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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (937976)

6/3/2016 1:00:36 PM

From: Brumar89

1 Recommendation

Recommended By
FJB

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574004

Where Iraq Purchased Weapons 1973-2002

[ I told you Denmark supplied more arms to Saddam than the US did. ]

The purpose of this post is to address one of the many mythical claims about the United States popularized by some Leftists who would have us believe that the United States is the cause of most of what is wrong with the world. The myth under examination here is the claim that the United States played an important role in arming Saddam Hussein. The data comes from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in the form of a table of the value of arms imported by Iraq from 1973 through 2002. (PDF format)

Figures are trend-indicator values expressed in US $m. at constant (1990) prices.

Note: The SIPRI data on arms transfers refer to actual deliveries of major conventional weapons. To permit comparison between the data on such deliveries of different weapons and identification of general trends, SIPRI uses a trend-indicator value. The SIPRI values are therefore only an indicator of the volume of international arms transfers and not of the actual financial values of such transfers. Thus they are not comparable to economic statistics such as gross domestic product or export/import figures.

...

Imported weapons to Iraq (IRQ) in 1973-2002

Country $MM USD 1990 % Total
USSR 25145 57.26
France 5595 12.74
China 5192 11.82
Czechoslovakia 2880 6.56
Poland 1681 3.83
Brazil 724 1.65
Egypt 568 1.29
Romania 524 1.19
Denmark 226 0.51
Libya 200 0.46
USA 200 0.46
South Africa 192 0.44
Austria 190 0.43
Switzerland 151 0.34
Yugoslavia 107 0.24
Germany (FRG) 84 0.19
Italy 84 0.19
UK 79 0.18
Hungary 30 0.07
Spain 29 0.07
East Germany (GDR) 25 0.06
Canada 7 0.02
Jordan 2 0.005
Total 43915 100.0

I made my own percentage calculations. Also, the original PDF document has the amounts by year but I extracted out only the final total column. Note that post-1990 sales listed under "USSR" probably refers to Russia or perhaps Russia plus former USSR states.

Given the US's position as largest arms merchant in the world the fact that it ties Libya for 9th place with only 0.46% of Iraq's total arms imports makes it obvious that the United States was not an important source of arms for Saddam's regime, that the US didn't even seriously try to be, and that US arms sales gave the US little or no leverage over Saddam.

In a report published in 1998 Anthony Cordesman places an even lower estimate on US arms exports to Iraq. See page 22 of this PDF which shows the US selling Iraq $5 million in arms in the late 1980s. Cordesman's report has many charts which also show just how far Iraq's economy fell during the war with Iran and afterward.

Iraq seemed to be on the edge of sustained economic development in 1979. It was a nation of 12.8 million people with a per capita income well in excess of $10,000 in constant $US 1994. However, its economy was dependent on oil wealth and construction and infrastructure oriented with massive distortions in the state and agricultural sector.
By 1986, the worst year of the Iran-Iraq War in economic terms, Iraq’s per capita income was down to $2,174, and its population was up to 16.2 million.
By 1991, the last year for which we have hard data on the Iraqi economy in market terms, Iraq’s per capita income was down to $705, and its population was up to 17.9 million. Iraq’s GNP in constant $1994 had dropped from $48.3 billion in 1984 to $16.3 billion.
Iraq’s current per capita income is probably under $1,000. The World Bank estimates that its population will climb from 21.0 million in 1995 to 24.5 million in 2000, 28.4 million in 2005, and 32.5 million in 2010.

US policy in the 1980s favored a stalemate in the Iran-Iraq war. But the US role in ensuring that outcome was very small as compared to the roles played by the USSR, France, China, and other countries in making sure Saddam's regime was not overrun. What intelligence and other assistance the US provided to prevent Iranian victory pales in comparison to the roles played by several other countries.

parapundit.com

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (937976)	6/3/2016 1:02:54 PM
From: Brumar89	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB Tenchusatsu Respond to of 1574004

Bernie Sanders Has Praised Castro, Sandinistas Hey, its totally unfair to claim that Bernie Sanders only likes Scandinavian socialism. Lets not do that any more. Here's why: When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson As mayor of Burlington, Sanders praised the regimes of Nicaragua and Cuba—claiming bread lines were a sign of economic health and press censorship was necessary in wartime. What about Venezuela? As I see it Venezuela has a big upside: Suppose you want to do intermittent fasting to turn up autophagy (where your body tears down old worn intracellular components) as an anti-aging strategy. Well, you might not have the willpower to pull it off. Plus, you need to be able to concentrate on a full stomach at work. Well, food is hard to get in Venezuela and people are getting lots of extra days off to save electricity. Plus, just sitting in food lines takes many hours. These conditions are highly conducive to intermittent fasting. What about the voters of Burlington Vermont? What's with them? I think they need to go live in Cuba or, even better, Venezuela for a few months. North Korea would be good too. By Randall Parker parapundit.com

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (937976)	6/3/2016 1:05:26 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574004

In Venezuela Suburb Brownish Colored Water Comes Once Per Week Venezuela keeps getting worse. The Venezuelan people should rise up and overthrow the socialists. Venezuela is shutting down. The government stores that sell well below market prices create incentives that make the situation much worse. People are quitting productive jobs to work as black market traders. The government has damaged the economy in numerous ways and is run by paranoid Marxists who think the CIA is to blame, not their own destructive policies. The opposition won a majority of the national legislature. But the government put people on their supreme court who vote to strike down laws passed by the legislature. How would you like to live in a country where you get water one day a week? Where the government shuts down 2 days a week to save electricity? Where schools shut down part of the time to save electricity? This is crazy. But the Venezuelan people are still too foolish and have still not risen up to overthrow their government. Socialism is failing in Venezuela. A socialist, Bernie Sanders, is running for president of the United States.. Bernie Sanders does not want to discuss the failure of socialism in Venezuela. By Randall Parker 2016 May 28 08:38 AM parapundit.com BC thinks this is just something the international bankers and their exchange rates are doing to VZ.

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (937976)	6/3/2016 1:11:06 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574004

What Communism Has Done To Cuba Is Gruesome A woman from Cuba describes what it is really like and argues you shouldn't say you want to see Cuba before it is ruined. I agree. I think you should see Cuba as an education into what communism does to an economy and a people. The old cars are not kitschy; they are not a choice. It’s all they have. The old buildings are not preserved; their balconies are falling and killing people all the time. The very, very young girls prostituting themselves are not doing it because they can’t get enough of old Canadian men, but because it pays more than being a doctor does. Hospitals for regular Cuban citizens are not what Michael Moore showed you in Sicko. (That was a Communist hospital for members of the Party and for tourists, and I, for one, think Moore fell for their North Korea–like propaganda show pretty hard.) There are no janitors in the hospitals because it pays more money to steal janitorial supplies and sell them on the street than it does to actually have a job there. Therefore, the halls and rooms are covered in blood, urine, and feces, and you need to bring your own sheets, blankets, pillows, towels, and mattresses when you are admitted. Communism makes it happen. Michael Moore doesn't want to believe it. Check out these photos from Cuba. A shabby place with people waiting for better times. By Randall Parker 2016 March 27 08:53 PM parapundit.com