Last three Republican presidents say, 'War is just good business'

Since the Cold War ended, American death dealers have suffered financial losses. As stated in an April 1994 issue of Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) in the article titled, "Insecurity stimulates arms sales," the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and the Invasion of Kuwait started an arms race for the rest of the Middle Eastern region. Saudi Arabia agreed to buy 72 F-15 stealth fighter jets for their air force and both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have agreed to purchase the M1A2 tank from American suppliers. All the while, Raytheon Corporation, the makers of the Patriot anti-missile missiles, has cut its work force by seven percentage and Martin Marietta Corporation agreed to buy out the Grumman Corporation.

Where are these companies now? Raytheon, through many other acquisitions such as General Dynamics Missile Systems, is a $21 billion entity as of July 2, 1997. The Grumman Corporation merged with Northrop who recently merged with TRW which has made over 16 acquisitions of other companies in an eight year span. They are now one of the leading defense firms with an annual revenue of over $26 billion and one of the nation's leading employers. These figures are pre-Iraq war and are provided by www.global.org.

It is worth recalling history and reflecting upon how Americans were held hostage by Iran for 444 days only to be released within an hour of Ronald Reagan being sworn in as the president in January of 1981. According to renowned columnist Christopher Hitchens of "The Nation," this situation also indicates there are reports in which some of Reagan's operatives' brokered deals with the Iranians in an "Arms for Hostages" exchange post-election. Furthermore, "U.S. News & World Report" indicated in the article "Tilting toward Baghdad: U.S. Iraqi relations" that in February 1982 the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the list of terrorist nations and under the advisement of Jordan's King Hussein, provided support to Iraq in the war against Iran. Although in May of 1988 the Iraq army killed 2,000 Kurds in the village of Halabja with the use of chemical weapons, President Reagan still supported Hussein's regime with claims that sanctions against Iraq would not be prudent due to the amount of trade the U.S. was doing with the Iraqi government.

Another article published by Current Events entitled "Iran-Iraq War" indicates that the Iran-Iraq war, which started in Sept. 22, 1980, resulted from an ownership dispute over the waterway Shatt al Arab - the border between Iran and Iraq. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran to gain control over an oil rich section of Iran and to stop radical religious groups from intervening in Iraq.

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush backed Iraq during the eight years of war with Iran. In fact, the United States provided not only military arms and money for those Iraq, but the U.S. also provided arms to Iran. These arms sales helped result in the injuries of 1.7 million people and the deaths of 1.5 million people, according to "Current Events."

Did George H.W. Bush deliberately set up Saddam Hussein in an effort to boost arms sales in the Middle East? In 1986, according to the New Yorker, Bush had a meeting with King Hussein of Jordan and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The reason of this meeting was to tell Saddam Hussein to bomb deeper into Iran's Ixan area because of the religious radicals there. Untold to Hussein though, was the hope that this would result in Iran needing more American arms to defend itself against Iraq. Hussein did just that. On Sept. 19, 1986, Iran petitioned Oliver North for more Hawk Missiles and radar equipment.

Also reported in "Newsweek" on Feb. 12, 2007, Saddam Hussein accused the Kuwait government in 1990 of stealing $2.5 billion in Iraqi oil supplies. When Kuwait refused to pay compensation to Iraq, Iraqi tanks and troops in armored vehicles begin to line up at the Iraq Kuwait border. Again, the House and the Congress want to impose trade sanctions against Iraq but the White House refuses. And when the U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie meets with Saddam Hussein, instead of telling him the U.S. would defend it's ally Kuwait, she tells him that the U.S. "has no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border dispute with Kuwait." Just two days before the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, Glaspie is still telling Saddam Hussein she is working to have the $500 million in agricultural loan guarantees, which had been previously suspended by Congress, reinstated to Iraq.

In a July 1994 article titled "Spider's Web: The Secrete History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq," in "The Progressive" and written by Zachary Karabell, Karabell states that in January of 1989, George H.W. Bush is inaugurated and in August of that year, the FBI exposes the gross amount of fraud and illegal loans to Iraq. Many of these loans by the Banca Nazionale Del Lavaro in Atlanta Georgia, were backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corp and totaled over $5 billion. The investigation resulted in 347 indictments against President Reagan's operatives.

The current Bush administration is making a lot of noise about the possibility of Iran providing arms and ammunition to participants in the Iraq civil war. Even though all of our 16 intelligence agencies state there is only an ambiguous correlation between the two and that it makes little difference to the war because the religious hatred throughout the region needs no outside instigation according to the Feb. 17, 2007 issue of "Newsweek." Is President Bush preparing to insight a war against Iran? You can bet your greenbacks on it.