that's exactly what an anarchist would want, less government intervention in society.

Tron

[august spies]

again its a fact they us armed, trained, and gave countless support to terrorist actions in latin america, the difference lies in your opinion why.

Reagan said it was for self defense, the us had to be protected from "salvadoran peasents" or a state of emergency had to be declared in 1986 because of the "threat" nicaragua posed to the US. anyone with a brain knows this is nonsense.

the reason for the terrorism was simple, it was to maintain us hegemony in the region, since the turn of the previous century the us has invaded that regeion dozens of times, it set up the somoza dictatorship in the 30s, overthrew the first and last democratic government of guatemala in 1954 and has armed countless terrorist factions and dictatorships, all to maintain their dominace and control over the region, why? profits.

here is a favorite quote of mine from a marine during that time period:
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.



tron actually many us capitalists supplied wmds to saddam, here is a well cited article:

Flashback: How The US Armed Saddam Hussein With Chemical Weapons

By Norm Dixon
On August 18, 2002, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, "Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas". Quoting anonymous US "senior military officers", the NYT "revealed" that in the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan covertly provided "critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war". The story made a brief splash in the international media, then died.

While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq's Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

Nor did the NYT dwell on the extreme cynicism and hypocrisy of the current US administration's citing of those same terrible atrocities — which were disregarded at the time by Washington — and those same weapons programs — which no longer exist, having been dismantled and destroyed in the decade following the 1991 Gulf War — to justify a massive new war against the people of Iraq.

A reader of the NYT article (or the tens of thousands of other articles written after the latest war drive against Iraq began in earnest soon after September 11) would have looked in vain for the fact that many of the US politicians and ruling class pundits demanding war against Hussein today — in particular, the most bellicose of the Bush administration's "hawks", defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld — were up to their ears in Washington's efforts to cultivate, promote and excuse Hussein in the past.

The NYT article read as though Washington's casual disregard about the use of chemical weapons by Hussein's dictatorship throughout the 1980s had never been reported before. However, it was not the first time that "Iraqgate" — as the scandal of US military and political support for Hussein in the '80s has been dubbed — has raised its embarrassing head in the corporate media, only to be quickly buried again.

One of the more comprehensive and damning accounts of Iraqgate was written by Douglas Frantz and Murray Waas and published in the February 23, 1992, Los Angeles Times. Headlined, "Bush secret effort helped Iraq build its war machine", the article reported that "classified documents obtained by the LA Times show … a long-secret pattern of personal efforts by [George Bush senior] — both as president and vice president — to support and placate the Iraqi dictator."

Even William Safire, the right-wing, war-mongering NYT columnist, on December 7, 1992, felt compelled to write that, "Iraqgate is uniquely horrendous: a scandal about the systematic abuse of power by misguided leaders of three democratic nations [the US, Britain and Italy] to secretly finance the arms buildup of a dictator".

The background to Iraqgate was the January 1979 popular uprising that overthrew the cravenly pro-US Shah of Iran. The Iranian revolution threatened US imperialism's domination of the strategic oil-rich region. Other than Israel, Iran had long been Washington's key ally in the Middle East.

Washington immediately began to "cast about for ways to undermine or overthrow the Iranian revolution, or make up for the loss of the Shah. Hussein's regime put up its hand. On September 22, 1980, Iraq launched an invasion of Iran. Throughout the bloody eight-year-long war — which cost at least 1 million lives — Washington backed Iraq.

As a 1990 report prepared for the Pentagon by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US War College admitted: "Throughout the [Iran-Iraq] war the United States practised a fairly benign policy toward Iraq… [Washington and Baghdad] wanted to restore the status quo ante … that prevailed before [the 1979 Iranian revolution] began threatening the regional balance of power. Khomeini's revolutionary appeal was anathema to both Baghdad and Washington; hence they wanted to get rid of him. United by a common interest … the [US] began to actively assist Iraq."

At first, as Iraqi forces seemed headed for victory over Iran, official US policy was neutrality in the conflict. Not only was Hussein doing Washington's dirty work in the war with Iran, but the US rulers believed that Iraq could be lured away from its close economic and military relationship with the Soviet Union — just as Egypt's President Anwar Sadat had done in the 1970s.

In March 1981, US Secretary of State Alexander Haig excitedly told the Senate foreign relations committee that Iraq was concerned by "the behaviour of Soviet imperialism in the Middle Eastern region". The Soviet government had refused to deliver arms to Iraq as long as Baghdad continued its military offensive against Iran. Moscow was also unhappy with the Hussein's vicious repression of the Iraqi Communist Party.

Washington's support (innocuously referred to as a "tilt" at the time) for Iraq became more open after Iran succeeded in driving Iraqi forces from its territory in May 1982; in June, Iran went on the offensive against Iraq. The US scrambled to stem Iraq's military setbacks. Washington and its conservative Arab allies suddenly feared Iran might even defeat Iraq, or at least cause the collapse of Hussein's regime.

Using its allies in the Middle East, Washington funnelled huge supplies of arms to Iraq. Classified State Department cables uncovered by Frantz and Waas described covert transfers of howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons to Baghdad in 1982-83 from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.

Howard Teicher, who monitored Middle East policy at the US National Security Council during the Reagan administration, told the February 23, 1992, LA Times: "There was a conscious effort to encourage third countries to ship US arms or acquiesce in shipments after the fact. It was a policy of nods and winks."

According to Mark Phythian's 1997 book Arming Iraq: How the US and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine (Northeastern University Press), in 1983 Reagan asked Italy's Prime Minister Guilo Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq.

The January 1, 1984 Washington Post reported that the US had "informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the three-year-old war with Iran would be 'contrary to US interests' and has made several moves to prevent that result".

Central to these "moves" was the cementing of a military and political alliance with Saddam Hussein's repressive regime, so as to build up Iraq as a military counterweight to Iran. In 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department's list of countries that allegedly supported terrorism. On December 19-20, 1983, Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy — none other than Donald Rumsfeld — to Baghdad with a hand-written offer of a resumption of diplomatic relations, which had been severed during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. On March 24, 1984, Rumsfeld was again in Baghdad.

On that same day, the UPI wire service reported from the UN: "Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers … a team of UN experts has concluded … Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, US presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz."

The day before, Iran had accused Iraq of poisoning 600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas.

There is no doubt that the US government knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. On March 5, 1984, the State Department had stated that "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons". The March 30, 1984, NYT reported that US intelligence officials has "what they believe to be incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass producing the lethal chemical warfare agent".

However, consistent with the pattern throughout the Iran-Iraq war and after, the use of these internationally outlawed weapons was not considered important enough by Rumsfeld and his political superiors to halt Washington's blossoming love affair with Hussein.

The March 29, 1984, NYT, reporting on the aftermath of Rumsfeld's talks in Baghdad, stated that US officials had pronounced "themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the US and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name". In November 1984, the US and Iraq officially restored diplomatic relations.

According to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, in a December 15, 1986 article, the CIA began to secretly supply Iraq with intelligence in 1984 that was used to "calibrate" mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. Beginning in early 1985, the CIA provided Iraq with "data from sensitive US satellite reconnaissance photography … to assist Iraqi bombing raids".

Iraqi chemical attacks on Iranian troops — and US assistance to Iraq — continued throughout the Iran-Iraq war. In a parallel program, the US defence department also provided intelligence and battle-planning assistance to Iraq.

The August 17, 2002 NYT reported that, according to "senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program", even though "senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly condemned Iraq's employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other poisonous agents … President Reagan, vice president George Bush [senior] and senior national security aides never withdrew their support for the highly classified program in which more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq."

Retired DIA officer Rick Francona told the NYT that Iraq's chemical weapons were used in the war's final battle in early 1988, in which Iraqi forces retook the Fao Peninsula from the Iranian army.

Another retired DIA officer, Walter Lang, told the NYT that "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern". What concerned the DIA, CIA and the Reagan administration was that Iran not break through the Fao Peninsula and spread the Islamic revolution to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Iraq's 1982 removal from Washington's official list of states that support terrorism meant that the Hussein regime was now eligible for US economic and military aid, and was able to purchase advanced US technology that could also be used for military purposes.

Conventional military sales resumed in December 1982. In 1983, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters to Iraq in 1983 "for civilian use". However, as Phythian pointed out, these aircraft could be "weaponised" within hours of delivery. Then US Secretary of State George Schultz and commerce secretary George Baldridge also lobbied for the delivery of Bell helicopters equipped for "crop spraying". It is believed that US-supplied choppers were used in the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, which killed 5000 people.

With the Reagan administration's connivance, Baghdad immediately embarked on a massive militarisation drive. This US-endorsed military spending spree began even before Iraq was delisted as a terrorist state, when the US commerce department approved the sale of Italian gas turbine engines for Iraq's naval frigates.

Soon after, the US agriculture department's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) guaranteed to repay loans — in the event of defaults by Baghdad — banks had made to Iraq to buy US-grown commodities such as wheat and rice. Under this scheme, Iraq had three years to repay the loans, and if it could not the US taxpayers would have to cough up.

Washington offered this aid initially to prevent Hussein's overthrow as the Iraqi people began to complain about the food shortages caused by the massive diversion of hard currency for the purchase of weapons and ammunition. The loan guarantees amounted to a massive US subsidy that allowed Hussein to launch his overt and covert arms buildup, one result being that the Iran-Iraq war entered a bloody five-year stalemate.

By the end of 1983, US$402 million in agriculture department loan guarantees for Iraq were approved. In 1984, this increased to $503 million and reached $1.1 billion in 1988. Between 1983 and 1990, CCC loan guarantees freed up more than $5 billion. Some $2 billion in bad loans, plus interest, ended up having to be covered by US taxpayers.

A similar taxpayer-funded, though smaller scale, scam operated under the auspices of the federal Export-Import Bank. In 1984, vice-president George Bush senior personally intervened to ensure that the bank guaranteed loans to Iraq of $500 million to build an oil pipeline. Export-Import Bank loan guarantees grew from $35 million in 1985 to $267 million by 1990.

According to William Blum, writing in the August 1998 issue of the Progressive, Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a Congressional subcommittee investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that from 1985 until 1990 "the US government approved 771 licenses [only 39 were rejected] for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application …

"The US spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted… US export control policy was directed by US foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was US foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."

A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.

The report also noted that US exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment. US firms supplied advanced and specialised computers, lasers, testing and analysing equipment. Among the better-known companies were Hewlett Packard, Unisys, Data General and Honeywell.

Billions of dollars worth of raw materials, machinery and equipment, missile technology and other "dual-use" items were also supplied by West German, French, Italian, British, Swiss and Austrian corporations, with the approval of their governments (German firms even sold Iraq entire factories capable of mass-producing poison gas). Much of this was purchased with funds freed by the US CCC credits.

The destination of much of this equipment was Saad 16, near Mosul in northern Iraq. Western intelligence agencies had long known that the sprawling complex was Iraq's main ballistic missile development centre.

Blum reported that Washington was fully aware of the likely use of this material. In 1992, a US Senate committee learned that the commerce department had deleted references to military end-use from information it sent to Congress about 68 export licences, worth more than $1 billion.

In 1986, the US defence department's deputy undersecretary for trade security, Stephen Bryen, had objected to the export of an advanced computer, similar to those used in the US missile program, to Saad 16 because "of the high likelihood of military end use". The state and commerce departments approved the sale without conditions.

In his book, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq, Kenneth Timmerman points out that several US agencies were supposed to review US exports that may be detrimental to US "national security". However, the commerce department often did not submit exports to Hussein's Iraq for review or approved them despite objections from other government departments.

On March 16, 1988, Iraqi forces launched a poison gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja, killing 5000 people. While that attack is today being touted by senior US officials as one of the main reasons why Hussein must now be "taken out", at the time Washington's response to the atrocity was much more relaxed.

Just four months later, Washington stood by as the US giant Bechtel corporation won the contract to build a huge petrochemical plant that would give the Hussein regime the capacity to generate chemical weapons.

On September 8, 1988, the US Senate passed the Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions on the Hussein regime. Immediately, the Reagan administration announced its opposition to the bill, calling it "premature". The White House used its influence to stall the bill in the House of Representatives. When Congress did eventually pass the bill, the White House did not implement it.

Washington's political, military and economic sweetheart deals with the Iraqi dictator came under even more stress when, in August 1989, FBI agents raided the Atlanta branch of the Rome-based Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) and uncovered massive fraud involving the CCC loan guarantee scheme and billions of dollars worth of unauthorised "off-the-books" loans to Iraq.

BNL Atlanta manager Chris Drougal had used the CCC program to underwrite programs that had nothing to do with agricultural exports. Using this covert set-up, Hussein's regime tried to buy the most hard-to-get components for its nuclear weapons and missile programs on the black market.

Russ Baker, writing in the March/April 1993 Columbia Journalism Review, noted: "Elements of the US government almost certainly knew that Drougal was funnelling US-backed loans — into dual-use technology and outright military technology. The British government was fully aware of the operations of Matrix-Churchill, a British firm with an Ohio branch, which was not only at the centre of the Iraqi procurement network but was also funded by BNL Atlanta... It would be later alleged by bank executives that the Italian government, long a close US ally as well as BNL's ultimate owner, had knowledge of BNL's loan diversions."

Yet, even the public outrage generated by the Halabja massacre and the widening BNL scandal did not cool Washington's ardour towards Hussein's Iraq.

On October 2, 1989, US President George Bush senior signed the top-secret National Security Decision 26, which declared: "Normal relations between the US and Iraq would serve our long-term interests and promote stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East. The US should propose economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behaviour and increase our influence with Iraq... We should pursue, and seek to facilitate, opportunities for US firms to participate in the reconstruction of the Iraqi economy."

As public and congressional pressure mounted on the US Agriculture Department to end Iraq's access to CCC loan guarantees, Secretary of State James Baker — armed with NSD 26 — personally insisted that agriculture secretary Clayton Yeutter drop his opposition to their continuation.

In November 1989, Bush senior approved $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq in 1990. In April 1990, more revelations about the BNL scandal had again pushed the department of agriculture to the verge of halting Iraq's CCC loan guarantees. On May 18, national security adviser Scowcroft personally intervened to ensure the delivery of the first $500 million tranche of the CCC subsidy for 1990.

According to Frantz and Waas' February 23, 1992, LA Times article, in July 1990 "officials at the National Security Council and the State Department were pushing to deliver the second installment of the $1 billion in loan guarantees, despite the looming crisis in the region and evidence that Iraq had used the aid illegally to help finance a secret arms procurement network to obtain technology for its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile program".

From July 18 to August 1, 1990, Bush senior's administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales to Iraq. The end-users included Saad 16 and the Iraqi ministry of industry and military industrialisation. On August 1, $695,000 worth of advanced data transmission devices were approved.

"Only on August 2, 1990, did the agriculture department officially suspend the [CCC loan] guarantees to Iraq — the same day that Hussein's tanks and troops swept into Kuwait", noted Frantz and Waas.

[august spies]

i somone just lost a giant post, and im not rewritng it.

it basically stated their is no point arguing with tron because he mind is made up, i dont even think he is reading what im saying.

thats why he still thinks my post was pulled because it was in the praise reagan thread which i said a million times it wasnt.

i didnt cite one source? i gave you a catholic church report on torture featuring your hero dan mitrione.

the us armed the contras, they armed the death squads, and they armed the dictatorships, period.

[august spies]

how can you not recognize the catholic church? they have an amazing influence on the people of the region. the cared for the victims, have a reputation for being fairly anti leftist, and they held an investigation, they published their findings. the author was the archdiosce of sao paulo.

What more do you want? nixon saying how fun it was to send torture specialists to latin america? your not going to find that (most of the time) you need independant sources, like the church, if you dont want to believe the victims.

how ignorant of history are you, let me know where exactly are you comming from? do you not believe all these people were killed tortured and imprisoned? Or do you not believe people like reagan supported the terrorism with money, arms, more support,and training?

i hope we are at the point where we can agree that reagan was a terrorist and we can begin debating the why he did it. "security" or us hegemony.

[KoocheeKoo]

Originally posted by august spies
this thread turned into me making fun of a bunch of southern fascists? wow i would have never guessed that.


Southern fascists? Why...because I believe in folks respecting the dead??
I'm not a fascist son....I'm a southern gentleman. There's a helluva difference.

[august spies]

respecting the dead? here is a story from a priest in el salvador. his name is reverand santiago

"People are no just killed by death squads in el salvador, they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Mane are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Policy; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from theri bodies and used to cover theri faces. It is not enought to kill children; they are dragged over bared wire until the flesh falls from their bones while parents are forced to watch... The aesthetics of terror in El Salvador is religious."

This is why when somone like ronald reagan, who supported these crimes, with money, training, arms, and propaganda lies (im just reminded of the time when alexander haig, his sec of state, reacted to the rape and murder of four american nuns by the same terrorist forces, he said "the nuns may have ran a roadblock... and there many have been an exchange of gunfire" of course the nuns were not packing heat and it was a hideous lie.

Point being, i hate hypocracy and you cant have it both ways, im sure your not a fascist i was only screwing around. but reagan supported many fascists and terrorists, and not just in el salvador. Many people dont know this and that is why they still love reagan.

[Neutron]

Does it SAY the US provided one chemical weapon? It says we provided technology. Technically if I provide one transistor to a nation, and they use it to make a missile I've provided them with missile technology when in fact all I sold them was a transistor.

I see no where in that article where the US provided Iraq with a chemical weapon OR a viable delivery system. Hell the US doesn't even fabricate Mustard gas for itself!!!

I see a lot of heresay and conjecture, and of course the "anonymous" (Read made up) source.

Come on, provide something concrete.

As for doing the US Dirty work in Iran, Uh it was the Soviet dirty work, but that's beside the point. Learn your history child.

When exactly has the US invaded the Middle East? Or South America. I'm curious...

Now can you explain what being a Reagan support has to do with supporting the Death Penalty?

AND why would an "anarchist" care about gutting GOVERNMENT sponsored social programs?

Just out of curiousity, the club you went to where the DJ said let's applaud the death of Reagan (utilizing a Constitutional right from the same document you'd like to throw out), do you have to pay for drinks or an entrance fee?

And, if you get censored do you say you have a right by the Constitution to say what's on your mind?

Try answering those questions.

Tron

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by Neutron
However by international law terrorism involves NO government in any way shape or form. It also has no real political backing outside of an agenda by a special interest group. It also has to be against civilian targets. By definition one cannot strike "terror" into the military.


Huh? You lost me. If I'm reading that right you're saying terrorism is not terrorism if it's sponsered by a government? Sooooooo..... why are whole countries being targeted as supporters of terrorism, invaded and 'liberated'? Or are you saying that if an organisation targets both military AND civilian targets then it isn't a terrorist organisation by definition? And if THAT'S the case then al-qaida isn't a terrorist organisation as they've struck military targets (and in fact, before September 11th, wasn't that the ONLY targets, meaning government and military, that they'd been confirmed as striking when it came to the US?). Or did you mean something else?

Originally posted by Neutron


The US did NOT supply Chemical weapons, we supplied planes, taks, bullets, and missiles. So far as I know the US does not supply WMD to anyone on the basis that it could potentially be used against an ally.


As always, this is a very difficult question to prove one way or the other, but there is sufficient evidence to strongly suggest, if not outright prove, this DID happen.

http://hnn.us/articles/1283.html


A letter written in 1995 by former CDC Director David Satcher to former Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr., points out that the U.S. Government provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases. According to the letter from Dr. Satcher to former Senator Donald Riegle, many of the materials were hand carried by an Iraqi scientist to Iraq after he had spent 3 months training in the CDC laboratory. The Armed Services Committee is requesting information from the Departments of Commerce, State, and Defense on the history of the United States, providing the building blocks for weapons of mass destruction to Iraq. I recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services also be included in that request. The American people do not need obfuscation and denial. The American people need the truth. The American people need to know whether the United States is in large part responsible for the very Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which the administration now seeks to destroy. We may very well have created the monster that we seek to eliminate. The Senate deserves to know the whole story. The American people deserve answers to the whole story.


http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php - all source documents for data referenced from this site.

November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical weapons against the Iranians.

December 20, 1983. Donald Rumsfeld , then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support.

July, 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops.

January 14, 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application.

March, 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the US becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

May, 1986. The US Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax.

May, 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade botulin poison to Iraq.

{snip}

September, 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade anthrax and botulinum to Iraq.

September, 1988. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State: "The US-Iraqi relationship is... important to our long-term political and economic objectives."

December, 1988. Dow chemical sells $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons.


Originally posted by Neutron
The US did NOT promise support to the Kurds. Granted it promoted them to rise against Hussein, BUT once the war was ended we had no right to interfere in a civil matter. One cannot say, We're not gonna take Husseoin out, then provide military backing to that group which rises against him. Had we backed them fully we would have been Middle Eastern Paraihs, In fact to keep the peace with our allies we specifically agreed not to militarily back anyone.


So what you're saying is the US used them and abandoned them? Yes, I understand the reasons for doing so, but in that case they should NEVER have been used in the first place. Perhaps more to the point, in the case of the Shiite's, why on earth did anyone think they'd welcome US forces with open arms this time round considering it was only just over ten years ago that the US gave them the finger and watched them die in the tens of thousands?

Originally posted by Neutron

In the last case I agree. Note I never raised the ultimate end to the scenario. However, in some cases the smaller evil has not become a bigger evil. It's situational, for instance do I agree with the Turks treatment of the Kurds? Nope. As a whole are the Turks a threat to the world because of their treatment of the Kurds? Nope, the Turks have never been a threat to the modern world and there's no reason to believe they'll start. Let's remember, part of their repression of the Kurds is justified. I guess it's just a matter of who is being evil to who. Another way to look at it, During WW2 the US supported Mao Tse Tung along with Chang Kai Chek. It was recognized Tung might drive the Chinese to Communism, BUT he was necessary to fight at least at the beginning of the war Japanese agression. In the end the Japanese were beaten and by 1949 China was communist. But were the Chinese a threat to world peace? Nope, they never have been a serious threat, AND have never shown the inclination to be one. In this case the smaller evil did not spread, and in many cases ended up being a stabilizing force in the region.
Even the Soviets in WW2 did not spread into a bigger evil. Granted the cold war happened and granted the Sovs did invade other nations, but look closely, in Europe they never invaded anyone that hadn't provided a path from Germany to Russia, Stalin vowed after WW2 the Germans would never threaten his country again, and he made damn sure of it. In this case the smaller evil DID NOT replace a larger evil, Russia was never the threat the Germans were.


I know this is personal opinion now, but I wouldn't class nations such as China and Russia as a "small" anything ;) I was thinking more situations like, well, like the middle east where it seems that one evil has been replaced by another which has been replaced by... well you get the idea. At some point that idea has to be sent to the history books once and for all or this is NEVER going to stop. Good for the weapons manufaucturers, not so good for the rest of us one would suggest.

[ticklebutton]

I'd like to join BOFH in interrupting this pecking party.

The facts are available for anyone who bothers to do a little research.

El Salvador - The Reagan Administration spent more than $4 billion on El Salvador in the ’80s, backing wildly brutal regimes and their death squads against a leftist insurgency.

The 12-year civil war left 75,000 Salvadorans dead--overwhelmingly civilians killed by U.S.-supported forces.

Elliot Abrams, Reagan's assistant secretary of state for human rights & humanitarian affairs, and later for inter-American affairs [http://www.eppc.org/]helped cover up one of the worst atrocities of the war: a Salvadoran army massacre in El Mozote that left 800 to 1000 civilians dead.

On a side note, this man has been appointed by President Bush to the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations. :eek: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...anguage=printer]

[http://www.fair.org/extra/0109/iran-contra.html]

Honduras - Under Ambassador John Negroponte, neighboring Honduras grew so crammed with U.S. bases and weapons that it was dubbed the U.S.S. Honduras, as if it were simply an off-shore staging ground for the Contra war.

The Honduran army, especially the U.S.-trained Battalion 316, engaged in widespread human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and assassination.

Negroponte worked closely with the perpetrators and covered up their crimes, according to Ambassador Jack Binns, his predecessor in the post.

On a side note, this is the man that President Bush President has appointed to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. :eek:

[http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/09/allen2509.html]

Nicaragua - Congress had enacted legislation, known as the Boland amendments, that prohibited the Defense Dept., the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or any other government agency from providing military aid to the contras.

The Reagan administration circumvented these prohibitions by using the National Security Council (NSC), which was not explicitly covered by the law, to supervise covert military aid to the contras.

Under Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter the NSC raised private and foreign funds for the contras. This operation was directed by NSC staffer Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.

McFarlane and North were also the central figures in the plan to secretly ship arms to Iran despite a U.S. trade and arms embargo.

[http://reference.allrefer.com/encyc...I/Irancont.html]

In November 1986, as the Iran-Contra scandal broke, Oliver North and President Reagan's national security adviser, John Poindexter began electronically destroying more than 5,000 e-mail messages in the memory banks of the White House computer system. Read them here: [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.wa...des/18/archive/]

The United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua...

[http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/N/...ited-States.htm]

While poverty raged in the U.S., U.S. military aid jumped from $3.9 million in 1980 to $77.4 million by 1984.

And, oh, so much more... Though Aug isn't as articulate as he could be, he is quite correct in this case:



quote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------Originally posted by august spies
...the us armed the contras, they armed the death squads, and they armed the dictatorship...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[BOFH666]

Originally posted by Neutron
Does it SAY the US provided one chemical weapon? It says we provided technology. Technically if I provide one transistor to a nation, and they use it to make a missile I've provided them with missile technology when in fact all I sold them was a transistor.


The sale of dual use technology is illegal and subject to export controls.

http://www.wasc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/techtran.htm


The U.S. Government -- often in collaboration with its allies -- controls the export of certain technologies and commodities to countries that for various reasons are judged to be inappropriate recipients. The violation of these export controls is commonly referred to as illegal technology transfer and is a serious security concern.

The Arms Export Control Act regulates the export of defense articles and services. Such exports may be licensed only if their export will strengthen U.S. national security, promote foreign policy goals, or foster world peace. The Arms Export Control Act is administered by the Department of State, Center for Defense Trade Controls, through the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the U.S. Munitions List. The Munitions List is a list of defense articles that require a license prior to export.

The Export Administration Act regulates the export of dual-use items, that is, items that have both military and civilian uses. Dual-use items that would make a significant contribution to the military potential of another country are on the Department of Commerce's Commodity Control List, and a license is required for their export. The Commodity Control List includes items from the Defense Department's Militarily Critical Technologies List and technology that could support the proliferation of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or missile technology.

While this does not make the sale of such items automatically illegal (as the government is the one calling the shots on the law) it surely shows that the sale of such equipment if it can be used in a weapon AND is not politically convenient is indeed illegal. Certainly, according to this definition, such equipment should not be sold to a country in a politically uncertain climate where sides seemed to switch every couple of years and the situation was... unsettled as best.

[august spies]

are we at the point yet where we agree reagans a terrorist? ill assume so since you didnt answer that question.

who is made up? william blum? he used to work for the state department and i assure you he is quite "Real".

The us stated it wanted dominace over mid east oil right after ww2. In Iran the cia overthrew that nations first and last democratic government in 1953 because they nationalized their oil, in came the dictatorship. Look up operation ajax for details on that covert up, many docs have been released.

Interventions and invasions:

1846
The U.S., fulfilling the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, goes to war with Mexico and ends up with a third of Mexico's territory.
1850, 1853, 1854, 1857
U.S. interventions in Nicaragua.
1855
Tennessee adventurer William Walker and his mercenaries take over Nicaragua, institute forced labor, and legalize slavery.
"Los yankis... have burst their way like a fertilizing torrent through the barriers of barbarism." --N.Y. Daily News
He's ousted two years later by a Central American coalition largely inspired by Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose trade Walker was infringing.
"The enemies of American civilization-- for such are the enemies of slavery-- seem to be more on the alert than its friends." --William Walker
1856
First of five U.S. interventions in Panama to protect the Atlantic-Pacific railroad from Panamanian nationalists.
1898
U.S. declares war on Spain, blaming it for destruction of the Maine. (In 1976, a U.S. Navy commission will conclude that the explosion was probably an accident.) The war enables the U.S. to occupy Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
1903
The Platt Amendment inserted into the Cuban constitution grants the U.S. the right to intervene when it sees fit.
1903
When negotiations with Colombia break down, the U.S. sends ten warships to back a rebellion in Panama in order to acquire the land for the Panama Canal. The Frenchman Philippe Bunau-Varilla negotiates the Canal Treaty and writes Panama's constitution.
1904
U.S. sends customs agents to take over finances of the Dominican Republic to assure payment of its external debt.
1905
U.S. Marines help Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz crush a strike in Sonora.
1905
U.S. troops land in Honduras for the first of 5 times in next 20 years.
1906
Marines occupy Cuba for two years in order to prevent a civil war.
1907
Marines intervene in Honduras to settle a war with Nicaragua.
1908
U.S. troops intervene in Panama for first of 4 times in next decade.
1909
Liberal President José Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua proposes that American mining and banana companies pay taxes; he has also appropriated church lands and legalized divorce, done business with European firms, and executed two Americans for participating in a rebellion. Forced to resign through U.S. pressure. The new president, Adolfo Díaz, is the former treasurer of an American mining company.
1910
U.S. Marines occupy Nicaragua to help support the Díaz regime.
1911
The Liberal regime of Miguel Dávila in Honduras has irked the State Department by being too friendly with Zelaya and by getting into debt with Britain. He is overthrown by former president Manuel Bonilla, aided by American banana tycoon Sam Zemurray and American mercenary Lee Christmas, who becomes commander-in-chief of the Honduran army.
1912
U.S. Marines intervene in Cuba to put down a rebellion of sugar workers.
1912
Nicaragua occupied again by the U.S., to shore up the inept Díaz government. An election is called to resolve the crisis: there are 4000 eligible voters, and one candidate, Díaz. The U.S. maintains troops and advisors in the country until 1925.
1914
U.S. bombs and then occupies Vera Cruz, in a conflict arising out of a dispute with Mexico's new government. President Victoriano Huerta resigns.
1915
U.S. Marines occupy Haiti to restore order, and establish a protectorate which lasts till 1934. The president of Haiti is barred from the U.S. Officers' Club in Port-au-Prince, because he is black.
"Think of it-- niggers speaking French!" --secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, briefed on the Haitian situation
1916
Marines occupy the Dominican Republic, staying till 1924.
! 1916
Pancho Villa, in the sole act of Latin American aggression against the U.S, raids the city of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17 Americans.
"Am sure Villa's attacks are made in Germany." --James Gerard, U.S. ambassador to Berlin
1917
U.S. troops enter Mexico to pursue Pancho Villa. They can't catch him.
1917
Marines intervene again in Cuba, to guarantee sugar exports during WWI.
1918
U.S. Marines occupy Panamanian province of Chiriqui for two years to maintain public order.
1921
President Coolidge strongly suggests the overthrow of Guatemalan President Carlos Herrera, in the interests of United Fruit. The Guatemalans comply.
1925
U.S. Army troops occupy Panama City to break a rent strike and keep order.
1926
Marines, out of Nicaragua for less than a year, occupy the country again, to settle a volatile political situation. Secretary of State Kellogg describes a "Nicaraguan-Mexican-Soviet" conspiracy to inspire a "Mexican-Bolshevist hegemony" within striking distance of the Canal.
"That intervention is not now, never was, and never will be a set policy of the United States is one of the most important facts President-elect Hoover has made clear." --NYT, 1928
1929
U.S. establishes a military academy in Nicaragua to train a National Guard as the country's army. Similar forces are trained in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"There is no room for any outside influence other than ours in this region. We could not tolerate such a thing without incurring grave risks... Until now Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not recognize and support fall. Nicaragua has become a test case. It is difficult to see how we can afford to be defeated." --Undersecretary of State Robert Olds
1930
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo emerges from the U.S.-trained National Guard to become dictator of the Dominican Republic.
1932
The U.S. rushes warships to El Salvador in response to a communist-led uprising. President Martínez, however, prefers to put down the rebellion with his own forces, killing over 8000 people (the rebels had killed about 100).
! 1933
President Roosevelt announces the Good Neighbor policy.
1933
Marines finally leave Nicaragua, unable to suppress the guerrilla warfare of General Augusto César Sandino. Anastasio Somoza García becomes the first Nicaraguan commander of the National Guard.
"The Nicaraguans are better fighters than the Haitians, being of Indian blood, and as warriors similar to the aborigines who resisted the advance of civilization in this country." --NYT correspondent Harold Denny
1933
Roosevelt sends warships to Cuba to intimidate Gerardo Machado y Morales, who is massacring the people to put down nationwide strikes and riots. Machado resigns. The first provisional government lasts only 17 days; the second Roosevelt finds too left-wing and refuses to recognize. A pro-Machado counter-coup is put down by Fulgencio Batista, who with Roosevelt's blessing becomes Cuba's new strongman.
! 1934
Platt Amendment repealed.
1934
Sandino assassinated by agents of Somoza, with U.S. approval. Somoza assumes the presidency of Nicaragua two years later. To block his ascent, Secretary of State Cordell Hull explains, would be to intervene in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.
! 1936
U.S. relinquishes rights to unilateral intervention in Panama.
1941
Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia deposes Panamanian president Arias in a military coup-- first clearing it with the U.S. Ambassador.
It was "a great relief to us, because Arias had been very troublesome and very pro-Nazi." --Secretary of War Henry Stimson
1943
The editor of the Honduran opposition paper El Cronista is summoned to the U.S. embassy and told that criticism of the dictator Tiburcio Carías Andino is damaging to the war effort. Shortly afterward, the paper is shut down by the government.
1944
The dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez of El Salvador is ousted by a revolution; the interim government is overthrown five months later by the dictator's former chief of police. The U.S.'s immediate recognition of the new dictator does much to tarnish Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy in the eyes of Latin Americans.
1946
U.S. Army School of the Americas opens in Panama as a hemisphere-wide military academy. Its linchpin is the doctrine of National Security, by which the chief threat to a nation is internal subversion; this will be the guiding principle behind dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Central America, and elsewhere.
1948
José Figueres Ferrer wins a short civil war to become President of Costa Rica. Figueres is supported by the U.S., which has informed San José that its forces in the Panama Canal are ready to come to the capital to end "communist control" of Costa Rica.
1954
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, elected president of Guatemala, introduces land reform and seizes some idle lands of United Fruit-- proposing to pay for them the value United Fruit claimed on its tax returns. The CIA organizes a small force to overthrow him and begins training it in Honduras. When Arbenz naively asks for U.S. military help to meet this threat, he is refused; when he buys arms from Czechoslovakia it only proves he's a Red.
Guatemala is "openly and diligently toiling to create a Communist state in Central America... only two hours' bombing time from the Panama Canal." --Life
The CIA broadcasts reports detailing the imaginary advance of the "rebel army," and provides planes to strafe the capital. The army refuses to defend Arbenz, who resigns. The U.S.'s hand-picked dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, outlaws political parties, reduces the franchise, and establishes the death penalty for strikers, as well as undoing Arbenz's land reform. Over 100,000 citizens are killed in the next 30 years of military rule.
"This is the first instance in history where a Communist government has been replaced by a free one." --Richard Nixon
1957
Eisenhower establishes Office of Public Safety to train Latin American police forces.
! 1959
Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba. Several months earlier he had undertaken a triumphal tour through the U.S., which included a CIA briefing on the Red menace.
"Castro's continued tawdry little melodrama of invasion." --Time, of Castro's warnings of an imminent U.S. invasion
1960
Eisenhower authorizes covert actions to get rid of Castro. Among other things, the CIA tries assassinating him with exploding cigars and poisoned milkshakes. Other covert actions against Cuba include burning sugar fields, blowing up boats in Cuban harbors, and sabotaging industrial equipment.
1960
The Canal Zone becomes the focus of U.S. counterinsurgency training.
1960
A new junta in El Salvador promises free elections; Eisenhower, fearing leftist tendencies, withholds recognition. A more attractive right-wing counter-coup comes along in three months.
"Governments of the civil-military type of El Salvador are the most effective in containing communist penetration in Latin America." --John F. Kennedy, after the coup
1960
Guatemalan officers attempt to overthrow the regime of Presidente Fuentes; Eisenhower stations warships and 2000 Marines offshore while Fuentes puts down the revolt. [Another source says that the U.S. provided air support for Fuentes.]
1960s
U.S. Green Berets train Guatemalan army in counterinsurgency techniques. Guatemalan efforts against its insurgents include aerial bombing, scorched-earth assaults on towns suspected of aiding the rebels, and death squads, which killed 20,000 people between 1966 and 1976. U.S. Army Col. John Webber claims that it was at his instigation that "the technique of counter-terror had been implemented by the army."
"If it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetary in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so." --President Carlos Arana Osorio
1961
U.S. organizes force of 1400 anti-Castro Cubans, ships it to the Bahía de los Cochinos. Castro's army routs it.
1961
CIA-backed coup overthrows elected Pres. J. M. Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador, who has been too friendly with Cuba.
1962
CIA engages in campaign in Brazil to keep João Goulart from achieving control of Congress.
1963
CIA-backed coup overthrows elected social democrat Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic.
1963
A far-right-wing coup in Guatemala, apparently U.S.-supported, forestalls elections in which "extreme leftist" Juan José Arévalo was favored to win.
"It is difficult to develop stable and democratic government [in Guatemala], because so many of the nation's Indians are illiterate and superstitious." --School textbook, 1964
1964
João Goulart of Brazil proposes agrarian reform, nationalization of oil. Ousted by U.S.-supported military coup.
! 1964
The free market in Nicaragua:
The Somoza family controls "about one-tenth of the cultivable land in Nicaragua, and just about everything else worth owning, the country's only airline, one television station, a newspaper, a cement plant, textile mill, several sugar refineries, half-a-dozen breweries and distilleries, and a Mercedes-Benz agency." --Life World Library
1965
A coup in the Dominican Republic attempts to restore Bosch's government. The U.S. invades and occupies the country to stop this "Communist rebellion," with the help of the dictators of Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
"Representative democracy cannot work in a country such as the Dominican Republic," Bosch declares later. Now why would he say that?
1966
U.S. sends arms, advisors, and Green Berets to Guatemala to implement a counterinsurgency campaign.
"To eliminate a few hundred guerrillas, the government killed perhaps 10,000 Guatemalan peasants." --State Dept. report on the program
1967
A team of Green Berets is sent to Bolivia to help find and assassinate Che Guevara.
1968
Gen. José Alberto Medrano, who is on the payroll of the CIA, organizes the ORDEN paramilitary force, considered the precursor of El Salvador's death squads.
! 1970
In this year (just as an example), U.S. investments in Latin America earn $1.3 billion; while new investments total $302 million.
1970
Salvador Allende Gossens elected in Chile. Suspends foreign loans, nationalizes foreign companies. For the phone system, pays ITT the company's minimized valuation for tax purposes. The CIA provides covert financial support for Allende's opponents, both during and after his election.
1972
U.S. stands by as military suspends an election in El Salvador in which centrist José Napoleón Duarte was favored to win. (Compare with the emphasis placed on the 1982 elections.)
1973
U.S.-supported military coup kills Allende and brings Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to power. Pinochet imprisons well over a hundred thousand Chileans (torture and rape are the usual methods of interrogation), terminates civil liberties, abolishes unions, extends the work week to 48 hours, and reverses Allende's land reforms.
1973
Military takes power in Uruguay, supported by U.S. The subsequent repression reportedly features the world's highest percentage of the population imprisoned for political reasons.
1974
Office of Public Safety is abolished when it is revealed that police are being taught torture techniques.
! 1976
Election of Jimmy Carter leads to a new emphasis on human rights in Central America. Carter cuts off aid to the Guatemalan military (or tries to; some slips through) and reduces aid to El Salvador.
! 1979
Ratification of the Panama Canal treaty which is to return the Canal to Panama by 1999.
"Once again, Uncle Sam put his tail between his legs and crept away rather than face trouble." --Ronald Reagan
1980
A right-wing junta takes over in El Salvador. U.S. begins massively supporting El Salvador, assisting the military in its fight against FMLN guerrillas. Death squads proliferate; Archbishop Romero is assassinated by right-wing terrorists; 35,000 civilians are killed in 1978-81. The rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen results in the suspension of U.S. military aid for one month.
The U.S. demands that the junta undertake land reform. Within 3 years, however, the reform program is halted by the oligarchy.
"The Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going on." --Ronald Reagan
1980
U.S., seeking a stable base for its actions in El Salvador and Nicaragua, tells the Honduran military to clean up its act and hold elections. The U.S. starts pouring in $100 million of aid a year and basing the contras on Honduran territory.
Death squads are also active in Honduras, and the contras tend to act as a state within a state.
1981
The CIA steps in to organize the contras in Nicaragua, who started the previous year as a group of 60 ex-National Guardsmen; by 1985 there are about 12,000 of them. 46 of the 48 top military leaders are ex-Guardsmen. The U.S. also sets up an economic embargo of Nicaragua and pressures the IMF and the World Bank to limit or halt loans to Nicaragua.
1981
Gen. Torrijos of Panama is killed in a plane crash. There is a suspicion of CIA involvement, due to Torrijos' nationalism and friendly relations with Cuba.
1982
A coup brings Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt to power in Guatemala, and gives the Reagan administration the opportunity to increase military aid. Ríos Montt's evangelical beliefs do not prevent him from accelerating the counterinsurgency campaign.
1983
Another coup in Guatemala replaces Ríos Montt. The new President, Oscar Mejía Víctores, was trained by the U.S. and seems to have cleared his coup beforehand with U.S. authorities.
1983
U.S. troops take over tiny Granada. Rather oddly, it intervenes shortly after a coup has overthrown the previous, socialist leader. One of the justifications for the action is the building of a new airport with Cuban help, which Granada claimed was for tourism and Reagan argued was for Soviet use. Later the U.S. announces plans to finish the airport... to develop tourism.
1983
Boland Amendment prohibits CIA and Defense Dept. from spending money to overthrow the government of Nicaragua-- a law the Reagan administration cheerfully violates.
1984
CIA mines three Nicaraguan harbors. Nicaragua takes this action to the World Court, which brings an $18 billion judgment against the U.S. The U.S. refuses to recognize the Court's jurisdiction in the case.
1984
U.S. spends $10 million to orchestrate elections in El Salvador-- something of a farce, since left-wing parties are under heavy repression, and the military has already declared that it will not answer to the elected president.
1989
U.S. invades Panama to dislodge CIA boy gone wrong Manuel Noriega, an event which marks the evolution of the U.S.'s favorite excuse from Communism to drugs.
1996
The U.S.