@blatham,
blatham wrote:
"Politics is the shadow cast by business" - John Dewey
Quote:The execution of the Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft on 15 March 1990, ordered by Saddam Hussein, provoked outrage around the world. Yet later that same day Margaret Thatcher and her government decided not to take any action, against what ministers admitted was a “ruthless” regime, for fear of jeopardising lucrative exports to Iraq.
In memos written two years after Saddam used mustard gas to slaughter more than 3,000 Kurds and only months before he marched into Kuwait, sparking war, newly released cabinet documents reveal that trade was still the uppermost concern for ministers.
$$$$$
Obvious relevance here to Trump's financial interests/entanglements in Russia (not to mention Exxon and Tillerson, etc)
It is bemusing to find the Guardian opening 2017 with an article describing how an "evil advisor" to one of Thatcher's cabinet ministers actually urged the avoidance of war or reprisals on Iraq or Saddam in 1991, following his execution of a free-lance Iranian reporter, then working on an assignment for the Guardian. In the article the Guardian editor takes a very dim view of the Thatcher government that, "had consistently turned a blind eye to atrocities committed by Saddam".
This is a bit of rather breathtaking hypocrisy coming from the paper that later pilloried British PM Tony Blair for joining the U.S.in separate actions in the following decade to evict Saddam from Kuwait and later remove him from power.
The fact is that after 1990 most of Saddam's new weapons purchases were from Western European nations, France in particular, and the subsequent economic sanctions against Saddam were widely evaded by European countries, the UK included. So the point about economic interests is certainly valid. However there is nothing either new or remarkable in that - consider Obama's recent agreement with Iran.
That said the salient issue here is just what point Blatham is attempting to make, and How Donald Trump's business ventures in the property development, travel and entertainment industries might be related to it.
Given that Sec. State John Kerry is married to the, probably even richer, widow of the Heinz company paterfamilias - the ketchup queen of the world I'm surprised that Blatham isn't worried about Kerry as well.
It appears Blatham is suggesting that the economic interests of countries often influence their decisions about foreign policy, and that because Trump has significant economic interests he might .... well that part of Blatham's vague insinuations isn't very clear.
The Guardian article is itself an hypocritical, contemptable piece of ****, and It appears that Blatham is using it to show off his John Dewey quote ..... or something like that. The result is a slightly polished, but illogical turd. Hard to figure just what might be the logic or insight behind all this. It's not easy being a highly prolific, shallow propagandist , and I suppose stupid missteps like this are inevitable.....
Happy New Year !
