Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA01437 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 5 Oct 2001 05:19:17 +0100 From: <AaronLynch@aol.com> Message-ID: <169.1ecda05.28ee8d71@aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 00:13:37 EDT Subject: Re: state of memes To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 113 Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
In a message dated 10/4/2001 7:29:31 PM Central Daylight Time,
edace@earthlink.net writes:
> Subj: Re: state of memes
> Date: 10/4/2001 7:29:31 PM Central Daylight Time
> From: edace@earthlink.net (Dace)
> Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk
> Reply-to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> Aaron,
>
> > In my opinion, Bush
> > senior's administration could have sent different signals that would have
> > prevented the invasion of Kuwait.
>
> You can say that again. Bush clearly invited Hussein to take Kuwait. His
> ambassador, April Glaspie, told Hussein that the US had no concern with the
> dispute between Kuwait and Iraq. This was as good an invitation for
> invasion as anything Hussein could have hoped for. He must have been
> flabergasted when he discovered that the US, his ally, was suddenly turning
> against him. Ever since the downfall of the Shah of Iran, Hussein had been
> our number one man in the Persian Gulf region. It was presumably as a
> result of US prodding that Iraq invaded Iran in 1980. Given the stupendous
> military superiority Iraq enjoyed over its rival, the war should have been
a
> piece of cake. Instead it was a stalemate. Iraq had been built up as a
> serious military power, yet it was completely unreliable as a surrogate in
> the region. So it had to be punished. Hence the invitation to invade
> Kuwait and the excuse to bomb it back to the 3rd World.
>
> The main thing to keep in mind is that Hussein considered himself to be a
> junior partner of the US in the region. He had no intention of biting the
> hand that fed him. He was no more likely than Thatcher to launch a nuclear
> attack against us.
>
> Ted
>
Hi Ted.
You certainly do have a good command of the events leading to the war. And I
agree that the US has a long dark history of trying to use other countries
and ideologies as pawns in its geopolitical games. (Remember Afghan "freedom
fighters"?) The US has repeatedly hurt its own long-term interests by
pursuing Machiavellian strategies that failed to recognize the true
complexities of various situations.
I do, however, distinctly recall Hussein making a threatening gesture with a
component for a nuclear weapon. I don't recall the exact details of all the
people at whom he might have been shaking that capacitor, but it certainly
did cause more alarm about nuclear proliferation than did knowledge of
Pakistan's program. None of this is to say that USA and USSR nuclear saber
rattling were any better: in fact, they were far more dangerous when they
happened. But the USA and USSR became as dangerous as they became only
because they first passed through the kind of development stages seen in
Iraq. It is very easy to imagine that a country such as Iraq in the late 20th
century could have matched what the USA and USSR did in the 1940s and 1950s,
and then gone on to growing an expanding arsenal. That's one of the kinds of
dangers that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists addresses in its reports.
The Bulletin has also focused much attention on the weapons and policies of
the USA and USSR over the years.
--Aaron
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