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Sometimes selective appeasement is necessary in foreign policy. But when and just how far should a democratic country go in such behavior? Here's a brilliant defense of giving in at times-which doesn't mean I necessarily agree with it, but I do respect it-and a recent example of how it's overdone and mistakenly carried out nowadays. The Times of London article is by George Walden, a former British diplomat and Conservative member of parliament with a lot of international experience. Let's consider what he says and how we should interpret it. The title tells a great deal: "We can't afford the...

As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear "package" deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector. The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years. But Iraq lost the chance to capitalize when, months...

At the time of the 1990 offer, Iraq was embarked in a crash program to develop nuclear weapons in the face of a threatened U.S.-led attack over its occupation of Kuwait. By that date, Iraqi scientists had acquired a limited amount of weapons-grade enriched uranium but lacked several key components, including a workable design for a small nuclear warhead.

Today, Iraqis made their voices heard, and MSNBC wants to give credit to Obama, even though he opposed the surge and maybe they even want to share some of that credit with Biden who wanted to divide Iraq into 3 countries. The truth is that President Bush deserves credit for taking action against a man that was a threat to the USA and what we stand for: Freedom. President Bush understood the threat that Saddam Hussein was, and he had the guts to do what was right. He didn't take a look at the latest Gallup poll before making a...

Political strategist Karl Rove says President George W. Bush made the right decision to launch the Iraq war in 2003, but the former White House adviser admits the failure to find weapons of mass destruction badly damaged the administration's credibility. In his new memoir, "Courage and Consequence," Rove blames himself for not pushing back against claims that Bush had taken the country to war under false pretenses, calling it one of the worst mistakes he made during the Bush presidency.

Joe Biden in 2002: "We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world."

They have been searching in Iraq for the past nine years, 10 months and 15 days. Today, the hard work finally paid off as soldiers found one of those elusive ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that Saddam Hussein was supposed to have been hiding. So is it all round to Tony Blair's house for celebratory drinks? Unfortunately the discovery came just a few days late for the former prime minister, who could have used the extraordinary find as proof he was right about Iraq all along during the Chilcot Inquiry. But from the looks of the rocket, it would appear unlikely...

OUJA, Iraq (AFP) – Dozens of Iraqis gathered at the grave of "Chemical Ali" in northern Iraq on Wednesday to praise the cousin and notorious henchman of Saddam Hussein who was executed for gassing thousands of Kurds in 1988. "He was one of Ouja's most remarkable men," said Abu Shehab, a 45-year-old man who insisted that Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known by his macabre nickname, had been hanged to appease Iran and the United States. "The execution of Majid was done to satisfy the American and Iranian governments, but he will always be one of the icons of Iraq," Shehab...

A well-known face of the former government of Saddam Hussein widely known as Chemical Ali was executed Monday for ordering a gas attack on a Kurdish village in northern Iraq and for his role in other attacks that became notorious symbols of Mr. Hussein’s tenure. An Iraqi court had sentenced the man, Ali Hassan al-Majid, to death by hanging last week. He is known here as Chemical Ali because of the attack on the village of Halabja, in which more than 5,000 Kurds died. “I congratulate the Iraqi people for this sentence,” said a lawmaker, Safia Suhail. It was Mr....

Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed -- also known as Chemical Ali -- was executed Monday, an Iraqi government spokesman said. He was hanged after having been convicted on 13 counts of killings and genocide, Ali al-Dabagh said.

BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin "Chemical Ali" was convicted Sunday of crimes against humanity and received a death sentence for his involvement in a poison gas attack on Halabja. Families of some victims in court cheered when the guilty verdict against Ali Hassan al-Majid was handed down in a trial over one of the worst poisonous gas attacks against civilians. He has already received previous death sentences for atrocities committed during Saddam's rule, particularly in the government's suppression of the Kurds in the late 1980s. Other officials in Saddam's regime received jail terms for their roles in the 1988...

Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin "Chemical Ali" has been sentenced to death by hanging for his involvement in a poison gas attack on the city of Halabja. Families of some of the 5,000 Kurds killed in the 1988 attack cheered when the guilty verdict against Ali Hassan al-Majid was handed down Sunday. Other officials in Saddam's regime, including former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie, also received jail terms at the Iraqi High Tribunal. The brutal attack on Halabja close to the Iranian border 22 years ago killed mostly women and children through a series of mustard and nerve gas bombings by...

This building in Basrah, once used by Saddam Hussein as an interrogation facility, is being demolished to make way for a new Iraqi Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) facility. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. BASRAH — A building once used by Saddam Hussein as an interrogation facility is being demolished to make way for a new Iraqi Explosive Ordnance Disposal office. According to Ken Bright, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region South project engineer, the community as a whole is happy about the demolition and new construction because the facility held bad memories. “To quote the...

The title of that article above, from the LA Times, is titled: WMD Not Point Of Iraq War. Of course it wasn't. It was One of MANY reasons for that war, one of which....and the most important in my opinion...was Saddam's support of terrorists. After 9/11 we could not allow this tyrant to continue to support our enemies while thumbing his nose at the entire world for the previous 13 years. As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II investigation report on pre-war Iraq Intelligence stated: Conclusion 10: Statements in the major speeches analyzed, as well additional statements, regarding...

It would have been right to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein even without evidence he had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Tony Blair has said. The former prime minister said it was the "notion" of Saddam as a threat to the region which tilted him in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But his words have attracted critics - among them Hans Blix, who was in charge of the UN team searching Iraq for WMD.

HALABJA, Iraq — Six families nervously awaited the DNA tests on the young man who returned from Iran. They wondered: Could this be their son who was just an infant in 1988 and somehow lived through a deadly chemical attack by Saddam Hussein's regime? There was absolute silence as the judge announced the lab results. The man, who called himself Ali, was deemed to be the sole surviving child of 58-year-old Fatima Mohammed Salih, who had lost her husband and all her other six children in the poison gas clouds that covered the mostly Kurdish city of Halabja.

BAGHDAD -- Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis have been greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein. The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution. No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel, although the Iraqi government suspects it's Baathists whose political party Saddam once led. The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman. The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't...

<p>PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime planned to use an anti-tank rocket to attack the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, the Czech Republic's counterintelligence service said Monday.</p> <p>Iraqi spies posing as diplomats were supposed to have carried out the attack, from a window of an apartment building near the radio's location in downtown Prague, The Czech Security Information Service, or BIS, said in a statement.</p>

Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein. The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution. No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel, although the Iraqi government suspects it's Baathists whose political party Saddam once led. The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman. The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't receive a penny...

Do Dumbocrats really think that Saddam Hussein would stand by and allow Akhmadinejad to get WMD and not want them for himself? Iran and Iraq were the bitterest of enemies, remember. They were constantly at war.