
CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran - w1ntermute
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran?page=0,0
======
speeder
Then US citizens wonder why everyone else hates them.

Much of this, is not news in many countries, although it lacks solid proof or
confessions, it is impossible to keep all that hidden for long.

Brazillians for example figured only one or two years after the US backed coup
here, that the coup was US backed. (declassified documents confirmed our
suspicions about 5 years ago).

Also, there still many people here waiting to see if documents detailing how
our ships got sunk during World War II, the official history is that it was
the germans and this is why we joined the war, but WWII veterans swear it was
US posing as germans, so they could close the steel mill deal.

When WWII started, Brazil president was very close to Italy leadership, and he
was a fascist himself, Brazil was providing lots of resources to Italy and
Germany.

Later, US wanted the massive amounts of rubber we had, and of course, wanted
Brazil to stop helping the Axis. Then there was the sudden attacks, and a
sudden president change of heart, where Brazil would start to supply US
instead, specially Jeep tyres, would buy a steel mill, and would help in the
African front lines... this got changed to Italy mid-trip, with Brazillian
ships dumping into Italy snowy mountains people trained and geared for a
desert war...

I know a bunch of people (specially, obviously, fascists, but many non-
fascists too, but most of them are over 50) that still resent that story, and
wish Brazil had joined (with boots on the ground) the Axis side instead.

Also Brazillian soldiers got shafted hard by the US, specially the "rubber
soldiers". US and Brazil made a agreement, where drafted people could choose
to fight in Europe, or get shipped to Amazon (with several promises regarding
the advantage of going to Amazon, and indeed 50.000 soldiers went to Amazon),
they would gather the rubber to make tyres, and US and Brazillian government
would jointly pay them and take care of them, and return them back to their
family after the war... The payment arrived (and partially) only in 1988, and
they are still stranded away from home... (some of them still roam the forest
wearing their military uniforms, kinda creepy seeing 90+ year old soldiers
roaming the forest)

~~~
nl
I aren't particularly familiar with Brazilian history, but I am reasonably
familiar with WW2 history.

Brazil declared war (on Germany & Italy only - not Japan) in late August 1942.
That was a few months before Churchill's famous "Now this is not the end. It
is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the
beginning." speech.

This was well after Pearl Harbour and at a point where it was becoming clearer
that the Axis wasn't going to win.

I've never looked into allegations of US sabotage on Brazilian merchant
shipping. It's possible, but at the same time it would be very surprising if
German U-boats _weren 't_ responsible for the majority of the sinkings.
There's reasonable evidence that U-507 sunk at least 7 Brazilian ships (the
German's were pretty good at keeping records of these things)[1].

It sounds to me like Brazil jumped in on the winning side after being on a
wrong side of some bad decisions by some German U-boat commanders.

As an aside, it's fine to criticise the US, but I think it's reasonable to
expect some evidence to backup some pretty big allegations. Additionally it's
hard to make a moral argument that any country should have joined the Axis
Powers during WW2 (with the exception of Finland, who made the best of a bad
situation but were pretty much screwed no matter what they did).

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-507#3rd_patrol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-507#3rd_patrol)

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jlgreco
Honestly this has never really been a secret, but it is good to see this get
some proper attention. With any luck Americans will be more wary of statements
like Bush's infamous _" 'Why do they hate us?' ... They hate our freedom"_.

~~~
GauntletWizard
One of the primary tenets of Al Qaeda is to impose Sharia law on the land.
They believe that "man-made" laws are unnatural, and go against god's will;
They would see the entirety of the world under their strict, revisionist,
regressive, incredibly broken system of law. They literally do "hate our
freedom". Every time I hear someone repeat that line as a joke, it makes me
mad how incredibly out of touch they are. Literally; Al Qaeda, and an
substantial proportion of all muslims everywhere, not only hate your freedom,
but would kill you just for espousing it.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Ah, it's you again. Do you actually know any Muslims? I've never met one who
"hated [my] freedom."

------
devx
Anyone else think they're doing the same now with the "gas attack" in Syria? I
don't really claim to understand how a dictator thinks under pressure of civil
war, but the guy seemed relatively intelligent and educated. He'd probably
know better than to do such an attack, when US and others were looking for any
excuse to enter the war.

The situation really is terrible for everyone there, but I'm not sure an US
intervention would make things better, and I especially don't trust US
propaganda anymore. I'm way over the "spreading democracy" phase.

~~~
jlgreco
At this point, there isn't any way to say for sure. The only thing about that
situation that seems clear is that the situation is a clusterfuck and that
nothing is clear.

We should want nothing to do with that situation and indeed it seems most
Americans don't want anything to do with that situation
([http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-
us...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-usa-poll-
idUSBRE97O00E20130825)). Unfortunately the possibility remains that Americans
_already do_ have something to do with the situation, whether that is what the
people desire or not.

------
nl
Historical context is always needed when one looks at something like this:

The US relationship with Iraq & Iran was very complex.

In 1979 the Iranian revolution occurred, which humiliated the US.

In 1982 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (which borders Iran). That was
significant because it let the USSR threaten US oil interests in the Persian
Gulf, and put the USSR one step closer to getting a sea port in the Arabian
Sea and/or Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was continuing to threaten the US's ally Israel but
was also smart enough to play the US off against the USSR.

Hussein was very worried about Iran because of the large number of Shia
Moslems in Iraq.

When Iraq invaded Iran the US expected Iraq to win quickly, because the
Iranians had very few advanced weapons. The US certainly didn't want Iran to
win, but nor did they want Iraq to become more powerful in the region.

So the US (with Israeli help) began arming _Iran_ (on a small scale). This is
known as the _Iran /Contra affair_.

Thing went Iraq's way for a while, but eventually the Iranians began to push
them back using "human wave attacks".

At this point the US began to fear that Iraq would actually lose, so they
started giving Hussein financial and military support.

This is when the Iraqis resorted to gas: (unsurprisingly) they found it was
very effective at breaking up the Iranian infantry charges.

There's little doubt that the US knew this would happen.

The interesting thing is that the fact Hussein used gas put a new perspective
on the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear program (in 1981, towards the
start of the Iran/Iraq war). While that was condemned at the time, when the
knowledge of gas attacks became wide spread few people doubted that Hussein
would have used a nuclear bomb as well if he had access to one.

Anyway.. a long history lesson.

I guess my question is "What should the US have done"?

~~~
nl
Err? Downvotes?

I agree the story goes back further, but I can't write all of Wikipedia. I
think what I wrote is a reasonably factual account that supplies reasonable
context.

~~~
jacquesm
Agreed. silly downvotes.

Thanks for the summary! I do think that the Mossadeq affair should have been
an integral part of the whole.

~~~
nl
Perhaps.

Ironically I have previously raised the Iran coup on HN, but someone appeared
to disagree that it was sponsored by the CIA (this was prior to the release of
documents proving it though):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5779374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5779374)

~~~
jacquesm
Wow. That's pretty ignorant. I didn't even think anybody would still try to
support that side of the issue, the horse was beaten to death and buried long
ago. Trying to revive it likely won't work :)

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grecy
Are people honestly still _proud_ to be American when things like this come to
light?

Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things
like this routine? (honest question, I don't understand)

~~~
jlgreco
> _Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make
> things like this routine?_

Honest answer to the honest question: I want to live in this country[1]
because I consider it my home. The government? That is the part I don't care
for. I feel absolutely no loyalty to it. When another victor inevitably starts
writing history books, those books will not be kind to the modern American
government.

[1] Where "country" is both a chunk of geography, a loose-knit culture
(perhaps best described as a culture of loose-knit culture _s_ ), and the
place where most of the individual people I like also live.

~~~
ekianjo
> I feel absolutely no loyalty to it.

Yet you are enforced to be loyal to it. Try not paying your taxes, for
example, and they will deprive you of your freedom.

~~~
dfc
All countries enforce loyalty. If I moved to Canada I would be forced to be
loyal to the Canadian government. To make matters worse I would also have to
swear or affirm an oath of loyalty to some lady and her heirs and successors
across the ocean.

Are there any countries that do not take punitive actions when citizens decide
they do not feel like paying their taxes?

~~~
ekianjo
> Are there any countries that do not take punitive actions when citizens
> decide they do not feel like paying their taxes?

Probably not, or very few at least, since there is no pure libertarian country
example in the world so far. Even though, you may decide where you pay your
taxes - depending on how much you agree with the policies of the country where
you pay them.

You can't keep feeding the Dragon and then complain the day it burns another
village with its inhabitants. Don't feed the Dragon in the first place.

~~~
saraid216
Yeah, clearly we want the dragon to eat the village, not burn it down. Do you
have a less stupid analogy?

Or is your contention that we need to motivate the government to actively
steal from the commons rather than persuade the commons to give it money?

~~~
dfc
I thought the dragon analogy was a mess too. I would much rather be in control
the dragon's food supply than be the most recent person to move to the next
village the dragon burned.

------
graycat
Of course. The joke is that Cheney's statement that there is "no doubt" that
Saddam has WMDs because we still had the receipts from when we sent him the
chemical weapons for him to use against Iran.

------
javajosh
The USG has slowly, by steps, become brutal, unprincipled, and indifferent to
the suffering of civilians--it's own civilians not excepted. Loyalty to the
chain of command is the only value that matters (that's why the USG hates
Snowden so much, BTW). Our leadership (both business and political) has woken
up to the startling truth that there is no check on their power, and restraint
is for losers. As governor Christie pointed out so eloquently, it's not about
principles, it's about winning.

The brutality is expressed in different ways to different people. At home, the
bureaucracy is brutal, the police are brutal, and the justice system is brutal
- the law is applied unequally (when it is applied at all) to those with money
and power. Abroad, we undermine legitimate governments, invade countries
illegally, assassinate people with drones, we torture, detain people
indefinitely, commit war crimes - all with impunity from our own people, even
after the atrocity has been exposed and there are no doubts about the facts
involved. We vote for new leaders - and the new leaders continue the same
practices and grant immunity to their predecessors.

Relatively small incidents like Miranda's detention or that guy who wrote the
incredible "Don't Fly on Ramadan" piece show how brutal, unprincipled, and
indifferent to suffering our governments have become - and now it's totally
out in the open. There are too many examples to cite: police mistakenly raid
homes by mistake, shooting dogs and then leaving empty handed but telling the
terrorized home-owners "you're lucky we didn't arrest you"; women being groped
by deputies who are ignored by the family court judge when she tries to get
protection; Cameron Ortiz and Aron Swartz; Manning, etc. Of course, terrible
things happen. But in each of these cases no-one up the line thought there was
a problem. Any corrective action has to be forced by overwhelming public
sentiment - and even then the powerful know that time is on their side.

It's time we start asking ourselves whether or not we feel like there are
sufficient safeguards in place to protect us against wide-spread abuse at the
hands of our government. It's time we ask ourselves if there's really anyone
who has any sense of urgency to address the ever growing problem of brutal,
unprincipled, and indifferent application of power in the US. Is democracy
enough? Is democracy of the type that we have, dominated by a manipulative,
effective, money-driven two-party machine, giving us the candidates that we
want?

Why aren't people at every level of government getting fighting mad when these
stories come out, and who take immediate, decisive corrective action to make
sure that a) the people responsible are not only terminated immediately, but
criminally charged, and b) make sure it doesn't happen again? Why aren't
people at every level of government so afraid to admit mistakes, apologize for
wrong-doing, and ashamed at the lack of restraint, the lack of compassion, and
the lack of principled action shown by their people? Where do we find these
candidates?

~~~
nl
I don't diagree with what you are saying (check my comment history and you'll
see some similar sentiments).

However...

I don't think you should try and combine this incident into the narrative
surrounding the erosion of rights in the US.

There is very little in common here, except perhaps something like "powerful
countries do some shitty things".

If you do want to combine them, then I think you need to explain how things
are worse now than when the US did things like the deliberate infection of
native Americans with smallpox etc.

I think the truth is that things are _different_ now. It is much more
difficult for the US to let a dictator get away with things like using
chemical weapons because of the rapid dissemination of information from people
on the ground. At the same time the volume of bad news make it difficult to
create action on the US on any single issue.

~~~
javajosh
My initial post made the connection more explicit. I wrote something like, "At
least Reagan had the good grace to keep his complicity using chemical weapons
a secret." And then I couldn't believe I had just written that sentence.

That's how things are worse. We've done despicable things in the past, but we
had shame enough to deny it, shame enough to try to edit history to hide it.
Nowadays a video is released showing Apache pilots laughing while they kill
unarmed civilians, and the USG from top to bottom has the temerity not only to
ignore the war crime, but to attack the guy who released the video for being a
traitor. And people don't riot. That's new. That's worse.

Nowadays men of conscience reveal secret plots that undermine our most basic
freedoms. And rather than showing shame, contrition, rather than being
apologetic, Obama "welcomes the debate" about privacy, and prosecutes the
whistleblower with a ferocity unmatched in living memory. Christ, Obama had a
foreign presidents plane grounded on the suspicion he might get his man.

It's worse because the brutality, the cold indifference to principle, the
naked self-serving agenda, is entirely unmasked now. It's worse because people
can't do anything. The myth that "public sentiment" matters at all in a
democracy has finally been busted.

~~~
weland
> And people don't riot. That's new. That's worse.

Coming from a part of the world that has seen at least one revolution and
several coups d'etat in the last century, this is one of the things that has
made me particularly troubled about how much Americans value their democracy
and about how much they value their comfort. Back there, when the Iron Curtain
fell, they needed about ten years of deportations and forced imprisonments to
get things under reasonable control, and it only lasted for thirty years
afterwards. That's in a country where people could literally be thrown in jail
because they knew someone, couldn't possess fire weapons and couldn't assembly
in public places, making any riot almost impossible to start, let alone work.
Countries with one tenth of the US population mobilize more people in a
teachers' strike than the Occupy movement -- with arguably more widespread
concerns -- mobilized.

When the government's abuse takes the form of unfair judges and militarized
police force, you can't break down the abuse by whining in the press and
debating on the TV. That's the circus they hand out when the grain isn't
cutting it anymore. I'm yet to see even the most modest form of civil
disobedience in a sizeable quantity. A bunch of people gathering up and not
paying taxes or something. FFS -- a students' strike. When I was a kid, there
was a point when students grew so unhappy that they simply called a strike and
refused to go to class -- nationwide. A lot of professors tried to bully them
into it, many of them ended up having to take a lot of exams again, but
conditions did actually improve to some degree -- and they also didn't do
anything that was remotely in danger of being labeled as some form of
disobedience worthy of imprisonment. Basically, everyone decided to skip the
classes _with the same reason_.

There's also the sense of community -- or, rather, the sense of division
against the government. Everyone there seems to be friends with each other,
but the sense of injustice is enjoyed by everyone in private, and only shared
over a couple of beers.

About twenty years ago, a team from the local equivalent of the DEA missed the
apartment and smashed open the door of one of our neighbors. His wife was
pregnant and both of them were terrified, but when one of the policemen tried
to drag her on the floor (protocol asks for it -- but they also didn't show
any ID when they smashed the door open) the dude snapped and punched one of
them. Needless to say, a lot of rabble ensued and the whole block woke up. Our
apartment was next door to theirs, so the first one to jump out was my father
(to make matters worse, he was a Colonel).

When everyone there realized what had happened, the policemen barely got out
alive. One of them got out with a dislocated jaw, another one with a broken
nose, and it was literally only the timely intervention of their colleagues
that prevented them from being lynched.

Three of them were eventually discharged and one of them was moved to another
city. I have no doubt that, under normal circumstances, nothing would have
happened; the abnormal circumstance here was that my dad was the one who threw
in the first punch. Pressing charges against someone from an institution who
also had enough influence over judges was simply unproductive: it wasn't as
much a problem of _not fucking triple-checking what door you 're smashing
down_ as a problem of messing with someone who had the biggest bureaucratic
cock.

This was as dystopian as it could be. There was no impartial justice to speak
of and the government had no formal policy to protect its citizens from abuse,
and the reach of the government's power/control was modest to say the least.
However, _some_ safety was provided by the sense of community: when everyone
could jerk the system to their own interest, some of them occasionally chose
to jerk it towards the interest of their families or friends.

~~~
jacquesm
Wow. Have you seen the movie 'Brazil'?

~~~
weland
Nope. Wikipedia has two entries about a movie named Brazil, one from 1985 and
one from 1944. Which one is it :-)?

~~~
jacquesm
The 1985 one by Terry Gilliam. I hope you'll like it, it's pretty dark.

~~~
weland
Thanks for the tip! I added it to my list of films to watch, it looks quite
neat from the description.

~~~
jacquesm
1984 meets bladerunner (minus the clones).

I think it's Gilliam's best film by far. Enjoy!

------
frank_boyd
If you combine these ethical standards with the total surveillance network the
government has set up with the "Five Eyes" partners [0], you know what's
coming.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement)

------
theboywho
What is it with all these leaks? Are people following Snowden or is the US gov
following the British Gov and leaking info about itself?

~~~
BruceM
Look at the PDFs on the final page of the article. They each have a date for
when they were released.

