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   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
   In article <55bf8351-9299-4399-bf08-5a2a065ce4ee@googlegroups.com>,   
   bmoore   wrote:   
   >   
   >It's pretty damn clear to anyone paying attention that Saddam gassed a   
   >lot of Kurds. That doesn't justify an attack on Iraq, but to deny   
   >Saddam's heinousness is beyond the pale. And that truth cannot be   
   >explained away with words, as much as some people try.   
      
   I guess you had a good reason not to cite the wikipedia article as a   
   source, I see!   
      
   I however just have to disagree with you about your assertion:   
     "It's pretty damn clear to anyone paying attention that Saddam   
     gassed a lot of Kurds.   
      
   There are many reasons for that.   
      
   1) Neither you, I am pretty sure, nor I, for sure, was there.  In   
   fact, not even the Iraqi people knew about the attack initially, not   
   to mention people outside of the region.  I certainly didn't know   
   anything about it until I read the wikipedia article about it.  I   
   don't see that you personally were "paying attention" to that part of   
   the world at the time this tragedy happened, unless you were training   
   for the CIA or the Pentagon's DIA!  The truth is that the story only   
   became a big item when it became convenient for Washington to spread   
   it around.  Otherwise, for a long time, our government was doing its   
   best to act as if it didn't know anything itself.   
      
   2) Halabja happened to be an Iraqi town near Iran's border during a   
   long and bitter 8-year war between the two countries.   
      
     Halabja located about 240 km (150 mi) north-east of Baghdad and 13   
     to 16 km (8 to 10 mi) from the Iranian border.   
      
     The city lies at the base of what is often referred to as the   
     greater Hewraman region stretching across the Iran-Iraq border. The   
     Kurds in the city of Halabja generally speak only the Sorani dialect   
     of Kurdish ...   
      
   3) At the time of the attack, both countries were engaged in an   
   bitterly existential fight that might have been the motive behind the   
   poison gas attack on Halabja.   
      
     In August 2013, Foreign Policy charged, based on recently   
     declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence   
     officials, that the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks   
     beginning in 1983. Saddam's regime also received intelligence   
     assistance from the CIA in 1987 prior to the Iraqis' early 1988   
     launch of sarin attacks to stop the potentially decisive Iranian   
     offensive to capture the southern city of Basra, which, if   
     successful, might have resulted in a collapse of Iraqi military and   
     government. (wikipedia).   
      
   According to you, "anyone paying attention" would have known it was   
   Saddam.  Yes, yes, "who else?", right?   
      
   But honestly, what percentage of Americans, in fact, what percentage   
   of American politicians in D.C., like senators or congressmen, would   
   not rely on intelligence provided by the CIA?   
      
     The U.S. State Department, in the immediate aftermath of the   
     incident, took the official position that Iran was partly to blame.   
     A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time   
     reported that Iran was responsible for the attack, an assessment   
     which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)   
     for much of the early 1990s. The CIA's senior political analyst for   
     the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an   
     unclassified analysis of the war[30] which contained a brief summary   
     of the DIA study's key points.   
      
   So, for a long time - many years in fact - the "truth" according to   
   the US government was: Iran was the culprit in the poison gas attack   
   of Halabja.   
      
   The CIA only changed its assessment "in the late 1990s and cited   
   Halabja frequently in its evidence of weapons of mass destruction   
   before the 2003 invasion of Iraq".   
      
   Now, only from retrospect, have many more Americans realized that what   
   the CIA presents is not unvarnished truth, but rather what the boss   
   wants us to believe.   
      
   That's called fixing intelligence to fit Washington's foreign policy!   
      
   In fact, the wikipedia article on Halabja began with the statement:   
      
     The Halabja chemical attack also known as the Halabja Massacre or   
     Bloody Friday,[1] was a genocidal massacre against the Kurdish   
     people that took place on March 16, 1988, during the closing days of   
     the Iran-Iraq war . . .   
      
   It did not say whether it was Saddam or the Ayatollah who was the   
   mastermind, consistent with the fact that such a fact is not   
   established.  And therefore, in conformance with wiki's standard,   
   there is a section called "Controversies" under which, a section on   
   "allegation of Iranian involvement" was extensively discussed.   
      
   Furthermore, the charge against Saddam came essentially from one   
   study, that of a Joost Hiltermann, who was the principal researcher   
   for Human Rights Watch between 1992-1994.   
      
   So, a logical question is why should Hiltermann's study be more   
   respected than earlier studies by Stephen C. Pelletiere and others?   
      
     Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the   
     war[30] which contained a brief summary of the DIA study's key   
     points. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and   
     cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of weapons of mass   
     destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Pelletiere claimed   
     that a fact that has not been successfully challenged is that Iraq   
     was not known to have possessed the cyanide-based blood agents   
     determined to have been responsible for the condition of the bodies   
     that were examined,[31] and that blue discolorations around the   
     mouths of the victims and in their extremities,[32] pointed to   
     Iranian-used gas as the culprit. . . .   
      
   So, given our government's penchant to "fix intelligence to fit its   
   policy" and how there is every motivation for our government to shift   
   its heinous crimes onto some bogeymen, methinks that you were taking   
   in too much territory in condemning an agnostic to Washington "truths"!   
      
   Even granted that we accept the latest verdict against Saddam as the   
   ultimate and everlasting truth in the history of humankind, we should   
   not forget that there was a context for Halabja being targeted as   
   opposed to just any Kurdish town, don't you think?  For instance, was   
   Truman a better man than Saddam, in your view, given the number of   
   people he killed using the only two atom-bombs on earth at the time?   
      
   lo yeeOn   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)