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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: Brumar89 who wrote (27853)2/6/2004 2:13:22 AM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (1) of 793903
 

Have you looked into the USS Stark case? 37 American sailors were killed. Iraq said it was an accident. That explanation was accepted even though the Stark had hailed the Iraqi plane which attacked it.

Actually a somewhat analogous case. Despite our nominal neutrality in his war with Iran, Saddam was our buddy back then, as long as he was at war with those bad mullahs. Calling the attack anything but an accident would have forced us to move from nominal neutrality to actual neutrality, which would have been inconvenient. As in the Liberty case, there is a strong inclination to ignore or excuse inconvenient events.

It is actually possible that the Stark case was an accident. It involved a single missile fired from a single aircraft, and there is no certainty that the Stark’s messages were received. Simple incompetence or adrenaline-fueled aggression could result in that kind of incident (the US Navy has made similar mistakes). It’s much harder to explain away an extended, close-range coordinated air/sea attack conducted after hours of close surveillance.

Even when he was our buddy, I don’t think Saddam could have gotten away with having Iraqi ships fire on lifeboats launched from an American ship in distress.

Note that the Stark incident was NOT discussed as a rationale for the recent war to overthrow Saddam.
Understandably. Nobody really wants to talk about the days when he was on our side. Sort of like the way nobody wants to talk about how Osama was a good friend and a fighter for the cause of freedom when he was shooting at Russians.
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