Israel does exist, it's Palestine that has the right to exist

I wrote this article a while back for my new site 'These Times We Live In', it doesn't really fit into the style of that blog (or this one) and is more of an ill prepared rant, that being said I think the title really sums up the situation and is really on it's own worth a thousand words!


Ah Palestine, the land of which isn't called Palestine, but if you're a Zionist and follower of the belief of Israel's right to exist you shouldn't let the fact that Israel was forced into existence by a racial war to segregate it's natives off of the land they had lived on for centuries, as far as your concerned you 'wanted' that land for centuries, you just don't have the proper clearances in writing (or history), but that shouldn't sway you from taking what you want by force right?

If there is one thing that I hate more than stupid arrogant people it is liars, not just people who tell white lies but people who are lies.

There are two kinds of people who are lies, people who build a psychological wall that separates them from reality so they don't have to face up to the consequences of unjust things they do and then there is even the worst kind, the person who doesn't question their surroundings and goes so far into denial that they argue against international law!

Think about that for a minute, violently ethnically cleansing an entire people off of their land just because of what and who they were, and then after coming 'originally' from somewhere else say you have more of a right over that land than they do. That sounds pretty backward and outright greedy to me!

What really bugs me about Israel is the fact that even though the state was born out of racial segregation following the bloodshed of Arabs at the hands of the Zionists, whom seem to submit to the absurd idea they have the right to the land while they continue attack all opposition in the media while walling off the hundreds of displaced Palestinians of a new generation preventing them from returning to the land that they had lived on for thousands of years, yes the Zionists believe they have more of a right to Palestine then, well lets say, the Palestinians do.

What really put the nail in the coffin of Israeli's diplomacy for me was the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip in which 2,000 Palestinians where butchered, the United Nations had called the Israeli blockade against Gaza a humanitarian crisis, (but who cares what they say right?), and Hamas were such a serious threat they were only able to kill about 14 Israeli soldiers in their own defense! While the Israeli Air Force targeted police stations, schools, UN convoys and anything else of civil importance to terrorize the population while handicapping them in their thousands.

All these dirty wars Israel have fought in recent years (another example being the 2006 war against Lebanon in which the Israeli Air Force made hell for the Lebanese by bombing the countries infrastructure and Beirut Airport!) were fought by the IDF, which fight for the state of Israeli whose flag is based around the Star of David, the worldwide symbol of Judaism, but as a state hasn't taken with it any of the morales that come with the religion!

For instance the Zionist propaganda is not only outright lies but stinks of sheer hypocrisy to the point where one has to wonder the person writing it has any spine or just a sick sense of humor.

For instance take Iran's nuclear program, Israel calls for it to be destroyed while it steadily holds onto 200 nuclear weapons along with the missiles capable of delivering them to strike targets thousands of miles away, while it has been at war with all of it's neighbors at more than one stage in it's 60 year existence and while probably helping to spread the lie that accelerated in the America media that accused the Iranian president Mahmoud Admadjinemad of threatening to wipe "Israel should be wiped off the map", as a reason why Iran should not be allowed by the international community.

The fact that Israel itself has 'wiped' Palestine off the map along with maintaining it's own nuclear capability gives me the horrible thought of how Israel is reeked with the biggest hypocrites of all time, and it also makes me wonder what kind of a deal the Palestinians are eventually going to get out of this!

Saddam's short regional rise of militaristic projection

Eight years of war with Iran had left Iraq as a clear victor even though it hadn't gained anything from the war but casualties, Iraq had been at war with Iran for 8 years since it launched it's first wave and invasion in September 1980, before being forced to accept the ceasefire on August of 1988 after being on the offensive against Iraq for six years Iran had lost 60km of ground past the Iraqi border by the Iraqi Army and suffered several aircraft sorties.

Saddam Hussein had been made an infamous after ordering killing 5,000 people in a single gas attack on Halabja.

But Iraq came out of that war a regional power.



There was a delicate balance of power between 1988 and 1991, Iraq lost it's slip on power after the western nations led by the United States led a major aerial bombardment following their liberation of Kuwait.

But for a time after the Iran Iraq War there was a lot of uncertainty in the Middle East over the balance of power, Iraq had been ordering a lot of new military hardware to modernize it's forces, and was also on the way to developing a nuclear bomb probably in only a few short years, it had stationed Scud missiles and modified al-Hussein missiles in the west of the country facing towards Israel.

The world was changing, the wall had come down and eastern Europe had several revolutions, during this time in history there was a brief moment where Iraq was taking the opportunity to be the dominant military power in all of the Middle East.

In February 1990, Saddam Hussein demanded US naval vessels leave the Persian Gulf, however passed almost unobserved in the West, as they were all too busy with the developments in Europe and dissolution of the USSR.



By March 1990, US intelligence learned about Iraq building permanent missile launching sites in the west of the country, facing Israel.

Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq was in possession of binary chemical weapons and that:

“By God, we will make the fire eat up half of Israel, if it tries to do anything against Iraq.”

During the Arab Leage Summit, held in Baghdad, in late May 1990, the Iraqi President furthermore called for the liberation of Jerusalem, attacks on the USA and Israel, and demanded $27 billion from Kuwait, while blaming Kuwaiti and Saudi greed for oil, and equating them with an act of war against Iraq.

However there was a small emerald Saddam needed to ensure he had under his direct control to help the Iraqi economy recover from the war and ensure he stayed in his position of power for some more years to come.

The modern state of Kuwait was a country cut out of the old Ottoman empire of Basra back in 1961 for strategic purposes and for the lake of oil it sat on.

Control of Kuwait would be vital in helping Iraq completely recover economically and allow it to prosper following the long war with Iran.

So in August of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait with over 100,000 troops, it only took a matter of hours.



Even though Iraq had a fair claim on Kuwait and had been mislead into believing the west would not intervene it was the resulting 1991 Persian Gulf War that would indefinitely shift the balance of power in the Middle East, as the US led and Saudi paid coalition used a massive amount of air power (including B-52's flying non stop from Barksdale AFB in Louisiana firing cruise missiles) to bombard Iraq destroying most of it's air defense, command centres and air defense centres and eventually a large amount of the countries infrastructure.



Iraq launched Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia with little effect (with the exception of the 28 US soldiers killed in the barracks at Dhahran) in undermining both states, the US ground offensive following the liberation of Kuwait lasted under 100 hours.

After being at war with the United States Saddam Hussein was left in power, he no longer had enough projection to use conventional power against his neighbours but still had some tanks and army and a marginally effective air force, the reason for leaving him in power was to ensure that neither Syria nor Iran could walk over Iraq with the brutal tyrant in power.

It was a drastic turning in the balance of power the aftermaths of them could be evident when the US led the invasion on the false provocation that Iraq actually mustered up the resources to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction.

how vital D-day was

The landings by the Allies led by the American and British forces on the 6th of June 1944 on the golden beaches of Normandy in northern France weren't only important because of the fact it gave the Allies a solid foot hold on Western Europe in which they could from there fight the Nazi's on a second front to that of their allies the Soviets, the Allies had a landing force of 175,000 men crossing the English Channel, by the end of the month after securing ports in northern France they had 1,600,000 men and machines on mainland Europe.

Although I may have sounded indifferent to the Allies fight in the Europe as compared to the Soviets who did the bulk of the fighting (killing 4 of every 5 German soldiers killed in the war) the landings in Normandy were vital to the timely defeat of the Germans.

Not only that but the speedy delivery of logistical support for those fighting against the Germans but also carried with it a good psychological effect on the millions of Soviets fighting on the Eastern Front.



The Soviets had suffered over 20,000,000 casualties after being lain under heavy siege by German oppression for nearly three years.

They had suffered massively and their land had been destroyed during the start of the German offensive because of their scorched earth policy which included the dissembling of factories and burning of crops for miles (that can't have been good for their economic growth of industry), to say they were weary of war would be an understatement.

But they had a fighting chance against the German forces, using massive infantry they overran the Germans where they could, eventually 80% of the German Army were sent fighting in the Eastern Front, several of these forces were pulled from Western Europe to avail in the fight to defend the Reich, the Luftwaffe had been put on the defense of Germany, therefore it would be unable to cover several other parts of Europe.

After the Atlantic Wall was formed in Europe, Hitler thought that any landing would be a failure and that if the Allies failed to spearhead a secure reinforcement zone in the north of France the Allied troops would be trapped and slaughtered by the German Army forces.

However history turned out to be much different, if this had been the case it could have seriously broke the morale of the Soviet Army and might have even prompted Stalin to except a peace treaty with Hitler bringing them back to where they started with the 1939 agreement, which would have seen Soviet forces drawing the border with Nazi Europe in eastern Poland, although Hitler didn't have anything sufficient to hit the several American bases in England with at this time, come 1945 if the D-day landings had failed the Americans would have probably hit the heart of Germany with the atomic bomb and burn the Reich from inside out. (That would be a very alternative to the history we have of two Japanese fishing cities being hit by these deadliest weapons in a vicious attempt to deter the Soviets).

However even though the tremendous sacrifice put forward by the Soviets (something that isn't properly remembered) did sufficiently strain Germany's war machine the timely injection of aid that came in the form of the Normandy landings helped the Third Reich come down before it had a chance to properly revive itself and cause more unthinkable damage and horror.

why an end to NATO is a good thing

An interesting proposal was put forward by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

A future Trans-Atlantic security pact, RT gave an interesting analysis suggesting that this will in turn end NATO once and for all:



If this came through this would mean a new peace of our time breakthrough, one we haven't seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago, however since then Russia and the west haven't exactly had the best chances of being best friends or allies against each other, and the existence of NATO in a post Warsaw Pact world is a sad reminder that the west hasn't taken off it's cold war parachute pants!



From recent times close incidents that could have brought the NATO countries and the Russian Federation close to a war, two notable incidents would be:

* An incident in 1995 where Norwegian scientists in cooperation with NASA launched a two-stage rocket. This caused a Russian nuclear alert since the rocket was launched from an area where Americans subs operated and the missile had the same launch profile as the launch of a Trident SLBM.

Boris Yeltsin had ten minutes to make the decision of whether or not to authorize a nuclear launch, this was a major screw up considering lack of communications and understanding between both parties involved

* There was also the Pristina airfield incident in Kosovo in 1999, where Russian troops occupied the airfield in the wake of the war, NATO-Saceur general Clark ordered British troops to confront them and kick them out. The British commander in charge refused and stated "I am not going to start World War III for you".



The war in South Ossetia in August of 2008 which saw Russia launching an offensive against Georgia cost 2,000 people their lives (mostly Ossetian civilians murdered by the Georgian Army), the background to Georgia's war planning are much more serious considering it was planning to join NATO (Georgia is not near the North Atlantic, neither is Afghanistan but I guess that doesn't matter), it had been supplied with military hardware by 15 countries just before that war!

From NATO countries the Georgian Army received about:

* 300 APC's from the NATO countries
* 100 tanks
* 67 artillery pieces
* 99 mortars
* 150 anti tank systems
* 200 portable anti aircraft units

* The French Air Force had been prepared to deliver four Mirage fighters
* The Americans were to supply 15 Black Hawk helicopters

The Ukraine supplied a further 90 APC's, their extremist leader Yushchenko has been opting to join NATO but has since been vetoed (from more responsible European countries), so has Georgia which is good since NATO isn't aligning itself with fascists!



That being said NATO has gone too far, the arms business does make strange bed partners and the donor countries of these arms can't be blamed for the damage caused, but with extremists in power from former Soviet countries in eastern Europe could lead Russia and Europe into a dangerous hostile situation.

Russia shouldn't be viewed by Europe as a potential threat any more than any European country should be considered a potential threat, the damage caused by the South Ossetian was a failure for the international community and envisioned some horrible hypocrisy on behalf of the west.

The Russian Federation is a country that has had a lot of history in it's short life and was run into the ground after the USSR collapsed, today it matters, not only for military reasons but for it's size and influence in other parts of the world, a Trans-Atlantic security pact stretching from North America, through Europe to the Russian Far East would more than likely be a more positive change* in the long term for the future rather than trying to decide whether or not to let old Soviet republics with bitter extremists align themselves with most of the great military powers of the west, that would certainly be a disaster waiting to happen!

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seldom gets credit for promoting real change!

same difference: American Iraq and Soviet Afghanistan

As the "the Naughties" come to close one has to wonder if the world has become better, worse of indifferent, we as a people (in the west) have become used to the American occupational wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan (and the subsequent (sometimes daily) casualties that go with them), the former one has to wonder with detailed hindsight was a wise move to any stretch of the imagination.

The policy of using direct military might to promote an ideology over a third nation was something that drove the Americans to arming the Afghan Mujahideen rebels against the Soviet Army when they intervened on behalf of the socialist Afghan government in Kabul on Christmas Eve in 1979.

Regardless of the fact that 1,000,000 Afghans were slaughtered during the Red Army's nine year presence in the country the truth is from their point of view their comrades were being slaughtered since these rural dwellers of Afghanistan where being armed with high-tech portable anti-tank and anti aircraft guns, something that one their position couldn't take lightly.

Now lets look at Iraq since 2003:

The US had it's fair share in the killings of millions in Central America the same time the Soviets were doing their deeds with the Afghans, but when a third party arms insurgents (in this case Iran to insurgents in the Shia south of Iraq) the Americans don't take this too kindly when they feel the hurt it can cause:



What is different in this case however is the fact that the United States invading Iraq and the Soviets intervening in Afghanistan was that the US went in with the ideals of promoting freedom and democracy, however ended up bogged down in a bloody war with thousands of Iraqis fighting an occupational power for their own freedom instead of having their country transformed into a geopolitical platform for the countless cooperation's to promote their free market ideals.

Well over a million Iraqis have been killed in the past ten years, and probably a million more from the ten years before following the sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

The Iraq War has proven over the years that the US Army isn't fit for what it's doing there and most Iraqis resent them for what they have done, the same as the rural Afghans did with the Soviets back in the 1980's, making it okay (in one sense for the Americans) to arm the Taliban of its day, of which Ronald Reagan called:

"the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers"

The dissidents of which American forces in Afghanistan are saying is the main threat to eventual peace and democracy spreading across the region!

The Solution:

The western world should adopt a limited government when looking at countries such as Iraq (and Iran) and under the United Nations if necessary the powers of west (and east) should intervene unilaterally to secure regions directly threatened by these so called rogue states, instead of empires from both sides of the world competing on spreading ideals into indifferent countries and in turn ending up being hypocrites in their own modern history.

the bulk of the fighting

The most familiar image relating to the turning point of World War II in the Western world is the iconic image of American and British forces landing at the beaches in Normandy as they proceeded to liberate France from Nazi oppression, however what they fought through was an already war ravaged Europe, it took them six months to conquer what the German Army did in six weeks!

Not only was that because they had unchallenged air space for most of the way but it was also because only 20% of the German Army was all that was left behind to defend that space, not until the Battle of the Bulge which saw the Germans launch a massive offensive against a larger force of Americans using their big artillery guns.

The bulk of the fighting that had slowly eroded the solidity of the German military might was the war on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, which saw the Russians not only fighting back the invading Nazi Army but also Finns and several other states seeking independence from Stalin's Soviet Russia (most notably Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).



But what the Soviets did do was break the back of the German Army after being besieged in their major cities of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad (which saw 20,000,000 people slaughtered), the Soviet counter offensives broke the back of the German Army which had broken into three divisions (Army Group North, South, Centre) which ended up too widely stretched to defend Germany itself.



Emptying the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland and several other smaller states in Eastern Europe of German forces the Soviets eventually entered Germany itself and captured Berlin meeting the Allies at the Elbe River not long afterwords, they were the biggest single party to contribute to the war effort of ridding Europe of the Nazi's.

Even though they received American equipment from the Lend Lease they gave the manpower logistical support and the practical elements of winning such a huge war, right down to the guns, boots and uniforms that made up their large infantry groups.

While the American effort did help Britain fight out a hefty amount of the war in the European Theater, in the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force cut down hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers and fighters and from 1941 on had proceeded to fly bombing raids against Germany and the occupied countries in Western Europe, this accelerated into the devastating firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg near the closing stages of the war.

However the Lend Lease from the United States which resupplied Britain during the war cost the equivalent of $500 billion today, a loan that literally bankrupted Britain after the war and was only paid off in 2006!

a small combat record for a big jet

The Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker is an impressive Russian air superiority fighter, first flown in 1983 it was designated to compete with the American teen series fighter such as the F-15, even today it is still well up there (along with it's variants and later models of similar design) and boosts a long 3,530 km range, heavy armament, sophisticated avionics and high agility.

The Su-27 in a sense is similar to the MiG-29, the weapon systems are basically the same, but the Su-27 was designed with a different mission from the start, while the MiG-29 stayed within 100 miles of it's own front lines the Su-27 would penetrate deep into enemy airspace!

But what it lacks (probably for a good reason) of that it's American F-15 counterpart doesn't is combat experience, the only incident where the Su-27 was successfully used in aerial combat was in 1999 during the latter stages of the Ethiopian Eritrean War.

In December 1998 and January 1999 Ethiopia received six ex-Russian Air Force Su-27S and two Su-27US'.



The sad fact was the Eritrean Air Force had MiG-29's which they were using in an attempt to gain their air superiority over the battlefield, shortly after they begun fly CAPs along the embattled border to Eritrea an Eritrean MiG-29 was downed, the following day a second one was downed, both by Su-27's none of which were shot down in the entire war.

That being the only war in which the Su-27 was used in combat as short as it was the war in itself (which saw a lot of other Russian equipment used) was surprising considering these extremely poor African nations had acquired such high-tech equipment and used them in tactically and strategically feasible manners.

In the 2008 South Ossetian War Russian Air Force Su-27's helped gain control of the air space over the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

In the end the Flanker proved it's worth and will surely do so in any future combat in whatever circumstances it will arise from!

the consequences of an attack on Iran

Iran has recently rejected the IAEA-backed proposal regarding it's nuclear program, with the major failure of nuclear talks (that started last October) from both sides.

Along with this Israel has been the biggest hypocrite of all time calling for the disablement of Iran's nuclear program by force "if required", whilst ignoring the fact that they themselves illegally possess nuclear weapons of their own.

A preemptive long range strike (probably primarily against the Nantanz enrichment facility) by the Israeli Air Force sadly still isn't a far cry from reality.



Which most likely will be in the former of an Operation Opera style attack primarily using Israeli F-15's and F-16's.

However regardless of how serious this attack is on the Iranian public (even if the attack is only meant to knock out a few compounds) I somehow doubt the current regime in Iran will treat it like the Syrians did on a recent Israeli air strike against them.

Iran geographically lies on in western Southeast Asia and most of it's eastern border is on the oil rich Persian Gulf, it is right in the centre of Eurasia which is as put by Dick Cheney "the fertile choke point of civilization."

If attacked for stupid and arrogant reasons by Israel, if Iran then chooses to prevail (rightfully so) this could result (very likely) in disastrous consequences.

The first response would probably be a retaliatory missile strike against Israel using Shahab 3 and Sejil 2 ballistic missiles.



These will probably be launched at neither Israeli air force bases where the attacking planes originated from or at Dimona where Israel's own nuclear weapons are stored rather than at major Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa, however this could change regarding the circumstances of the Israeli attack.

However one has doubts that Iran will repeat recent history, such as the Scud strikes from Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1991, which saw 32 missiles launched mainly at Tel Aviv and Haifa, two people were killed in these strikes, several were wounded and quite a lot of property was damaged, but in the end it was nothing compared to what it was built up to be.



The days following an Israeli attack (regarding what voices are speaking in Tehran) would probably see increased attacks from groups such as Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon against Israeli forces in the Shebba Farms.

Major attacks against British and American soldiers in their bases in the south of Iraq from Shia sympathizers (some 13,000,000 of them in the south of Iraq), several of whom are in underground groups just waiting for their moment to strike, this could see the American and British soldiers in the regions dying after fighting against unbelievable odds from the masses directly backed by their neighboring Iran.

And last but far from least.



If Iran feels continually threatened after a first strike and if the United States continually backs Israel after it's preemptive attack Iran will probably to the best of it's ability close off and burn the oil reserves in the Persian Gulf, along with devastating attacks that could destroy oil refineries in the Emirate countries, attacks against Saudi Arabia could be very likely if they turn a blind eye to Israeli F-16's flying through their air space to strike Iran!

Following such attacks oil at $100 a barrel would look like an unbelievable bargain!

At the end of the day western hypocrisy and one sided support for Israel will be to blame for the acts Iran will be forced to carry out to ensure it's self defence!

Chamberlain "appeasement" rhetoric is getting blunt

Neville Chamberlain Prime Minister of Britain 1937 to 1940 is known almost entirely in today's world for appeasing Adolf Hitler and letting the Nazi's have Czechoslovakia, before they went on to crush the rest of Western Europe, but what exactly was it that Chamberlain did wrong?

Is this rhetoric used by those against Obama or any other politician for that matter factual correct?



The interesting thing is that even after opting for peace before declaring war on Germany after the invasion of Poland in 1939 Chamberlain had this to say:

"We have a clear conscience, we have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given by Germany's rulers could be trusted, and no people or country could feel themselves safe has become intolerable ... Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution—and against them I am certain that the right will prevail."

After declaring war along with France the French Army dug in in the Maginot Line, Chamberlain ordered the Royal Navy to form a blockade to keep economic pressure on Germany, Chamberlain was reluctant to alter the British economy fearing that the emergency war budget would bankrupt the country.

When Germany attacked the Low Countries Chamberlain was soon replaced by Winston Churchill, he then stated they needed to stand united behind their new leader and fight the Nazi war machine, however one has to wonder if the Lend Lease given to Britain by the United States was too much, for ever cent worth of aid given by the United States was surely paid for, the equivalent of $500 billion in today's money was what the UK paid for it's war effort to eventually help to defeat the Nazi's (with help from several other major Allied powers), this hefty bill was only sorted out between Britain and the US in 2006!

Of course no cost is too great to be the pivotal defence against fascist expansion but in comparison to the geopolitical climate of today's wars there is truly no comparison to calling a British or American politician an appeaser like Chamberlain:



An interesting (if not so recent event) was George HW. Bush being called a wimp, before Saudi Arabia was directly bordered by (wasn't threatened by) Saddam Hussein's army after he invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Persian Gulf War that followed saw the entire country being disseminated by aerial bombardment, even though there was no proven plans that the Iraqi Army (who had dug in around Kuwait City) had planned to preemptively attack Saudi Arabia yet alone invade it!

So when the same is being said that the west should preemptively attack Iran before things "get out of hand" people have to ask themselves the question of whether or not a nuclear Iran merely justifies a major war fought 7,000 miles overseas!

if the majority had ruled

Cast your mind back to 1991, the Soviet Union was on verge of collapse, Germany was reunited after nearly half a century, Bush Senior announced a New World Order was coming upon us, also there was a war going on in the Gulf, in January 15th the infamous Operation Desert Storm begun, the power structure in the Middle East was about to change drastically.

By the time the ground offensive begun against Kuwait the Iraqi military had suffered major damage, the Iraqi fighter jets that weren't destroyed in their concrete bunkers had flown to Iran, Iraq's long time enemy, the Iraqi Army were bombed on its retreat, the highway was hit with everything they had from the air, F-15's, B-52's, AV-8B Harriers, A-6's and A-10's, with so many casualties inflicted it became known as the Highway of Death.



Iraq was virtually defeated, Kuwait was liberated, and in the south of Iraq the Shia majority that had been oppressed for Saddam for so long led an anti government uprising, this was led by the perception that the power of President Saddam Hussein was weak at the time; as well as by heavily fueled anger at government repression.

The rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution disbanding the Iranian military led Saddam in one way in an attempt to launch a large scale invasion of Iran, in one way this solidified Khomeini's revolution and led to thousands joining the Iranian military and launching an offensive war by 1982 against Iraq, his main ideal was to export the revolution to Saddam's oppressed Shia majority.

Having the majority of people is one of the basic fundamentals of democracy, if the Americans had seen eye to eye with those attempting a rebellion history for both of the countries could have been drastically different.

Saddam managed to suppress the rebellions with massive and indiscriminate force and maintained power. They were ruthlessly crushed by the loyalist forces spearheaded by the Iraqi Republican Guard and the population was successfully terrorized. During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives.

George HW. Bush later had this to say:

"I have not misled anybody about the intentions of the United States of America. I don't think the Shias in the south, those who are unhappy with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad or the Kurds in the north, ever felt that the United States would come to their assistance to overthrow this man. (...) I made clear from the very beginning that it was not an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

We all know the history of the Iraq war that started in 2003 twelve years after all of this, it had been admitted by Colin Powell that if they had taken out Saddam the Iraqi military in the aftermath may have been too weak and Iran and Syria would have had a good chance at gaining more power and dominance in the region.

If these rebellions had been successful Iran would have surely had some input around the holy city of Basra which they had made several unsuccessful attempts to capture in the 1980s in human wave attacks Iraq may have been split into two states, Basra to the south, and the region of Mosul to the north (which was mainly inhabited by Sunni Muslims).

Regardless what these states would have done afterwords what was admitted by Colin Powell begs the question that even if one of the main roles in today's occupation of Iraq is really to promote democracy and the ideals of the majority.

On the other hand



The idea of bringing a war to a dramatic end by taking out the leader was in fact tested in the opening salvo of the 2003 invasion, known as the Dora Farms strike, it involved two F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers dropping four enhanced, satellite-guided 2,000-pound Bunker Busters GBU-27 on the compound, complementing this attack was a further four Tomahawk missiles fired from destroyers in the the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

Saddam Hussein was not present nor were any members of the Iraqi leadership or Hussein family. The attack killed one civilian and injured fourteen others, including nine women and one child.

It was later discovered that Saddam hadn't even visited the area since 1995!