[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
The links are in my earlier posts in this thread.

First of all, I'm not equating doing business with Saddam with "being bought" or even "staying bought". Just because people took Saddam's money doesn't mean they were going to fight Saddam's battles.

In 1989 James Baker worked to secure $1 Billion in agricultural loans for Iraq. His memos reveal that economic relations with Iraq were a serious priority for the administration at the time.

Our economic relations in the 10 years prior to that are already well documented even if conveniently forgotten.

I will credit Bush Sr. for at least attempting to temper our business with Iraq through Oil For Food. It was a miserable failure, but at least there was an attempt at basing the relationship on somewhat moral grounds. Reagan and Rummy gave Saddam whatever the hell he wanted and didn't care what he did with it, including a lot of the stuff that seems to have haunted Dubya's dreams of late.

Everybody did business with Saddam. Everybody.

The implication here is that Saddam's money convinced world leaders to not join Dubya's mid east adventure. I don't think that is the case. Bush Sr got those same nations to overlook their lucrative business dealings with Saddam (and even our own) when Saddam crossed the line. And Bush Sr recognized the lunacy of marching on Bagdad for exactly the same reasons Dubya missed--none of the partners would stand for it, and he foresaw that we'd end up having to occupy the nation indefinitely against a presumably hostile population.

In short, the Dubya's proposed solution was worse than the problem in the eyes of most. I highly doubt that a few million here and few million there were anywhere near enough money to make them reconsider the prospects of taking ownership of a failed state.

I'm a little confused here. We seem to have some timelines mixed up. One quick one. You wrote:

"I will credit Bush Sr. for at least attempting to temper our business with Iraq through Oil For Food. It was a miserable failure, but at least there was an attempt at basing the relationship on somewhat moral grounds."

Oil for food was something intruduced through the UN to mitigate the effects of the UN sanctions on Iraq's population. Those sanctions didn't go into place until the Gulf War. That was years later, and has nothing to do with the financial aid deals you allege in the 1980s. Once those sanctions went into place, nobody was supposed to be doing any business deals with the Iraqi govenment. I take it you are not alleging that Bush Sr. was involved in sanctions busting. So we need to keep those historical events in the correct chronological order.

More importantly, I don't believe we are talking here about the same things. These payments are not pre-Kuwait invasions business deals with Iraq. These are post-Kuwait, post-UN sanctions secret payments. Generally, a secret and illegal payment is characterized as a bribe. The difference is important. A business deal has a quid pro quo. Usually, money in exchange for some goods or services. The quid pro quo of a bribe to a public official is different, and much more nefarious. That's why this (if true)is a revelation.

Of course, it is possible for people who have been paid a bribe to pocket the money and still behave as if they had not been bribed. However, in this case, it's hard to see how these particular people broke with Saddam's government in any meaningful way. People like Galloway certainly look like they stuck by him to the very end. Hence the suspicion that their actions may have been influenced.

Third: I just took a look at the document you talk about, allegedly from Secretary Baker to Iraq (the first link, the second was broken). That's a loan guarantee from the US to Iraq. We are talking here secret monies from Iraq to individuals outside Iraq, not loan guarantees by the US government to the government of Iraq. The former are post-Gulf war and post-sanctions bribes, the latter were pre-war, pre-sanctions foreign aid. The difference is night and day.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I'm a little confused here. We seem to have some timelines mixed up. One quick one. You wrote: Oil for food was something intruduced through the UN to mitigate the effects of the UN sanctions on Iraq's population. Those sanctions didn't go into place until the Gulf War. That was years later, and has nothing to do with the business deals you allege in the 1980s. Once those sanctions went into place, nobody was supposed to be doing any business deals with the Iraqi govenment. I take it you are not alleging that Bush Sr. was involved in sanctions busting. So we need to keep those historical events in the correct chronological order.

More importantly, I don't believe we are talking here about the same things. These payments are not pre-Kuwait invasions business deals with Iraq. These are post-Kuwait, post-UN sanctions secret payments. Generally, a secret and illegal payment is characterized as a bribe. The difference is important. A business deal has a quid pro quo. Usually, money in exchange for some goods or services. The quid pro quo of a bribe to a public official is different, and much more nefarious. That's why this (if true)is a revelation.

Of course, it is possible for people who have been paid a bribe to pocket the money and still behave as if they had not been bribed. However, in this case, it's hard to see how these particular people broke with Saddam's government in any meaningful way. People like Galloway certainly look like they stuck by him to the very end. Hence the suspicion that their actions may have been influenced.

I wasn't clear.

Bush I was doing business with Iraq as late as 1989. After the war, he didn't go back to business as usual. I give him credit for trying, even if I consider the sanctions a disaster. Reagan and Rummy certainly never changed their economic relations with Saddam even when they knew about genocide, WMD, torture, rape rooms and all the other fun stuff.

I don't mind calling these secret payments bribes. I don't mind condemning them. That's pretty nasty business, if you ask me. I also considering the "legal" Halliburton deals with Saddam to be tip-toeing the line at Sanction-busting--especially considering Cheney's outspoken comments after 2001 about how Saddam was exploiting the UN program to buy WMD technology and supplies.

The allegation is that this was buying political support. Maybe it was simply profiteering? Ugly either way, but I wouldn't necessarily conclude that simply because someone did business with Saddam under the Oil For Food program, that they wouldn't support actions or policies that would offer justice to Iraqis. After all, Haliburton did business under the UN program. Money is money to a business. I don't pretend to believe they are overly ethical about whose money they accept.

I also take issue with the tired old insinuation that because they lobbied against Dubya's misadventure, they were lobbying for letting Saddam rape, pillage and build WMD to destroy the world. As I pointed out, Bush I certaily had no illusions about what marching on Bagdad would likely bring about and he wanted nothing to do with it. I suggest that France, Russia and Germany also considered the prospects of assuming ownership of a failed state to be decidedly against their interests--not to mention counter-productive to bringing positive change to the region.

Looking at these revlations of money-grubbing through the warped lense of "Invasion or Nothing" is leading you to a false assumption.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Looking at these revlations of money-grubbing through the warped lense of "Invasion or Nothing" is leading you to a false assumption.

First, what you call Bush 1 "doing business" with Iraq prior to the Gulf War isn't doing business in the same sense we are talking about here. It wasn't personal business. Certainly, the American Government had diplomatic relations with Iraq, and had contacts with the Iraqi government, some of which were commercial in nature, and some of which were more like foreign aid. An agricultural loan guarantee like the one you point to above is a form of foreign aid.

On your quote above, of course I am questioning what these bribes mean. It's a normal inference when you find evidence of a bribe to assume that the bribe wasn't paid for nothing. If you found that a cop or a judge was receiving bribes, you'd look at their decisions to see if the bribe influenced them. You wouldn't assume the cop or judge was honest despite the bribe. This is no different. The bribe itself is prima facie evidence that there was a probable agreement here of money in exchange for influence.

Of course, right now these are at the level of an unfounded allegation. The burden is to prove that the allegations are correct. However, once proven, the burden should be on the persons who received them that the millions of dollars they received did not influence them, and was just a windfall for which Saddam received no benefit. Then, of course, they should pay income tax or go to jail for tax evasion.

And really, T_F, if you found out that Bush received secret bribes from a foreign government that was under UN sanctions, you'd be screaming for his impeachment. You wouldn't call it a "business deal."

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
And really, T_F, if you found out that Bush received secret bribes from a foreign government that was under UN sanctions, you'd be screaming for his impeachment. You wouldn't call it a "business deal."

Are we reading the same list? Most of the names I see are "businessman", "former"-government bereaucrats, political parties, etc....

I don't see much difference between that and what Richard Perle or James Baker do for a living. They lobby for wars that make them rich because they work for defense contractors. It just so happens you find those wars "moral" and I don't.

Galloway certainly didn't stop the UK from going to war. I don't see much evidence that any of the others are people of any notable influence.

The glaring exception would appear to Putin. Now I sure do hope that these revelations cause some serious shyt to fly in Russia. I surely do.

<edited to add:
I'm not saying these people did nothing wrong by taking Saddam's dirty money. I'm just casting serious serious skepticism on the assertion that the reason France didn't vote for the war is because some nobody business man and a former politician got paid lobbyist fees (or bribes) by Saddam.

What they did was highly unethical and I hope illegal. But that doesn't mean we have some kind of "smoking gun" for why Dubya's misadventure was so resoundingly unpopular.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
These payments are not pre-Kuwait invasions business deals with Iraq. These are post-Kuwait, post-UN sanctions secret payments. Generally, a secret and illegal payment is characterized as a bribe. The difference is important. A business deal has a quid pro quo. Usually, money in exchange for some goods or services. The quid pro quo of a bribe to a public official is different, and much more nefarious. That's why this (if true)is a revelation.

I can't believe I'm even dignifying this crud with a response! It is absolutely ridiculous to say that Chirac was bribed by Saddam. As ridiculous as it would be to say Bush was bribed by Saddam!

An acting member of the British Parliament is on that list. Not and ex-MP that hasn't been in government for 10 years - a CURRENT MP! He's a lot closer to the UK government than Pasqua is to the French. Why does no one say that the Blair was bribed by Saddam?

This is just more of the anti-French xenophobia we saw before the war. Some two-bit paper that has only been in existence for a few weeks manages to get a list out of the only building in Iraq that the Americans have bothered to secure. People then make wildly inaccurate statements about what the list proves. Suddenly it's assumed:

1) That the contracts were illegal;
2) That they were given in payment for spin doctoring services;
3) That paying for spin doctoring services is bad even though the US Congress is full of people who do precisely this;
4) That certain people who do not feature on the list are also guilty of these assumed crimes.

It's ridiculous. It really is. There's absolutely no way of proving this; therefore no way of disproving it. People should see it for what it is. Hot air and smoke.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
I can't believe I'm even dignifying this crud with a response! It is absolutely ridiculous to say that Chirac was bribed by Saddam. As ridiculous as it would be to say Bush was bribed by Saddam!

I did not say Chirac was bribed by Saddam. I say only what the ABC News report says.

France
Charles Pasqua, former minister of interior: 12 million
Trafigura (Patrick Maugein), businessman: 25 million
Ibex: 47.2 million
Bernard Merimee, former French ambassador to the United Nations: 3 million
Michel Grimard, founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club: 17.1 million

That's not Chirac himself. Just people quite close to him.

Secondly, what do you mean there is no way to prove this? Of course there is. Did money in fact exchange hands? Can not payments of millions be tracked? Are Interpol and national police forces incapable of checking this out? If they received the payments, were they in exchange for anything of worth that would make them seem like legitimate business deals? Do those governments have disclosure rules like the US has for government officials to prevent graft and corruption? Did they report them? Did they pay taxes?

Bribery and corruption is not a new phenomenon. Of course the charges can be proved or disproved.

[swrate]

Fire,
Iraq qaaf
cold here and head ache so I skipped through
title of thread was...... i dont care about Chirac, but,
it's miss information

http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/background/chron.html

a snippet,


10 December 1996: Following the Secretary-General's report to the Council that all measures are in place for the implementation of resolution 986 (1995), phase I officially begins with the pumping of Iraqi oil for export. The first proceeds from the sale of oil are deposited in the United Nations Iraq Account (Escrow Account), at the Banque Nationale de Paris in New York on 15 January 1997.

Oil for food programm

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by swrate:
Oil for food programm

That's a different subject. There is no way people like George Galloway were paid as part of the UN oil for food program.

No. Either this is a forgery (which is quite possible), or it is evidence that at least some individuals were on the take. The question then would be what influence they had, and whether this is the entire list.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
That's a different subject. There is no way people like George Galloway were paid as part of the UN oil for food program.

No. Either this is a forgery (which is quite possible), or it is evidence that at least some individuals were on the take. The question then would be what influence they had, and whether this is the entire list.

From the ABC article that launched this debate:

"All of the contracts were awarded from late 1997 until the U.S.-led war in March 2003. They were conducted under the aegis of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, which was designed to allow Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods. "

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
From the ABC article that launched this debate:

"All of the contracts were awarded from late 1997 until the U.S.-led war in March 2003. They were conducted under the aegis of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, which was designed to allow Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods. "

Why did the money go to individuals then? Are you seriously suggesting that a Scottish MP (to take just one) was acting on behalf of the UN?

Thunderous, quote the whole thing. These were not legitimate deals. They were sweetheart deals. In other words: bribes.

All of the contracts were awarded from late 1997 until the U.S.-led war in March 2003. They were conducted under the aegis of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, which was designed to allow Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods.

The document was discovered several weeks ago in the files of the Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad.

According to a copy obtained by ABCNEWS, some 270 prominent individuals, political parties or corporations in 47 countries were on a list of those given Iraq oil contracts instantly worth millions of dollars.

Today, the U.S.Treasury Department said that any American citizens found to be illegally involved could face prosecution.

"You are looking at a political slush fund that was buying political support for the regime of Saddam Hussein for the last six or seven years," said financial investigator John Fawcett.

Investigators say none of the people involved would have actually taken possession of oil, but rather just the right to buy the oil at a discounted price, which could be resold to a legitimate broker or oil company, at an average profit of about 50 cents a barrel.

[swrate]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
That's a different subject. There is no way people like George Galloway were paid as part of the UN oil for food program.

No. Either this is a forgery (which is quite possible), or it is evidence that at least some individuals were on the take. The question then would be what influence they had, and whether this is the entire list.

I am not talking about Galloway, but Pasqua. "Chirac"

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Why did the money go to individuals then? Are you seriously suggesting that a Scottish MP (to take just one) was acting on behalf of the UN?

I believe the allegation is that this was an obvious abuse or misappropriation of the UN program.

But the contracts in question were still awarded under the UN program despite your dismissal of swrate for mentioning it.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
I believe the allegation is that this was an obvious abuse or misappropriation of the UN program.

But the contracts in question were still awarded under the UN program despite your dismissal of swrate for mentioning it.

swate implied that this was all legitimate. It is not. (Assuming the allegations are true).

[swrate]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
swate implied that this was all legitimate. It is not. (Assuming the allegations are true).

many organizations protested against the sanctions.
people were starving in iraq
dying because of sanctions on medication.
some countries send the material. Lots.
edit: it was not for the US
but it was according to the human rights

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by swrate:
many organizations protested against the sanctions.
people were starving in iraq
dying because of sanctions on medication.
some countries send the material. Lots.

And were those organizations paid with sweetheart oil contracts as well?

Or are you talking about the Russian Communist Party, The President of Indonesia, The Russian Orthodox Church, George Galloway, a former French Ambassador to the UN . . . . Are those the humanitarian organizations you have in mind?

I can understand skepticism of this list. We ought to be skeptical because there have been forgeries before. But this is apologizing for corruption. It's amazing.

[swrate]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
And were those organizations paid with sweetheart oil contracts as well?

some had contracts, whether recognized by US or not, that's another problem

[swrate]

Originally posted by swrate:
some had contracts, whether recognized by US or not, that's another problem

blame it on the UN, i see this coming
there was a real need and they all took their share

US was in a jam with those sanctions, it backslashed (need for oil)
smacks.... may bee
edit: lol, crossed your reply lol

[SimeyTheLimey]

swrate, you seem to be arguing with yourself. Are you ok?


Madness, per Monty Python:

Stage 1: talks to self
Stage 2: argues with self
Stage 3: loses the argument.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
And were those organizations paid with sweetheart oil contracts as well?

Or are you talking about the Russian Communist Party, The President of Indonesia, The Russian Orthodox Church, George Galloway, a former French Ambassador to the UN . . . . Are those the humanitarian organizations you have in mind?

I can understand skepticism of this list. We ought to be skeptical because there have been forgeries before. But this is apologizing for corruption. It's amazing.

You are assuming waaaaaaay too much based on the available evidence.

Political parties and churches often operate humanitarian missions. I see absolutely no reason to assume that they did nothing in return for their UN contracts other than lobby against war. Hell, even if all they did was lobby against war, you might still consider it "humanitarian" although I'm sure that would be well beyod the legal scope of the UN program.

This document indicates that people got Oil For Food contracts. We don't know what services or goods they are alledged to have supplied for those contracts.

We may suspect that was for their efforts in preventing a war, but we aren't anywhere near proof yet.

And as I argued before, even if those handful of individuals were paid to lobby against the war, that doesn't mean that is the reason France, Germany, Russia or a host of other nations disagreed with Dubya that a war was the best solution to Iraq's problems.

In fact, I find the suggestion that a few measley million bucks to a handful of nobodies convinced any country of anything one way or the other. With the notable exception of Putin. His name on the list is very very troubling to me.

[swrate]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
And were those organizations paid with sweetheart oil contracts as well?

Or are you talking about the Russian Communist Party, The President of Indonesia, The Russian Orthodox Church, George Galloway, a former French Ambassador to the UN . . . . Are those the humanitarian organizations you have in mind?

I can understand skepticism of this list. We ought to be skeptical because there have been forgeries before. But this is apologizing for corruption. It's amazing.

how sad, arguing is tiring, i havent found some of the shocking links i once found on the net regarding reports about the advantages to keep Iraq under sanctions (it was American reports by people working for US government)

i hope to come across them again.
anyway

http://www.cin.org/archives/cinjust/199802/0002.html
this may give you an idea
theories are easy, on the ground, effect....
sigh

ps: i am not here to win or lose.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
In fact, I find the suggestion that a few measley million bucks to a handful of nobodies convinced any country of anything one way or the other.

Keep spinning, T_F. So far we have had:

Everybody was doing it (which isn't true, and you got the decades wrong).

It's humanitarian graft.

And now: It's only a few measly millions (Wow! I need your kind of income!)

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Keep spinning, T_F. So far we have had:

Everybody was doing it (which isn't true, and you got the decades wrong).

It's humanitarian graft.

And now: It's only a few measly millions (Wow! I need your kind of income!)

I didn't get any decades wrong. You merely misunderstood my point.

I also never excused any of the suspects. In fact, I went pretty far to condemn what appears to be pretty nasty money-grubbing with a pretty nasty dictator.

And I never made the moral equivalency argument you imply. My comments about American business with Saddam was specifically in response to those who wanted to single out other countries and omit their own.

And if you think that the foreign policy decisions whether or not to invade another country are easily achieved by simply giving a few million dollars to a handful of business men and former bereaucrats, all I can say is your way more cynical (or gullible) than I could have imagined.

Or would you care to lay out the exact scenario in which Pasqua single-handedly convinces the nation of France (not just the government, but the population as well) that war with Iraq is a bad idea?

[theolein]

I don't understand this visceral hatred some Americans seem to have of France (Spliffdaddy, Spacefreak, Simey, Ayatollah etc The right wing crowd). It seems to me to be similar to the hatred that the far left crowd has of America (perryp, version etc). I sometimes think that the respective parties would jump for joy and cheer if some huge catastrophy were to afflict either France or America and millions of people would die, sick as it sounds.

In other words it seems like angry people who need a target to fixate their aggressions and frustrations on, a bit like the football team one doesn't like etc. There's a very good word for this in German called "Feindbild" i.e. one's imaginary enemy onto which all the bad things and problems in one's life can be projected.

I say this because this thread's title basically says it all: "France, chirac bribed by Saddam". Firstly the list of names (which I linked to in the BBC article almost at the beginning) doesn't include Chirac, and secondly, I have a hard time imagining all 60 million people in France i.e. France itself, being bribed by saddam.

Let me turn that around for an experiment. Some people here were making an issue out of Halliburton's dealings with Iraq while Cheney was CEO (And yes, I read the bit where the one group above goes overboard in defending Cheney, saying he had no knowledge of that. Strange that a CEO doesn't know what's going on in his own company, sin't it?). So the obvious counter thread title would be:

"USA, Cheney broke sanctions against Iraq".

It would be as blatantly stupid, childish and typical as the original thread title, and there would be exactly the same round of recriminations as there is this thread, with the more intelligent member(s) of the right wing group mentioned above (That would be Simey as I can't see Kindbud actually bothering to do any research himself as he's much more content to troll and feed his hatreds from the sides) defending Cheney, and the left wing attacking him.

But perhaps it would be painful to actually be honest to oneself, if to no one else, and admit the true reasons for one's hatred, perhaps leaving one with a feeling of emptiness. As the Americans say, perhaps the advice of getting a life would be well taken here.

[thunderous_funker]

::applause::

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by theolein:
I don't understand this visceral hatred some Americans seem to have of France (Spliffdaddy, Spacefreak, Simey, Ayatollah etc The right wing crowd). It seems to me to be similar to the hatred that the far left crowd has of America (perryp, version etc). I sometimes think that the respective parties would jump for joy and cheer if some huge catastrophy were to afflict either France or America and millions of people would die, sick as it sounds.

First of all, I have said nothing in this thread that could be construed as anti French. All I have said is that this report indicates that there are specific individuals, close to the current French President, who were on Saddam's payroll. I also mentioned a number of other people such as the Indonesian President, and a Scottish MP. Unless you are going to accuse me of harboring hatred for all of those countries, then I suggest you at ease the personal accusations. It has been said so many times that criticism of Bush does not equal criticism of America. It is no different when the governments concerned are France, Russia, Indonesia, et al. You don't get to stifle debate that easily. Are you seriously suggesting that any discuussion of corruption in other countries is per se an accusation against the entire country? I have criticized the Chirac government, and perhaps I have used "France" as a shortcut for that, but I have never posted any vitriol about the French people, their culture, economy, or any of those things. Perhaps you find pleasure in lumping people together, but I resent this false accusation.

Secondly, i agree that the thread title misrepresents the news reports. Chirac is not directly named in the list. However, I have no control over a thread title begun by another poster. The mere fact that I post in a thread does not imply that I endorse the thread title.

Third: what amazes me more than the corruption itself (assuming it is true, which I regard as very much unproven) is the chorus rising to the defense. It amazes me that people who froth at the mouth at the very mention of the name Halliburton could dismiss the possibility that a group of people were on the take from someone like Saddam.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Third: what amazes me more than the corruption itself (assuming it is true, which I regard as very much unproven) is the chorus rising to the defense. It amazes me that people who froth at the mouth at the very mention of the name Halliburton could dismiss the possibility that a group of people were on the take from someone like Saddam.

And who is defending them?

The closest I've seen to "defense" is swrate mentioning that this was under the UN program and all the facts aren't in.

I've spent my energy debunking the laughable assertion that France didn't support the war because 3 or 4 of it's citizens were taking bribes.

[FeLiZeCaT]

It's good business.

As long we get profits, why bother?

Anything else is to be put in the folder "externalities".

[theolein]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
First of all, I have said nothing in this thread that could be construed as anti French. All I have said is that this report indicates that there are specific individuals, close to the current French President, who were on Saddam's payroll. I also mentioned a number of other people such as the Indonesian President, and a Scottish MP. Unless you are going to accuse me of harboring hatred for all of those countries, then I suggest you at ease the personal accusations. It has been said so many times that criticism of Bush does not equal criticism of America. It is no different when the governments concerned are France, Russia, Indonesia, et al. You don't get to stifle debate that easily. Are you seriously suggesting that any discuussion of corruption in other countries is per se an accusation against the entire country? I have criticized the Chirac government, and perhaps I have used "France" as a shortcut for that, but I have never posted any vitriol about the French people, their culture, economy, or any of those things. Perhaps you find pleasure in lumping people together, but I resent this false accusation.

Secondly, i agree that the thread title misrepresents the news reports. Chirac is not directly named in the list. However, I have no control over a thread title begun by another poster. The mere fact that I post in a thread does not imply that I endorse the thread title.

Third: what amazes me more than the corruption itself (assuming it is true, which I regard as very much unproven) is the chorus rising to the defense. It amazes me that people who froth at the mouth at the very mention of the name Halliburton could dismiss the possibility that a group of people were on the take from someone like Saddam.

I think you just proved my point better than I could have done. Thanks, Simey.

Oh, and about the false accusation. Well, firstly, thank God it wasn't an Ad Hominem, heh. Secondly, I have distinct memories of you starting a thread topic on Alleged sales of Mirage fighter parts to Saddam before the war, and I also remember you distinctly derailing a number of threads by launching into long and strange weaknesses of France, militarily (Remember me correcting you on France taking part in Afghanistan?), and morally (The arguments on why France et al should now be paying for the reconstruction in Iraq). Those are the reasons you got lumped into the same group as the rest of that gang.

But that wasn't even the point. I think you realise it but you're looking to derail yet another thread, but whatever.

The point of my post was to juxtapose the same sweeping sensationalist thread title from the right with one from the left, so as to ask an abstract question as to why there is such generalised hatred of whole countries, whoever they are, and for whatever reason.

If you feel that no one does this, then I'd like to point out your own posting history for one, and Kindbud's insightful comments for another, and this coupled with the other side, such as perryp or version, dredging up every bad thing against the US they can think of.

I also think it would be wise to not accuse me of trying to stifle debate, since you also have a fair rep here for derailing threads on tangents.

But whatever. I'm sure Halliburton's a nice friendly mom and pop shop who wouldn't harm a fly and Chirac's a nice old guy who spends his days tending selflessly to the poor and infirm.

[SimeyTheLimey]

You seem to lump people together rather a lot. I know that I have never said that the French military is weak. It's clearly one of only three countries in the world with global reach. I notice, also that you ignore the many times I have commented that only France intervened in Rwanda, and that French troops have taken part bravely in many peacekeeping operations. But no matter. If I have ever criticized even the slightest aspect of French policy, such as France's long track record of arms sales to countries including Iraq, or if I criticize a single French politician, then that is all the proof that Theolein needs to label me an obsessive France hater. Great debating tactic, especially coming from someone whose idea of a debate is spelling Rumsfeld with a uck.

I think I liked you better when you were using the F word. At least you were speaking for yourself, instead of passing unfair judgement on others.

[kindbud]

Damn, theo.

Nobody *hates* France.

I certainly don't wish any catastrophe upon the citizens of France.

A person has to CARE about something enough to hate it.

Simply put, the French act like a bunch of whining kids. Nothing to fear and nothing to hate - yet nothing to like either.


geez. How could you hate something that you only spend eight seconds a year thinking about?

[theolein]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
You seem to lump people together rather a lot. I know that I have never said that the French military is weak. It's clearly one of only three countries in the world with global reach. I notice, also that you ignore the many times I have commented that only France intervened in Rwanda, and that French troops have taken part bravely in many peacekeeping operations. But no matter. If I have ever criticized even the slightest aspect of French policy, such as France's long track record of arms sales to countries including Iraq, or if I criticize a single French politician, then that is all the proof that Theolein needs to label me an obsessive France hater. Great debating tactic, especially coming from someone whose idea of a debate is spelling Rumsfeld with a uck.

I think I liked you better when you were using the F word. At least you were speaking for yourself, instead of passing unfair judgement on others.

Sorry if I hurt your feelings there, old chap. I didn't know that you had difficulty reading, but don't worry, I'm sure it will improve with time and practice.

[theolein]

Originally posted by kindbud:
Damn, theo.

Nobody *hates* France.

I certainly don't wish any catastrophe upon the citizens of France.

A person has to CARE about something enough to hate it.

Simply put, the French act like a bunch of whining kids. Nothing to fear and nothing to hate - yet nothing to like either.


geez. How could you hate something that you only spend eight seconds a year thinking about?

I don't really care whether you hate France or not, really, and I seriously doubt whether anyone in France itself gives a damn either. That wasn't the point of my original post, which I see you also have difficulty comprehending (Is there something strange about the English language that makes it impossible for the average internet user to read more than one paragraph of any item before going into a state of overburdened mental activity?)

I personally don't think much of Chirac and his bunch of clowns currently running the French government, and the old bastard is certainly as corrupt as politicians come, and I've stated this any number of times, but that wasn't the point either.

The point was simply to juxtapose (I'll leave it to you as an exercise to figure out what the word means) the posting habits of the right wing and the left wing of the Pol lounge and the general tendency to include a whole country in one's thoughts of the place.

I suppose it was a bit too complicated. Sorry, I'll try to make it simpler next time.

[vmarks]

Originally posted by theolein:
The point was simply to juxtapose (I'll leave it to you as an exercise to figure out what the word means) the posting habits of the right wing and the left wing of the Pol lounge and the general tendency to include a whole country in one's thoughts of the place.

Yes, because -no one- here ever does that with other countries....




Israel...

[Evan_11]

Originally posted by theolein:

I suppose it was a bit too complicated. Sorry, I'll try to make it simpler next time.

You go girl.

[Saddam H.]

Originally posted by theolein:
The point was simply to juxtapose (I'll leave it to you as an exercise to figure out what the word means)

I suppose it was a bit too complicated. Sorry, I'll try to make it simpler next time.

Why do you feel the need to be so nasty to others?

[theolein]

Originally posted by Saddam H.:
Why do you feel the need to be so nasty to others?

Let's just say that I don't believe in turning the other cheek.

[theolein]

Originally posted by vmarks:
Yes, because -no one- here ever does that with other countries....




Israel...

You have my sympathy. I know it must be hard.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by theolein:
the general tendency to include a whole country in one's thoughts of the place.

Nobody has done that. But noticing that would require you to read what people say.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
First of all, I have said nothing in this thread that could be construed as anti French. All I have said is that this report indicates that there are specific individuals, close to the current French President, who were on Saddam's payroll.

What is "close to the government" supposed to mean? This guy is as close to the government as the American guys on that list are to the US government and he's a lot further from the government than the UK minister is.

We have an INDIVIDUAL who was, 2 governments ago, a minister. Did everyone expect him to disappear? He decided, as a commercial venture, and also because he wanted to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people, in the oil for food programme. A two-bit newspaper comes along with a suspect list suggesting that the individual in question received oil not for food but for spin-doctoring services. This should be investigated; I believe it has been investigated in France already.

What I find crazy is that certain people have linked this to Chirac; not even the French government in general but to Chirac personally. There is no evidence that any money went to Chirac; the newspaper never even suggested that. I don't like Chirac either; let's get that straight. I prefer him to Le Pen, but that's the only reason I ever supported him. But the hatred and prejudice that so many Americans hold for France at the moment is completely out of control. You've got to ask why people involve Chirac in this but they don't involve Blair or Bush or Azhnar or Mbeki or anyone else? I'll tell you why - xenophobia and jealousy. France matters a whole lot more than the Bushies would like to admit!

[FeLiZeCaT]

This is my interpretation of one of the Rules of The Game.

As long as it does not hurt me, my governement can do pretty much all it pleases.
Since the majority rules, and the majority is comfortable, why should we do anything? So we will follow the movement of "doing nothing".

Unless we are hurt, we won't do anything. Why hate a country you think about only 8 seconds per year. Why should we care about what is going on inside those borders.

We don't know these people.

In the meantime, there is the SuperBowl.

But when there is a guy identified as a bad apple, and everybody else is pointing their finger at it, it is always a good idea to follow, less you want to be left behind. So we follow the "doing something move".

This rules is applicable to any situation, government, culture etc. I guess it's application is what was attempted with the isolation of Iraq. Let's pressure the population so they hurt and overthrow their government. Well, it did not work.

Back to France (or any other industrialized countries for that matter).

You vote for the guy, we get to be accountable for most of his actions, since that person is our representative.

If that guy does something wrong, and we do nothing about it, we become accomplices, therefore accountble. Retaliation is inevitable.

That is how we get to generalize the actions of one leader to a population. That seems to be why there was a 9/11, a Hiroshima-Nagasaki destruction, a Viet-Nam war, a Korean War, a Rwanda massacre, a Israel-Palestine carnage, etc.

When some representative under the responsability of that leader is a bad apple, it may not take long to undermine the rest of the government, especially it's leader.

When we argue about it, we rationalize and feel better. (see Google define:rationalize). But have not resolved anything.

[theolein]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Nobody has done that. But noticing that would require you to read what people say.

What part of "France, Chirac bribed by Saddam" was the difficult bit to get to grips with? Was it the comma, or perhaps the capital "F"?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by theolein:
What part of "France, Chirac bribed by Saddam" was the difficult bit to get to grips with? Was it the comma, or perhaps the capital "F"?

I did not write that. I already said i think it is misleading. Read my posts.

[theolein]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I did not write that. I already said i think it is misleading. Read my posts.

I know you didn't write that, and I didn't state that you did as far as i can see, but you stated that nobody did that, which, from the title of this thread, and the first few posts is patently false.

FWIW, I did read your posts, and basically what I saw was one of your usual tangents going off in a completely different direction from my post, I'm sad to say. I truly don't know whether you do it on purpose or whether it's subconscious. Suffice to say, I didn't take it completely seriously because I truly had no wish to go dancing with you on your wild tangent. I'm not that kind of guy.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by theolein:
I'm not that kind of guy.

Don't worry. I think what kind of a guy you are is fairly apparent.

(places Theo back on ignore).

[swrate]

what a world. hurts sometimes.

Was the article linked to Resolution 986?
No idea, I just thought it could be a possibility. But then set back,
Imaginary enemies growing with �paranoia
Scandal titles attract�.

I am fine Simey thanks. I know far too little to be arguing.

I am not excusing, corruption
and I am not defending corruption either, as I am not 100% sure whether it is another elf tale, or legal transactions with commissions on the way.
Implications....French service men split sadly out of Iraq as the US Airforce reached Musa Island.. It would have been illegal for them to stay. Interviewed on an French/Arabic radio station, one of those men in service, a music lover, was saying how important it was not to start war before the autumn.(logistic water-food-security and other reasons)

French whining? Excuse me, Kinbud, who was whining about WMD? Big doses. Huge threat. Enough to be a danger to US????? Who was whining?
(and not whining so loud about PAK and Korea)

Taking parts out of a general context, we don�t know yet why the list exists. Time might give the answer, tell us their story (if there is no prescription which i doubt)

see trolls post at the beginning.

. Administration lasts.
Corruption? Comissi0on? Bagshish?
( )
money is
all over. and greed too
we don�t know the whole �BRIBE� story, it may, it may not be another scandal.

Reality is not simple http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middl...iraq_5-20.html[/url]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middl...t-pre2001.html[url]


Millions waited in banks, transactions, logistics to organize (will search link)
products failed to come, lack of people operating on the ground, restrictions of medication (some reports even say purposely ignoring sanitary rules such as disinfections of contaminated water)
The UN had to delegate the work to associations and sign contracts with money, and authorizations, while trying to keep out of the bombings.

Even in this document I am reminded of the Middle East conflict.[url]
http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/6...6?OpenDocument
Vmarks, occupation... again. It�s not the place. Tell me why whole Palestinian villages disappear? .

Intermediaries, IF that list is really linked with oil for food program �..
Why so few Americans?

Felizecat, enjoy your superbowl, I doubt the French population (in general) thought only 8 seconds about Iraq, they were preoccuppied.
And there are so many bad apples in the basket, wonder if any good ones are left.
Apple trees keep growing spring brings apple flowers

Theo rien n�est simple, tant mieux, respire....


PS: Was amazed at the amount of US citizens around town today.

[theolein]

Originally posted by swrate:
...
Theo rien n�est simple, tant mieux, respire....


...

De temps en temps, j'ai envie de jouer un peu avec les t�tes perdues, tu sais.

[ghost_flash]

Originally posted by theolein:
De temps en temps, j'ai envie de jouer un peu avec les t�tes perdues, tu sais.

Das klingt wie jemand mit einem berlegenheit Komplex, der ist in �bereinstimmung mit, wie Sie scheinen, unten auf allen von Ihrem Elfenbeinaufsatz zu schauen.

[Face Ache]

Hmmm. A derailed thread about a diversion (France). Interesting.

[theolein]

Originally posted by ghost_flash:
Das klingt wie jemand mit einem berlegenheit Komplex, der ist in �bereinstimmung mit, wie Sie scheinen, unten auf allen von Ihrem Elfenbeinaufsatz zu schauen.

There are times when the fish really isn't your friend.

[swrate]

Originally posted by ghost_flash:
Das klingt wie jemand mit einem berlegenheit Komplex, der ist in �bereinstimmung mit, wie Sie scheinen, unten auf allen von Ihrem Elfenbeinaufsatz zu schauen.

?
Wer ist auf den Turm? Du? Ich? wir? bist bin sind That heavy sentence reminds me of poppies lol
spring
Du kannst schwimmen, weil dieser Turm �ber See steht, so, kein Problem.... fliehen oder fliegen....
bis bald.