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TorgoX (1933)

TorgoX
  sburkeNO@SPAMcpan.org
http://search.cpan.org/~sburke/
"Il est beau comme la retractilité des serres des oiseaux rapaces [...] et surtout, comme la rencontre fortuite sur une table de dissection d'une machine à coudre et d'un parapluie !" -- Lautréamont

Journal of TorgoX (1933)

Wednesday March 19, 2003
06:36 AM

Hamdinger

[ #11106 ]
Dear Log,

New batty theory of mine: the folks in the US government who sold Saddam Hussein all those weapons back in the days, besides selling him all the scary legal stuff we know about, also sold him some really nasty things (call them "Hamdingers") that we don't know about, but that only they and Hussein know about. They've told him that there's no use trying to use the Hamdingers against US forces, because they don't work -- maybe they never actually worked at all, or maybe the US forces have Hamdinger Overrides that render them useless, or maybe they're just expired now. Hussein replies that, to the contrary, they will work quite nicely against US forces, and will make a nasty mess. And so it's a standoff: if the US forces back down, it could be construed as meaning that they're afraid of him using his Hamdingers (an implication that they really can work). If Hussein backs down, it could be construed as meaning that he thinks his Hamdingers really can't work, and so he needs to avoid a situation where he would otherwise try to use them, since that would reveal that he's defenseless.

What's a Hamdinger? Beats me, but (so my batty theory goes) it's something you don't want to be on the wrong end of (if it actually works); and it's something that you don't want to admit that you sold to Saddam Hussein -- and consider the things that people are already on record as having sold him!

Bigger than a breadbox?


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  • I kind of like that conspiracy theory. It takes into account the fact that we've sold Iraq basically all of his nasty weapons: bio, chemical, etc.

    As Ted Rall said on "Real Time with Bill Maher", "we know he has chemical and biological weapons because we kept the reciept."

    Ted may be a rather crazy left wing kind of guy but he hit that one on the head.

    • It's funny, but I've not heard a shred of evidence to back it up.

      From what I understand, Americans gave Saddam some Anthrax samples back in the Carter administration that Iraq claimed they needed for medical reasons. Many other countries were given similar samples. The US never gave them weaponized Anthrax nor any information on how to do that.

      I don't believe we ever gave Iraq VX, nor instructions on how to make it.

      I don't believe we gave him mustard gas, but the instructions on making that are pretty

      • This article [onlinejournal.com] outlines the evidence.
        • I don't find this very compelling. All that's really clear was that US and US companies gave samples of some nasty bugs. Oh, and US companies sold them chemicals too numerous to mention.

          It's not like the US is France, selling Iraq, the country with the 2nd largest known Petroleum reserves, a nuclear power plant that could produce weapons grade fisile material.

          You know, Anthrax and especially, botulism are pretty common microorganisms. Pretty funny how this article throws around things like "Other leth

      • Ok, in order to make sure I was clear on the US's role in Iraq's bio/chem/nuke programs I started doing some googling.

        Here's what I initially found. My first links pertain to a general overview of the Iran-Iraq War [fas.org]. No real leads here but some interesting info about a UN report [fas.org]. The same site had some stuff on Iraq's Chemical Weapons [fas.org]. I did find a page about the US involvement [zmag.org] in the Iran-Iraq war.

        Those seems to be rather on the level. I did find a report [sipri.se] done by a Swedish group that seemed rather forthri
    • Note that whatever the US sold to Iraq, we know that Iraq continued to develop more and more dangerous biological and chemical weapons after the Gulf War. So no, Ted missed the head of that nail by a fairly large margin, as usual. :)
      • Yeah, he does seem to have exaggerated US in involvement somewhat. The US did give him some agents. I couldn't find any good info detailing the amounts and types.

        Somehow, I doubt Mr. Rall would check his info if someone called him on it. I learned a bit more about much we helped Iran and Iraq.

        As much as I dislike Dubya, it would have been nicer to say that Saddam is our thug. He's getting out of hand and we're taking him down like the rabid dog that he is. If not that, Dubya could have chosen one reason
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