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Saddam Hussein

Your strict assertion "Iraq was a Soviet ally," with suggestions otherwise constituting "POV falsifications" is overly simplistic. For instance, following the Ba'athists' repression of Iraqi Communists in the late 1970s and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq at times showed signs of shifting toward a more pro-Western orientation.

Perhaps the Soviets come up on the higher end in studies attempting to measure and compare the sum total over time of material aid to Iraq from the superpowers. But in the Saddam biography, the timing is relevant, not the comparison of sums over time.

If this point is new to you, familiarizing yourself with scholarship on international relations will be helpful. Abiding concepts of warfare since Sun Tzu in ancient China and Clausewitz in the modern West have always understood that war is not static. This principle has even been codified legally by the Nuremberg Tribunal, which noted in 1946 that the law of war "is not static" but fought by "continual adaptation."

On conflict in the modern Middle East, consult works by Middle East specialists, who highlight the multi-sided nature of conflict in post-colonial Iraq. Both superpowers, in their competition to influence strategic areas of the world, pursued defense and diplomatic policies influenced by influenced by the volatile post-colonial internal politics of the Middle East, conditioned by frequent shifting factional alliances and changes in regime.

Regards,

172 | Talk 19:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi 172,

My position is that two countries are allied if they have a pact of alliance. The Soviets and Iraq had such a pact. The US and Iraq didn't. In the links that I introduced in the article is included a summary of a meeting between Kissinger and his Iraqi colleague in which the latter states quite unequivocally that Iraq is on the other side of the fence and will remain so as long as the US supports Israel . I grant you that the US did offer some support to Iraq, primarily so after 1983, but not on the scale that the Russians did. I'm really concerned that you deleted the link to the page that made that clear.

Looking at the figures again, we can see that over the entire period the deliveries from the Warzaw Pact countries was 150 times the US shipments, on twelve of the seventeen years US shipments were none, and on the peak US year, 1988, US shipments barely reached a 10% of the level from the Warzaw Pact bloc.

More importantly the claims that:
- Saddam was primarily an anti-communist when the nationalizm of pan-arabism is unequivocally directed against the West, and
- Saddam was integral to US policy with the intention of balancing the Iranians and the Soviets and in particular prior to 1979 when the shah was the US ally, and
- that the border adjustment "imposed" in the 1920s between Iraq and Kuwait justified the Iraqi war of aggression, and
- that it was exclusively the boycott of Iraq that caused the misery of the Iraqi people and not Saddam's misappropriations of accrued revenues,
not only misrepresent history but also is so POV that the article was translated into propaganda.

Best Regards,

Prezen 20:24, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Your position "two countries are allied if they have a pact of alliance" is overly simplistic. In international relations, the formal signing of a pact or an alliance does not necessarily result in changing conduct and relationships in world affairs on the part of actors. The signing of an alliance may be merely a symbolic matter, or a legal anachronism. For instance, the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship did not formally expire until around a decade following armed clashes between the Chinese and the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969!

Regarding whether Saddam's orientation as a leader was anti-communist, the answer again depends on context. In 1973 the Ba'athists attempted to establish a national front with the Iraqi Communist Party. I'm not aware of evidence suggesting that Saddam, who had by then established a key role in foreign policy, opposed these efforts initially. However, we can describe Saddam's stance as clearly anti-communist from the late 1970s on. By 1978 Saddam led a campaign of repression against the party. Shortly afterwards the party officially denounced the regime. Saddam continued to repress the Iraqi Communists until the end of his rule.

No editor has argued "the border adjustment 'imposed' in the 1920s between Iraq and Kuwait justified the Iraqi war of aggression." Summarizing an Iraqi nationalist point of view is not a justification. Of course, one may report the views of a particular group or individual without necessarily supporting that view.

Which editor has argued "exclusively the boycott of Iraq that caused the misery of the Iraqi people?" I doubt anyone editing the article is so stupid. You may be confusing contributions summarizing reports by Western humanitarian critics of the sanctions with 1990s Iraqi propaganda. 172 | Talk 21:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The Soviets had a pact with Iraq, the US didn't. Occasionally pacts don't represent reality, in this case, however, the pact was neither anachronistic nor symbolic. Cooperation between the Russians and the Iraqis was real: Iraqi generals studied at the Frunze academy in Moscow, Russian pilots flew Iraqi fighters, Soviet transport aircraft landed at Iraqi airports when flying arms to Ethiopia for its struggle with Somalia. Claiming that Iraq was integral in US efforts to block Soviet influence is history upside-down and inside-out.

Regarding Saddam's putative anti-communism, yes he did kill a few communist nonentities towards the end of the seventies, but that doesn't seem to have prevented neither the government of communist countries like Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia nor for that matter Western socialists like Chomsky, Pilger etc from embracing him, so it doesn't seem to have been a significant factor, in any camp. But this just evades the issue, the main point of Baathism, pan-arabism, Arab Socialism, Iraqi Nazism or whatever you want to call Saddam's ideology was countering Western Imperialism, which means Israel, the oil companies and the pro-Western countries like Kuwait and Saudi-arabia.

Re the border change that the British created (as I put it) or imposed (as you changed it) in the 1920s, it was as far as I can see entirely inland and had no impact whatsoever on Iraq's connection with the sea. You may not realize this, but by emphasizing the imposing you favour the Iraqi pretensions.

Finally the economic impact of the boycott, in my version both view points was represented, in the reverted version only the Iraqi view point was represented in such wording that it seemed to be the objective truth. Again this is POV pure and simple.

Would you mind me copying this discussion to the talk page of the SH article, BTW? Prezen 22:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Just checked the page on anticommunism and Saddam Hussein could not be found via a page search.Prezen 22:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Saved link: armaments Prezen 21:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Recalculated the figures for arms sales to Iraq to represent three periods:

WP France China US Egypten Remdr Tot
1973 1321 5 0 0 0 0 1326
1974 1471 5 0 0 0 0 1476
1975 1087 35 0 0 0 0 1122
1976 1161 119 0 0 0 0 1280
1977 1062 106 0 0 0 0 1168
1978 1827 26 0 0 0 20 1873
1979 1108 78 0 0 0 17 1203
Total 9037 374 0 0 0 37 9448
Total 95,65% 3,96% 0,00% 0,00% 0,00% 0,39% 100,00%

WP France China US Egypten Övr Tot
1980 1665 241 0 0 12 114 2032
1981 1780 731 0 0 46 182 2739
1982 2023 673 217 0 71 227 3211
Total 5468 1645 217 0 129 523 7982
Total 68,50% 20,61% 2,72% 0,00% 1,62% 6,55% 100,00%

WP France China US Egypten Övr Tot
1983 1898 779 745 21 58 773 4274
1984 2857 883 1065 6 0 116 4927
1985 2601 700 1036 9 32 116 4494
1986 2663 251 918 9 70 86 3997
1987 2719 214 887 30 114 157 4121
1988 1202 355 301 125 118 196 2297
Total 13940 3182 4952 200 392 1444 24110
Total 57,82% 13,20% 20,54% 0,83% 1,63% 5,99% 100,00%

I've saved the spreadsheet on my hd so I can adjust for other periods if it should be desired. Prezen 22:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sourced Cheka edits

On what page is the 250,000 figure specified? The page number for this figure doesn't seem to have been provided initially, so that number is in question as well as the 50,000. TheQuandry 19:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe it was in the introductory chapter on KGB history. I'm looking now. Prezen 20:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I put this on your talk page and am now copying it to mine:

Bottom of page 28, The Sword and the Shield, paperback edition, Basic books: "During the civil war, by contrast, Cheka executions probably numbered as many as 250,000, and may well have exceeded the number of death in battle." Attached to the sentence is a footnote 30 which refers to vol. 10, ch. 3, para 23. If I understand the bibliography section correctly vol refers to typewritten notes made by Mitrochin himself. Do we restore my edit? Prezen 20:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. TheQuandry 23:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Cylonhunter 15:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)==Gulf War== I am just here because you called my revert vandalism. I do not believe that it was vandalism. I probably should have changed the sentence to " which can be loaded with nuclear or chemical warheads" or something to that effect

The SCUDS were weapons of mass destruction according to the US definition. They were never intended for conventional warheads due to their low accuracy. So I think the original phrazing was correct. Prezen 10:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok sorry for the trouble

NP

Good work on the Cheka article, Prezen. Entries such as this typically seem to bring the pov-pushing apologists out of the woodworks, so your contribution in balancing the article is greatly appreciated. Porfyrios 15:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Mitrokhin Archive

Hi Prezen, I have noticed that you was interested in Mitrokhin Archive. Could you take a look at recent editing there and tell what you think. In my opinion, this is extremely POV editing made by User:Vlad_fedorov who wikistalked me for months. See Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Vlad_fedorov. Best regards, Biophys 16:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

1. http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB107/iraq04.pdf