Let Us Not Forget the Pre-Invasion War Against Iraq by Jacob G. Hornberger!
(2023-03-22 at 23:50:34 )

Let Us Not Forget the Pre-Invasion War Against Iraq by Jacob G. Hornberger!

The mainstream press and the Internet are filled with commentators who are expressing deep regret and remorse for having supported the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003. That is a good sign. But we should not forget that the United States government was waging war against the Iraqi people for ten years prior to its deadly and destructive invasion and war of aggression in 2003.

I am referring to the United States governments system of economic sanctions against the Iraqi people from the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91 through the 2003 invasion. The purpose of those sanctions was to inflict massive death and economic impoverishment on the Iraqi people. The idea was that if Iraqi citizens could be made to suffer in a big way, they would do the dirty work of ousting their dictator Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a pro-United States dictator.

The sanctions succeeded in their immediate goal of killing and impoverishing Iraqis. During the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon destroyed Iraqs water-and-sewage treatment plants, knowing that this would help spread infectious illnesses among the populace. The Pentagons plan succeeded magnificently. The next ten years of sanctions prevented Iraqi officials from repairing those water-and-sewage treatment plants. Thousands of Iraqi children were dying on a monthly basis.

In 1996, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Ms Madeline Albright was asked whether the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions was worth it. She replied that the deaths were, in fact, "worth it." By "it" she was referring to regime change. She was expressing the view of the United States government and many United States interventionists, who were convinced that the increasing death toll would motivate Saddam to leave power or motivate the Iraqi people to initiate a violent revolution that would have produced even more deaths. The sanctions continued for another seven years.

At the same time, the sanctions threw Iraq citizens into an extreme downward economic spiral. The poor were doing everything just to survive. The middle class and the wealthy were selling valued family possessions and heirlooms just to eke out a living.

While the sanctions succeeded in their intermediate goal of killing and impoverishing the Iraqi people, they failed to secure the ouster of Saddam Hussein from power. That was why United States officials decided to use the 9-11-01 attacks and the fake WMD rationale as the excuse for invading Iraq in 2003. They knew that their deadly and destructive sanctions had failed to secure regime change and were unlikely to do so in the future.

It is worth noting - just as an additional matter of moral perversity - that United States officials had partnered with Saddam Hussein during the 1980s in his war of aggression against Iran. Yes, the dictator they would come to call the "new Hitler" in 2003 was their partner and ally when he was killing Iranians in the 1980s.

Why were United States officials helping Saddam to kill Iranians??

In 1953, a Central Intelligence Agency coup removed the democratically elected Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh from power and replaced him with the brutal, CIA-trained tyranny of the Shah of Iran.

In 1979, the Iranian people revolved against the Shahs brutal tyranny and ousted him from power. The Pentagon, the CIA, and other United States officials hated them for doing that. That is why they were helping the "new Hitler" to kill Iranians in the 1980s.

Donald Rumsfeld, special envoy for President Ronald Reagan, greeting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1983.

While we are on the subject of moral perversity, it is also worth pointing out why United States officials were so certain that they would "find" WMDs when they invaded Iraq in 2003.

That is because they knew that the United States had furnished its "new Hitler" with those WMDs in the 1980s so that he could use them to kill Iranians.

They figured that they would find some of those WMDs when they invaded and be able to exclaim, "We have saved the world from Saddams WMDs with our invasion!"

But their "new Hitler" had foiled them by destroying those WMDs long before their 2003 invasion. See my compilation of articles in "Where Did Iraqi Get Its Weapons of Mass Destruction?" (Some links in the compilation are no longer operative.)

Would it not be nice to see all the regretters of the 2003 United States invasion and war of aggression against Iraq expressing regret and remorse for everything the United States government has done to kill and destroy the Iraqi people???

Reprinted here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Libertarian Website!!