🚀 go-pugleaf

Where do you get your figures Stygen? All these big numbers you're 
tossing around seem pretty baseless. Could you possibly back them up 
with some facts please?


In article <3e55a7e5$1@news.citrusnet.wafreenet>, "Stygen" <.> says...
> Had a good watch of Bowling for Columbine the other day.  I thought I would
> transcribe some of the stats for a bit of a laugh at the expense of the U.S.
> This is an intersting docufilm about gun control (or lack thereof) in the
> US.  I recommend watching it.
> 
> "
> 1953:     US overthrows Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran
>             US installs Shah as dictator

*shrug* 50 years ago, pretty topical.
 
> 1954:    US overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala.
>             200,000 civilians killed

Who killed the 200,000 civvies please, US troops?

> 1963: US backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.
> 
> 1963-1975:    American Military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asia

4 Mill eh? Combatants, non-combatants? Pol Pot? Is this all direct 
action by the US military?
 
> Sept 11, 1973:    US stages coup in Chile
>         Democratically elected President Salvador Allende Assassinated
>         Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed
>         5,000 Chileans murdered

These 5,000 Chileans murdered by order of a US Govt agency? Or just 
cause Pinochet is a nasty man.
 
> 1977:    US backs military rulers of El Salvador
>             70,000 Salvadorans and four Amercian nuns killed

Once again, 70,000 Salvadorans killed on who's orders? Do the CIA 
assassinate their own US nuns now?

> 1980's:    US trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets
>                 CIA gives them $3 billion

It was called the Cold War. These guys had been killing Soviets already, 
they were shown how to do it better and supplied with Stinger missiles 
because the Russian Hinds were annihilating the Afghan fighters. Yes a 
very distasteful intervention in a small country by two superpowers.

Sure training these guys was a bad idea all round, but would you have 
preferred Afghanistan in the hands of Russia, and a big come-on to take 
over whatever other little country they needed. Hard questions...

Ideally the UN would have done something productive here, I suggest you 
have a read...

http://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/afghan/un-afghan-history.shtml

"
Early in 1980, the Security Council met to consider a response to the 
Soviet intervention, but a draft resolution condemning it was not 
passed, due to the negative vote of the USSR. 

The matter was then taken up in the General Assembly, which held an 
Emergency Special Session on Afghanistan over five days, from 10 to 14 
January 1980. The Assembly adopted the first of a series of 'Situation 
in Afghanistan' resolutions (resolution ES-6/2), in which it deplored 
the armed intervention in Afghanistan, called for the withdrawal of all 
foreign forces, asked States to contribute humanitarian assistance, and 
asked the Secretary-General to keep it informed of developments. 
"

Basically the UN just screwed around passing meaningless resolutions, 
they seem highly skilled at doing this. With the USSR part of the 
Security Council able to veto things it was really a joke.


> 1981:    Reagan administration trains and funds "contras."
> 
> 1982:    US provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill
> Iranians

No apologies for that really. But billions in aid to an oil-rich country 
like Iraq? Please back up your figures. I don't think the US started the 
Iran - Iraq war directly did they.

> 1983:    White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis
> 
> 1989:    CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as President of Panama)
> disobeys orders from Washington.
>             US invades Panama and removes Noriega
>             3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties

3,000 civilians killed by whom exactly? These civilians, were they part 
of major drug crime families killing kids in the US on a daily basis or 
what? 

> 1990:    Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from US

US, Germany, Italy, Russia etc. etc. I'm sure there are lots of 
countries that sell armament. Why just "US" here and no-one else? Seems 
somewhat one-eyed.

> 1991:    US enters Iraq
>             Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait

Good stuff, repelling an invader under a "UN" directive, did the US 
enter Iraq in 1991 or a coalition of UN forces, please get this right. 
I even think Australia sent a ship or two to say hi.

They're all dictators in the region anyway, royal families and what-not. 
They don't tend to have proper democratic elections in many of these 
countries, just ask the Iraqis. This seems to imply that Bush was a 
fellow dictator and co-conspirator in freeing Kuwait.

> 1991 - present:    American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis.
>             UN estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and
> sanctions

500,000 from bombing, that's pretty impressive accuracy from those 
smart-weapons, they must be designed for killing kiddies and targetting 
nursery schools.

Let's get one thing straight here, Saddam has starved his people and 
prevented their access to medicines while he's pursued his goals of 
getting more weaponry at any cost. Any good documentary on TV can show 
you this.

Children dying is a terrible thing, and I don't want to trivialise it, 
but at who's hands did these kids die? Were these deaths inflated in 
number by shipping dead baby corpses around the country from town to 
town to enrage the population more?

> 1998:    Clinton bomb "weapon factory" in Sudan
>             Factory turns out to be making aspirin

*shrug*

Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.