I can't deal with your rhetoric man...you argue things that are irrelevent (why we would sell to Iran and Iraq at the same time? who the f*** cares it has nothing to do with the fact that we DID sell weapons to both of them...selling to both sides was for money), you insult my logic even though the application of Occam's razor is used everyday in analytical thinking (regardless of weather it's applied to humanities or social sciences or life sciences or physical sciences). You claim soviet involvment but haven't presented a damn bit of evidence that they were involved at all. And best of all, you're argument has no form or point (other than the point that everything I say is wrong). Why do I repeat arguments and restate facts? Because they help my point. I have no idea what you're arguing...that the US didn't send weapons to Iraq? That we sent weapons, but not 'real bad ones'? That we're justified in this recent war because we didn't send chemical and biological weapons decades ago? That, because we sent weapons to both Iran and Iraq then the weapons must have been conventional? Instead of flamming everyone else's posts, links, and evidence why don't you look some up yourself. At least then I'd have something to respond to other than you're "I'm the s***, what now punk" posts.

 

Well, I did give evidence which you obviously did not read. But, I'll respond to this one point by poitn like before:

First of all, my point is easy to see: Yes, we sold weapons to iraq. Conventional weapons. Go back and count how many times I said that.
My second point: the fact that we sold conventional weapons to iraq, doesn't mean we sold chemical weapons.
Third point: There's no evidence we sold chemical weapons.
Fourth: If, as you say, we had a reason to sell chemical weapons to Iraq because we wanted to stop Iran...(you claimed that, remember?), then why were we selling arms to Iran at the same time? If the point is to stop Iran, why sell them arms? Oh, that's right...because the point wasn't just to stop Iran. It was to let them fight each other as long as possible. Which is a count against chemical weapons, which end fights sooner.

Now, on Occam's razor: I clearly implied that it's used everyday. My point is that it is used every day, wrongly so. That's the problem with it. It doesn't take too much thinking to see how "the simplest is most likely correct" makes any damn sense at all in a discussion of politics (which is a humanities discipline, btw) or anything else that involves people.

Now, what evidence do I have of soviet involvement in Iraq? Hmmm....I don't know, maybe a fleet of Soviet tanks, soviet small arms, soviet RPG's, Soviet MiG fighter jets, and Soviet-missile inspired ScUD missiles. How's that for evidence of soviet involvement?

Or do you need some pictures?

 

When was it ever in doubt that we sold him chemical weapons? Thats news to me. If I remembered right he used some on his own people. Wasn't that a example, after we didn't find WMB, that we used to illiustrate how bad he was?

Oh and the Russia thing, how old are all those things that he had?

 

The russian things at the time period we're talking about were pretty darn new. Russia was still going fairly strong in the early 80's.

You're right that there's no doubt that Saddam used weapons. What's never been established that we sold him the chemical weapons he used. The fact that Saddam used them, doesn't mean the US sold them to him. It puzzles me how people get from "Saddam used chemical weapons" to "the US sold saddam chemical weapons." I'm not sure why everyone assumes that everything Saddam ever had he got from the US. The soviet tanks, south african designed artillery, and french aircraft would all seem to indicate a convincing list of other possible sources for his technology relating to chemical/biological weapons. Don't you agree?

 

Yes I agree (even though I think you're asking Unregistered), there are other possibilities for places Saddam could have gotten the chem and bio weapons. However it is still my opinion that the US was the most likely source due to our superiority over those other countries in terms of chemical/biological warfare. Of course, like guru has pointed out, I can't find any direct evidence that Iraq bought any chem/bio weapons other than the fact that he had them and used them. So I conceed that there's no way to proove my point...with the knowledge that there's no way for Guru to proove his point either (that the US did NOT sell Saddam any chem/bio weapons). At this point, we're both just speculating.