Wonder why some countries didnt want to stop Saddam??

[lowflier03]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051027/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_oil_for_food_7

The oil-for-food program was one of the world's largest humanitarian aid operations, running from 1996-2003.

Under the program, Iraq was allowed to sell limited and then unlimited quantities of oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was launched to help ordinary Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and became a lifeline for 90 percent of the country's population of 26 million.

But Saddam, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, corrupted the program by awarding contracts to — and getting kickbacks from — favored buyers, mostly parties who supported his regime or opposed the sanctions. He allegedly gave former government officials, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.

Tracing the politicization of oil contracts, the new report said Iraqi leaders in the late 1990s decided to deny American, British and Japanese companies allocations to purchase oil because of their countries' opposition to lifting sanctions on Iraq. At the same time, it said, Iraq gave preferential treatment to France, Russia and China which were perceived to be more favorable to lifting sanctions and were also permanent members of the Security Council.

Volcker's previous report, released in September, said lax U.N. oversight allowed Saddam's regime to pocket $1.8 billion in kickbacks and surcharges in the awarding of contracts during the program's operation from 1997-2003.

 

[jamnww]

Looks like the lines have been drawn for WWIII. We should have let the Germans keep France back in WWII. These fvcking French are cowards and have been since they got there asses kicked at the very beginning of WWII. Rommel took out the entire French army in little over a month with less than 27,000 KIA in exchange for nealy 2 million french POW's and 300,000 french KIA and WIA. Now does that tell you something? They also let known terrorists camp out in Paris and then tells everyone that they aren't there. I hate the fvcking french.

And they performed so well during the Franco-Prussian War too...

 

[Fly Navy]

Nothing new. The French and Russians have had their hands in Iraq for a long time. Shoot, it was just Russian SAM systems we had to deal with in the first war, it was also French systems.

 

[Pags]

Looks like the lines have been drawn for WWIII. We should have let the Germans keep France back in WWII. These fvcking French are cowards and have been since they got there asses kicked at the very beginning of WWII. Rommel took out the entire French army in little over a month with less than 27,000 KIA in exchange for nealy 2 million french POW's and 300,000 french KIA and WIA. Now does that tell you something? They also let known terrorists camp out in Paris and then tells everyone that they aren't there. I hate the fvcking french.

I really have no clue what Rommel has to do with the oil for food program.

 

[squeeze]

I really have no clue what Rommel has to do with the oil for food program.

Nothing. It's just as irrelevant as the French saving us during the Revolutionary War. Jesus man, there are plenty of reasons to dislike the French. Their defeat at the hands of the best army in the world at the time has virtually no bearing on modern politics.

If you must, complain about their questionable weapons sales or lax national policies that appeal to radicalism or their dealings in the African sub-continent, but the whole "lol surrender monkeys" is cliche and is usually indicative of someone who doesn't really have a leg to stand on when that's their primary argument.

 

[Pags]

all of those points would have added depth to this conversation...oh well.

it's not very hard to surmise that the french's protestations over the iraq war had more to do with money than their eurotrash moral stance let on. and with a little digging, you get some facts to back it up. they've had shady dealings in africa for decades now.

 

[jamnww]

Nothing. It's just as irrelevant as the French saving us during the Revolutionary War. Jesus man, there are plenty of reasons to dislike the French. Their defeat at the hands of the best army in the world at the time has virtually no bearing on modern politics.

If you must, complain about their questionable weapons sales or lax national policies that appeal to radicalism or their dealings in the African sub-continent, but the whole "lol surrender monkeys" is cliche and is usually indicative of someone who doesn't really have a leg to stand on when that's their primary argument.

THe French defeats during the Franco-Prussian War and WWII also demonstrate lax French national policies appealing to radicals (though mostly internal)...

While appealing to the who "surrender monkeys" is an over simplistic view of matters the basis behind the impression is not without importance when viewing French tendacies to historically make poor decisions and I would even say likely lead to their current policies...

Just to get it out of the way, yes French assets served to help the American Revolution in a substantial way, however their doing so can in some ways be viewed with parallels to the Iraq situation...

 

[Fly Navy]

THe French defeats during the Franco-Prussian War and WWII also demonstrate lax French national policies appealing to radicals (though mostly internal)...

Maybe the French were tired of losing so many of their men from WWI.

Disclaimer: Not an excuse at all, if someone invades you, you should fight damn it. Just taking the "devil's advocate" position.

While appealing to the who "surrender monkeys" is an over simplistic view of matters the basis behind the impression is not without importance when viewing French tendacies to historically make poor decisions and I would even say likely lead to their current policies...

We have many French students here, all good guys (and a girl). They even tend to agree with us on the errors of their government. Kind of like us talking about the errors of our government.

 

[MarineAir]

Looks like the lines have been drawn for WWIII. We should have let the Germans keep France back in WWII. These fvcking French are cowards and have been since they got there asses kicked at the very beginning of WWII. Rommel took out the entire French army in little over a month with less than 27,000 KIA in exchange for nealy 2 million french POW's and 300,000 french KIA and WIA. Now does that tell you something? They also let known terrorists camp out in Paris and then tells everyone that they aren't there. I hate the fvcking french.

Dude! What's your fvcking point? I'm sure you get mad when you see on tv foreigners saying they hate Americans. That pisses me off too and I wasn't even born here. My point is,don't you realise you are displaying the same ignorant attitude as those people? Do you realise on the intelligence front, the french DGSE has close ties with both the CIA and British MI-6. By their nature, spy agencies don't advertise what they do. For all the good that they do, only when a mistake or misjudgement was made,then we drag them thru the mud. No one knows whats happening behind the scenes. Just whats on the news and we unfortunately draw conclusions from that. I'd say direct your hatred at the french gov't, and not a blanket hatred of all french people.

 

[jamnww]

Maybe the French were tired of losing so many of their men from WWI.

Disclaimer: Not an excuse at all, if someone invades you, you should fight damn it. Just taking the "devil's advocate" position.



We have many French students here, all good guys (and a girl). They even tend to agree with us on the errors of their government. Kind of like us talking about the errors of our government.

Hell if we lost the numbers they did in WWI I am sure we would be a lot more uneasy about some things so thats a point. Like you said if someone invades you you should fight...then again the French had no problem fighting to impose control over former colonies in the post WWII years and we know how that worked out...

I know many French and other European students here and they are mostly good people...interesting to note how that transposes on their government which well...

 

[Grant]