This is an excellent must-watch video of Ron Paul testifying before Congress on freedom, truth, transparency, and Wikileaks… Ron Paul always seems to find just the right words to say it: “Regardless, we have blundered into a war which no one seems willing to end. Julian Assange, publisher of the Wikileaks memo, is now considered an enemy of the state. Politicians are calling for drastic punishment and even assassination, and sadly, the majority of the American people seem to support such moves. But why should we so fear the truth? Why should our governments lies and mistakes be hidden from the American people in the name of patriotism? Once it becomes acceptable to equate truth with treason, we can no longer call ourselves a free society.”
One of the crown jewels of secret pre-Gulf War negotiations was unveiled tonight when the notorious Glaspie Memo, or as it is now known 90BAGHDAD4237, was released by WikiLeaks.
The cable, whose official title was “Saddam’s Message of Friendship to President Bush” details the meeting between US Ambassador April Glaspie and Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990, just a week before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
The meeting has long been a matter of speculation, as it had long been speculated that comments by Glaspie had led Saddam to believe that the United States was giving them the green light to invade Kuwait if diplomacy failed.
The memo reveals indeed Hussein expressing concern about the Bush Administration’s position on Iraq owing to its participation in military exercises with the United Arab Emirates and pledges to “defend its allies” in the region. He complained the US pledges were making Kuwait and the UAE refuse to negotiate with Iraq. He also expressed concern about negative media coverage in the US, which Ambassador Glaspie assured him did not reflect US policy and singled out a Diane Sawyer report on “nuclear bomb triggers” for condemnation.
Rather Glaspie assured Saddam of Bush’s friendship and expressed support for the negotiations being set up by Hosni Mubarak for the weekend of July 28-30. She also explicitly said the United States took no position on the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, though the summary also mentions that she made clear the US wanted the move solved peacefully. Hussein assured that no action would be taken against Kuwait if the negotiations showed some progress, which seemed to suit the US at the time.
But the talks didn’t accomplish anything and by August 2 Iraq was invading Kuwait. Within hours the mutual friendship was completely torn up and US officials were railing against Iraq. A few months later the US invaded for the first time, sparking invasions, decades of enmity, sanctions which killed massive numbers of Iraqi civilians and, eventually, a full US occupation which continues to this day.
Tags: cables, conspiracy, enemy of the state, freedom, government cover-ups, invasion, iraq, Julian Assange, kuwait, middle east, ron paul, saddam hussein, transparency, truth, wikileaks
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Awfully challenging cheers, I do think your trusty followers could very well want even more writing of this nature carry on the great hard work.