From The Cradle... - Michael Stearns.mp3

[00:02.261]In 1985, at the height of the Iran/Iraq war,
[00:06.140]all round American patriot Colonel Oliver North,
[00:09.143]met with Iranian businessmen in a hotel room in Frankfurt:
[00:13.449]'One of the things that we would like to do, okay,
[00:16.570]is we would like to become actively engaged in ending this war
[00:21.266]in such a way that it becomes very evident to everybody […]
[00:26.648]that the real problem in preventing peace in the region is Saddam Hussein.
[00:31.423]And we will have to take carе of that.'
[00:36.032] 
[00:53.159]In the prelude to thе Gulf War
[00:54.997]it was easy to think that Iraq had only just been…invented.
[00:59.237]That there was nothing much to say about it as a country;
[01:02.404]that there was nothing much there to bomb.
[01:05.019] 
[01:06.408]In fact, the history being arranged for us,
[01:09.003]was played out in the land where all written history began,
[01:12.093]for whilst Europe was populated with Stone Age tribes,
[01:15.350]the people of Mesopotamia were living in towns, and those towns had libraries.
[01:20.888] 
[01:23.407]The city of Babylon flourished for two thousand years,
[01:26.369]changing hands as rival empires fought over trade routes, riches, land.
[01:31.781]It was here a legal code was written
[01:33.936]'…that the strong might not oppress the weak….'
[01:37.036]Twenty centuries before the birth of Christ,
[01:39.543]these laws had distinguished justice from revenge.
[01:42.803] 
[01:44.804]Centuries later, another great city was built,
[01:47.789]Capital of the Arab Empire and its new religion - Islam.
[01:51.662] 
[01:53.286]Rhymed poetry, geometry, our number system: all come from Baghdad.
[01:58.874]Here, in Europe's Dark Age,
[02:00.887]Arab scholars calculated the circumference of the earth.
[02:04.314]Six centuries later the Church conceded it was not flat.
[02:08.551] 
[02:10.224]The Crusades launched against Islam did not reach Baghdad.
[02:14.043]By the time the Europeans came, the Christian nations had colonised the globe.
[02:19.029]'Who' - the Africans asked - 'has not seen the simpering grey men with their flags?'
[02:25.304] 
[02:27.793]In World War I, the Ottoman Empire was defeated and the 'allies' moved in.
[02:33.720]With a League of Nations mandate, the region was divided between French and British rule.
[02:38.927]Palestine was declared a 'Jewish homeland';
[02:41.561]a line in the sand made Kuwait a state -
[02:44.121]But Kurdish dreams of nationhood were less convenient.
[02:47.406] 
[02:49.169]Having promised self-rule, Britain occupied Iraq - and stayed there.
[02:54.717]Resistance was discouraged with bombs and mustard gas.
[02:58.895]When 'independence' finally came in 1932,
[03:03.296]power was handed to a puppet king.
[03:06.321]Western companies had just begun to export Iraq's oil.
[03:10.470]"….across the map to Iraq: another danger spot that Britain dealt with before it was too late!"
[03:16.177]'Iraq, 1941. Saddam Hussein is four, born into the cauldron of post-colonial rule. […]
[03:23.213]Iraq is still the prisoner of the West's will.'
[03:26.970] 
[03:28.696]After World War II, Europe needed American loans to rebuild.
[03:32.737]A World Bank was founded and the League of Nations replaced:
[03:36.303]'We the people of the United Nations,
[03:38.105]determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,
[03:41.969]which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…'
[03:45.611]But the Security Council, controlled by the allies, was deadlocked in Superpower rivalries.
[03:51.030] 
[03:52.165]Policy advisers set out Washington's goals:
[03:55.222]"We have about 60% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population.
[04:01.209]Our real task in this position is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this […] disparity.
[04:08.757]We should cease to talk about such vague and unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratisation."