Don't tell me you need to be reminded that the US was OFFICIALLY SUPPORTING Saddam at about the same time.
Surporting Saddam Zonder?? In what way?? That we wanted Saddam to dominate the region and replace the role the Shah formally played?? Or that we hoped both sides would decimate one another, and providing sufficient support to ensure Saddam would not lose, but NOT ENOUGH that he would be guaranteed of winning?? (remember, we helped Israel sell TOW missiles and spare sparts to Iran in exchange for hostages, thus revealing how we played both sides).
After all, those were US tanks he was fighting Iran with... And the US didn't sell Saddam a nuclear reactor, worth at least $1 billion.., a rather bizarre sale/purchase by a nation awash in oil... A sale that makes no commercial sense...
And everyone gripes about US support for Israel, but what nation was it that sold them a nuclear reactor...
Wait.. don't say it.. lemmee guess... I bet it was the French..
But at least the Israelis could create a plausible justification for purchasing one since they practically have no oil...
But even if the US supported Saddam 19 years ago... it's irrelevant to the present day, or any day since Saddam decided to invade Kuwait, resulting in a UNSC demand that he disarm and end his WMD programs..
What's relevant is the here and now.. Whether France's current and future interests in Iraq have biased them toward supporting a ruthless despot who is responsible for holding back the economic future of the entire region (look at the Kuwaiti stock market in anticipation of Saddam's removal)
alshabaca.com
alshabaca.com
But then again.. let's look back to only less than 3 months ago, when the French, Germans and some 49 other nations flocked to Baghdad to attend an international business fair...
nationalreview.com
Needless to say, one of the largest delegations in attendance came from France (who would have guessed?). Paris, which is Saddam's largest trading partner, was well represented by 81 French firms.......
.....A similar welcome awaited the Germans, who were also given priority by Saddam to enter the Iraqi market. According to the government-run Al-Iraq newspaper, this came as a result of "the firm positive stand of Germany in rejecting the launching of a military attack against Iraq by the US." Gerhard Schroeder's anti-American posturing, it seems, is already paying off quite handsomely.
I mean.. it's one thing to be promoting business opportunities for one's companies.. But it's quite another to be so blatantly indifferent about the brutality of the government one is doing business with...
The US history has been trying to conduct trade in a world which has either been ruled by, or is dominated by, former colonial powers. Powers who were reluctantly required to de-colonize in exchange for being permitted access to US markets and post-WWII economic assistance.
Hawk |
