Regarding the disasters and destruction in Iraq, don't you think that Bush is worse than Hulagu?
Hulagu Kahn in his time invaded what is now modern Iraq, and literally ripped it to nothing. His assault on Baghdad, in 1258, for example, which at the time was the centre of knowledge not only for Islam, but for scientific knowledge in those times, was reduced to rubble. Literally Baghdad was reduced to nothing. This was a typical Mongolian tactic to reduce all institutions, especially in urban areas into nothing, so they could rebuild them into what they liked, if they wanted, if not they would leave them as is. It took centuries for Baghdad to revive as well as what is now called Iraq. Mongolians were fundamentally rural people and distrusted not only urban centres, but institutional arrangements in general.
In 1980 with the invasion of Iran, Saddam Hussein, put Iraq into a deadly spiral, that was in stages: 8 years of war brought nothing except death, disease, suffering, hunger, malnutrition and poverty. In August 1990 Kuwait was taken and this brought on for Iraqi people sanctions, more sanctions, and more sanctions, ferocious repression and still death, disease, suffering, hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Sanctions in the 1990 and early 2000s only made the regime stronger and richer within Iraq and created yet again for the Iraqi people death, disease, suffering, hunger, malnutrition and poverty. A USA rep to the UN summarised it all...'500,000 Iraq dead children are well worth it' see video from a USA TV station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8zmnaHpdmY
I think this makes Hulagu Khan looks like a primary school bully .....In 2003 Iraq was plunged into a deadly civil war that is still ongoing today ...providing for yet again for the Iraqi people death, disease, suffering, hunger, malnutrition and poverty.
P.S. Baathist party in Iraq in 1963 was put in power by ....and in 1968 Saddam Hussein was put in power by.... see link http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html ....yet again in comparison Hulagu Khan looks like a primary school bully.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Despite the injustice and mistakes of the previous regime, the Iranian war was initiated by them and they extended to Iraqi lands in Abadan and Muhammarah. The greed of the Magians is not hidden from anyone. As for Bush’s mob war on Iraq, destroying the infrastructure and superstructures, killing innocent people and starving the people under the pretext of democracy, all of them are lies. Democracy does not mean the destruction of an entire country under the pretext of regime change. For now, Iraqis are suffering from electricity and water cuts and theft of oil and the country's goods.
These are wars against the innocent people. What is the fault of the people to bear the mistakes of the ruling governments?
Some years back, i found, one of the many books on the Iran-Iraq war, to be very good. It is provided by Pierre Razoux, published in 2015, and titled 'The Iran-Iraq war'. I provide the ref link here
https://books.google.it/books?id=FGsuCwAAQBAJ&printsec=copyright&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Very sadly Iraq was reverted to being a near subsistence country. It went from a somewhat viable economy in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s to what it is today. I conducted research there in Iraq, in my field, agricultural and food, and the situation was dire at the time and sadly still is. Water quality for agriculture is very low as per lack of appropriate sanitization and the contamination is unbelievable. Potable water, sadly, is also the same. Further there are frequent outbreaks of cholera, for example, in Basra, as per the reduced flows of the Tigris and Euphrates converge into the Shatt el Arab. Power cuts are daily and energy is actually a luxury for many Iraqis. Hunger, but especially malnutrition, hit very hard young children and cause devastating life long effects. Sadly there are not isolated cases as numbers are fairly large in relation to the total population.
There is a very good book written by R.S. Simon and published in 2004 and called 'Iraq between the two world wars.' It provides hard fact evidence of all the mistakes made by the English mandate and most interestingly, the exact same mistakes were made by the USA starting in 2003.
I recall what i was told by a friend of mine: the meaning of what he said was this, thus not his exact words: 'my great grandfather fought the Ottomans as he did not like them and wanted to be free, but if he had known what was coming after, he would have never fought the Ottomans' ..................
Martin Hilmi
Thank you very much, our dear colleague, for your interest in supporting oppressed peoples and not violating human rights to achieve social justice and truly sustainable development, not just slogans.