Quick Quiz

Pompey Magnus

a question-and-answer guide to the world's leading "rogue state"

by Mehdi Hasan <editor@mediamonitors.net>

Question 1: Which country was the primary "sponsor" - in terms of weapons, training and funding - of Osama Bin Laden and his fighters during the 1980s?

Answer: The United States of America.

Question 2: Which country's spokesman saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan in 1996?

A: The United States of America.

Question 3: Which country unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in December 2001?

A: The United States of America.

Question 4: Which country renounced the efforts to negotiate a verification process for the Biological Weapons Convention and brought an international conference on the matter to a halt in July 2001?

A: The United States of America.

Question 5: Which country unilaterally withdrew from the Kyoto treaty on global warming in March 2001?

A: The United States of America.

Question 6: Which country is the world's biggest polluter?

A: The United States of America.

Question 7: Which country prevented the United Nations from curbing the gun trade at a small arms conference in July 2001?

A: The United States of America.

Question 8: Which country is the world's largest exporter of arms?

A: The United States of America.

Question 9: Which country was responsible for a car bomb which killed 80 civilians in Beirut in 1985, in a botched assassination attempt, thereby making it the most lethal terrorist bombing in modern Middle East history?

A: The United States of America.

Question 10: Which country's illegal bombing of Libya in 1986 was described by the UN Legal Committee as a "classic case" of terrorism?

A: The United States of America.

Question 11: Aside from Somalia, which is the only other country in the world to have refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

A: The United States of America.

Question 12: Which is the only country in the West which still permits the execution of children (i.e. "persons under the age of 18")?

A: The United States of America.

Question 13: Which is the only G7 country to have refused to sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, forbidding the use of landmines?

A: The United States of America.

Question 14: Aside from China, which is the only other nuclear power to have refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)?

A: The United States of America.

Question 15: Which country rejected the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua in 1986, and then vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law?

A: The United States of America.

Question 16: Which is the only G7 country to have voted against the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998?

A: The United States of America.

Question 17: Which country refuses to hand over a variety of indicted war criminals, terrorists and mass murderers - all residing within its borders - to Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti?

A: The United States of America.

Question 18: Which country has provided approximately $100 billion in aid to a country [Israel] which has maintained a 34-year occupation of land in defiance of international law?

A: The United States of America.

Question 19: Which was the only other country to join with Israel in opposing a 1987 General Assembly resolution condemning international terrorism?

A: The United States of America.

Question 20: Which country refuses to fully pay its debts to the United Nations yet reserves its right to veto United Nations resolutions?

A: The United States of America.

Question 21: Which country only ratified the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide in 1988, forty years after its passage at the United Nations?

A: The United States of America.

Question 22: Which country was accused by a UN-sponsored truth commission of providing "direct and indirect support" for "acts of genocide" against the Mayan Indians in Guatemala during the 1980s?

A: The United States of America.

Question 23: Which country is the driving force behind the current economic embargo on Iraq - responsible for the death of over half a million Iraqi children and described by one of its own legislators as "genocide masquerading as policy"?

A: The United States of America.

Question 24: Which is the only country in the world to have dropped bombs on twenty other countries since 1945?

A: The United States of America.

Question 25: Which is the only country in the world to have used all three types of "weapons of mass destruction" (chemical, biological and nuclear)?

A: The United States of America.


How did you do? questions 12 and 19 did catch me out!

You do realise that now you've dug this info out, and posted it, you're going to be labelled anti-american? Shame on you!

bonkey

11) The US have signed this Convention, but not ratified it - just like Somalia. The US cannot ratify this, as it falls under the juridistiction of state law rather than federal.

It should also be pointed out that a significant number of Eastern European nations have suceded from this treaty as per mid-2002.

25) When has the US ever been known to use biological WMDs?

As per usual, this is yet another document phrasing its questions nicely to make it clear that there is only one bad guy here.

Of course, nothing on that list is actually relevant to the generally accepted meaning of the term "rogue state". Its Yet Another Attempt to show that the US isnt the bastion of rules-following.

I dont know what its trying to prove - a little digging and you can probably make an equally damning list for any nation, and more damning for many.

jc

Bateman

Its hard to be caught out when the answers are right beside the questions.

Éomer of Rohan

One of the most fundamental points highlighted by this questionnaire - which I have read before in different forms by different authors - is that when the right wing and pro-america and pro-war groups use an argument in which they portray themselves as the 'good guys,' going to foreign countries and overthrowing dictators and so on, they are simply allowing themselves to be blind to the fact that America is the single most hated country in the world, one of the most hypocritical and certainly by far the most dangerous to the stability of the world.

On a point regarding the International Criminal Court, it really becomes irrelevent whether the US CAN sign up or not, given that they are pursuing every other nation on earth to sign treaties that render the ICC extradition laws with regard to American nationals, absolutely irrelevent.

I looked up 'rogue' in the Oxford English Dictionary (I keep one beside my computer, finding that it comes in handy now and again for exact definitions) and it is defined as 'mischievous and dishonest' and it is clear to me at least that no other nation fulfils these descriptions that the US. Saddam Hussein, over his reign in Iraq has not killed as many people as the US have in Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia alone - a grand total of 3 million innocent deaths. Of course, as we know, the US has been engaged in other conflicts and killed more civilians, wars of dubious justification.

When the people of the UK and RoI saw governments being installed as US puppets they said nothing. Why not? The hypocrisy which exemplifies the governments all three nations has spread to the people - they are 'right' to do this because it brings 'freedom' and 'justice' and other such wonderful novelties as McDonalds. Is no one disturbed by the fact that no country with a McDonalds has ever made war on the US? Because they were too poor, having been endlessly exploited by US corporations such as McD's to see anything other than their own poverty!

Saddam took over Kuwait and all of a sudden the world is outraged! Why was the world not outraged when America invaded Grenada or supported terrorists or financed the occupation of another sovereign nation? America is a rogue state - the biggest rogue state and so countries bend over backwards to accomodate them and it sickens me because it defeats the point of governments 'by the people, for the people' since it becomes 'governments by some people for what we say the interests of the people are' - by very definition, befriending the USA seems to ultimately bring less democracy than anything else.

Meh

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
Is no one disturbed by the fact that no country with a McDonalds has ever made war on the US?

I believe that this little factlet is no longer true. Apparently there were no fewer than seven McDonalds restaurants in Belgrade at the time of the Kosovo war.

Because they were too poor, having been endlessly exploited by US corporations such as McD's to see anything other than their own poverty!

Didn't seem to stop the Serbs.

Pompey Magnus

Originally posted by bonkey
25) When has the US ever been known to use biological WMDs?

As per usual, this is yet another document phrasing its questions nicely to make it clear that there is only one bad guy here.

How about introducing African Swine fever to Cuba? The entire pig population of Cuba had to be slaughtered.
So indeed the point is correct!!!

bonkey

Originally posted by spandauballet
How about introducing African Swine fever to Cuba? The entire pig population of Cuba had to be slaughtered.
So indeed the point is correct!!!

Other than Cuba's allegations of this, is there any proof?

I would also question whether or not weaponry which is not (from what I can find) transmissable to humans is classified as a "Weapon of Mass Destruction".

Look at the questions. Some of them are "Which is the only country". Others are "Aside from X, which is the only country", and one even has to stoop to "which is the only of the G7" in order to find something which the US is the only one of. Look at the wording of the question on the Kyoto protocol - it had to pick a date...because the US was not the only nation to accede, nor has every nation signed and ratified it...and remember...another question condemns the US for not ratifying a treaty it has signed.

The US deserves much criticism, but taking this "questionnaire" for anything more than one-sided spin-doctored tabloid stuff is just farcical. Its the best way to invalidate what genuine criticisms can be made...give them a chance to lump it in with the farcical.

jc

Pompey Magnus

A CIA agent admitted to the act so yes there is evidence. A weapon of mass destruction also includes those that damage the economy or cause distress or hardship on the population which this biological WMD did do on the people of Cuba. If that doesn't satisfy you there are plenty more examples, like the use of cholera and smallpox infected blankets given to Native Americans in the 1890's , (long ago but shouldn't be ignored) and this against their own population.

Hobart

Originally posted by bonkey
Other than Cuba's allegations of this, is there any proof?

I would also question whether or not weaponry which is not (from what I can find) transmissable to humans is classified as a "Weapon of Mass Destruction".

Look at the questions. Some of them are "Which is the only country". Others are "Aside from X, which is the only country", and one even has to stoop to "which is the only of the G7" in order to find something which the US is the only one of. Look at the wording of the question on the Kyoto protocol - it had to pick a date...because the US was not the only nation to accede, nor has every nation signed and ratified it...and remember...another question condemns the US for not ratifying a treaty it has signed.

The US deserves much criticism, but taking this "questionnaire" for anything more than one-sided spin-doctored tabloid stuff is just farcical. Its the best way to invalidate what genuine criticisms can be made...give them a chance to lump it in with the farcical.

jc

Some chemical agents are built purely to destroy the crops and plant life of a particular area. ]In fact the US used 15 known herbisides in Vietnam From memory Agent Orange caused, and still does cause, widespread damage to the Vietnamese countryside. WMD in my book any day.

bonkey

Originally posted by spandauballet
(long ago but shouldn't be ignored)

And I've just remembered that they actually stole the land the live on from its previous owners, and are an illegal occupying force. Out out, vile demons of invasion and illegal occupation.

Oh - and they used to encourage slavery in large amounts of the country too.

Also long ago. Is it relevant?

More recently, they locked up Japenese in concentration camps, and dropped bombs on said nation.

You going to claim that is somehow relevant as well?

More recently, they went on witchhunts - villifying anyone in a position of any influence or visibility if there was the slightest allegation of communist sympathies.

Is this relevant?

A nation's history is only relevant in acting as a means of classifying a nation today when it serves as a yardstick for estimating the future actions of that nation.

We can, for example, say with relative certainty that the US would veto any UN resolution sanctioning Israel were it to come to the table tomorrow. Here, we can see their history is relevant to their current policies.

We can also say with relative certainty that the US is not likely to condone human slavery any time soon. Here, their history of casting off slavery is relevant, but their history of having had slavery in the first place isnt.

Can we say with certainty that the US still engages in chemical or bio-chemical Special Ops? (and no offense Hobart, but its not "your book" which matters. WMD is a specific term, used to classify specific types of weapons. None of the examples quoted to date fit the description.)

Nope. We cant. In fact, there is every indication that the US has led the way in having these weapons removed from fields of conflict...as soon as they realised it was the type of threat that military might cannot readily counter and that it wasnt as hard to lay hands on as nuclear weaponry. They oppose assassination for the same efffective reason - it is an unbalancing force.

So is it relevant to how good, bad or indifferent the US is today? Nope.

If you want to bring the individuals who were responsible for any atrocity to justice, then go right ahead and press your case.

Unfortunately, you have absolutely no grounds to make inferences about the current nation, its current policies and its current leaders unless you can show that there is some relevance to your historical reference.

If you're going to criticise a country, do it credibly. Thats all I'm saying. This is not a credible criticism. It is flawed in so many ways, that the only people likely to be supportive of it are :

1) those who already believe the US is the great satan (or whatever damning term you prefer this week)
2) those who think the National Enquirer is a good source of well-researched factual information.

jc

Pompey Magnus

Originally posted by bonkey


Can we say with certainty that the US still engages in chemical or bio-chemical Special Ops?
Nope. We cant.

I'll throw that one back to you and ask could America say with certainty that iraq was engaging in chemical or bio chemical production since Gulf War1?

Originally posted by bonkey



Unfortunately, you have absolutely no grounds to make inferences about the current nation, its current policies and its current leaders unless you can show that there is some relevance to your historical reference.

What do you consider "current"? You pick one small historical point I made and concentrated your argument on making as if I was basing mine pre-ww2. If you care to read the initial post in the thread they seem to me to be either based in the very recent past or indeed present.

Originally posted by bonkey



This is not a credible criticism. It is flawed in so many ways,

The fact of the matter is that the initial 25 facts raised are TRUE therefore I would like to know how posting factual points could be flawed?

P.S. wrt supporting slavery I consider Nike's (etc) sweat shops in the Far East as close to slavery as you can get!

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Duffman

Originally posted by Hobart
From memory Agent Orange caused, and still does cause, widespread damage to the Vietnamese countryside. WMD in my book any day.

Not just the countryside... Agent Orange has been linked to hundreds of cancer cases across the country and children are still being born with various deformities in areas that were sprayed..

There's also fairly conclusive evidence to suggest that US generals had been made aware of the dangers it posed to civilians and even their own troops while it was still being used...

WMD, no doubt about it...

Hobart

Originally posted by Duffman
Not just the countryside... Agent Orange has been linked to hundreds of cancer cases across the country and children are still being born with various deformities in areas that were sprayed..

There's also fairly conclusive evidence to suggest that US generals had been made aware of the dangers it posed to civilians and even their own troops while it was still being used...

WMD, no doubt about it...

True. But the initial idea behind the chemical was to defoliate the contryside. The fact that it eventually turned out to have some affect on humans was an after thought.

However how ppl can say that they are not WMD is beyond.

a) They are weapons
b) They cause mass destruction

??

Carpo

Sorry to go a little off topic here but I found this article to be quite informative about Agent Orange and its effects. Its not a very pleasant read and its pretty damning

"When we initiated the herbicide programme in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the military formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the civilian version, due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned."

davelerave

that number one got me,did they really train binliner.some of the questions are suitably dumb for this type of post and could be replaced by question:which is the largest and most powerful country in the world answer:good ol usa

Carpo

Originally posted by davelerave
did they really train binliner.

Its true but with a slant. USA did support Osama as part of the Mujahadeen(sp?) when they where fighting against the soviets during the 80's. It wasnt till later that Al Quieda were formed from parts of the Mujahadeen (iirc)

davelerave

yeh as i rememeber it they won the war with us suppllies 'stinger' sams wasn't it

davelerave

the ones the ira were supposed to have but never 'bothered' using, or do they just have bits of them?

davelerave

question 9 dude ,weren't there over 300 US marines killed by a truck bomb in beirut in the eighties

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

bonkey

Originally posted by spandauballet
I'll throw that one back to you and ask could America say with certainty that iraq was engaging in chemical or bio chemical production since Gulf War1?

Absolutely not....which is one of the reasons I've been firmly opposed to the legitimacy of this war since it started. Maybe you confused my condemnation of the article with being a pro-war ra-ra-USA type?

What do you consider "current"? You pick one small historical point I made and concentrated your argument on making as if I was basing mine pre-ww2. If you care to read the initial post in the thread they seem to me to be either based in the very recent past or indeed present.

Some of them are drawing references to things which happened under previous administrations, in an era which has past. The political landscape has changed almost beyond belief since the end of the Cold War.

Therefore, the argument that the US have used all forms of WMD - even if you could find examples of deliberate use of anything classifiable as a WMD in all fields - prior to the end of the Cold War has virtually no relevance to the modern picture, no more than your example of handing out smallpox to the natives.

The fact of the matter is that the initial 25 facts raised are TRUE therefore I would like to know how posting factual points could be flawed?

Allow me to repeat myself :

As per usual, this is yet another document phrasing its questions nicely to make it clear that there is only one bad guy here.

Of course, nothing on that list is actually relevant to the generally accepted meaning of the term "rogue state".

then....

The US deserves much criticism, but taking this "questionnaire" for anything more than one-sided spin-doctored tabloid stuff is just farcical.

and finally...

This is not a credible criticism. It is flawed in so many ways

Now, I never said that posting it was flawed. I support your right to bring this up as an item for discussion. I just happen to disagree with it....as is my right.

I have never said that the facts are not true - with the exception of questioning the use of biological WMDs.

However, if you look at the first sentence in the article...the one which mentions "rogue state", it becomes clear what the purpose of the entire article is....nothing but an attempt to justify having referred to the US as a rogue state in that line.

The information makes it look like the US is the only perpetrator of all these evils, and I am pointing out that to do so it has to be selective in its phrasing.

Much of the information harks back to a dead and gone political era. This makes its relevance to the current administration questionable at best. It would be almost like saying that the next government of Iraq cant be trusted because Iraq used WMDs in the 80s.

Yes, there is factual evidence in there - albeit worded deliberately to appear propagandist in nature from a reasonably objective standpoint. That is what I was pointing out, but you seem to have taken a different meaning from what I was saying. I hope I've clarified that for you.

P.S. wrt supporting slavery I consider Nike's (etc) sweat shops in the Far East as close to slavery as you can get!

I agree, although there do seem to be improvements coming in that area over recent years.

Again, however, its an issue of "as close to", isnt it. Why not condemn it for what it is, rather than jumping the charges up to something its "as good as".

jc

Pompey Magnus

As you appear to be unhappy at the implication of the US as a rogue state in the intro, i would be interested to know your definition of a "Rogue State"? Does the acts of overthrowing more than 40 foreign governments, and crushing more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes in the last 50 years not imply there to be something untrustworthy and worrysome about the upper echelons of US admistration?.



A terrorist is someone who has a
bomb but doesn't have an air force

They have no morals. We
cannot accept that a state assumes the role of the world's policeman.
Nelson Mandela on US, 1997

Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced,
tortured, killed or "disappeared", at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame.
Amnesty International, 1996

Borzoi

Originally posted by spandauballet
like the use of cholera and smallpox infected blankets given to Native Americans in the 1890's , (long ago but shouldn't be ignored) and this against their own population.

ROFL

I think you've made your point with that damning indictment of American oppression. Really, you have

Pompey Magnus

Originally posted by Borzoi
ROFL

I think you've made your point with that damning indictment of American oppression. Really, you have

<sigh>
my argument did not hinge on that one small point, in fact it was only used as bonkey wouldn't believe that America used biochemical weapons. when I pointed out Cuba he still wasn't satisfied so I mentioned that there had been numerous other times which I didn't want to bring up but ok then,

-In 1942, US Army and Navy doctors infected 400 prisoners in Chicago with malaria in experiments designed to get "a profile of the disease and develop a treatment for it." Most of the inmates were black and none was informed of the risks of the experiment. Nazi doctors on trial at Nuremberg cited the Chicago malaria experiments as part of their defense.

- Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park, Florida were the targets of repeated Army bio-weapons experiments in 1956 and 1957. Army CBW researchers released millions of mosquitoes on the two towns in order to test the ability of insects to carry and deliver yellow fever and dengue fever. Hundreds of residents fell ill, suffering from fevers, respiratory distress, stillbirths, encephalitis and typhoid. Army researchers disguised themselves as public health workers in order photograph and test the victims. Several deaths were reported

- the CIA placed a chemical substance in the drinking water supply of the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in Washington, DC. The test was designed to see if it was possible to poison drinking water with LSD or other incapacitating agents

-In 1980, hundreds of Haitian men, who had been locked up in detention camps in Miami and Puerto Rico, developed gynecomasia after receiving "hormone" shots from US doctors. Gynecomasia is a condition causing males to develop full-sized female breasts.

-an epidemic of dengue fever struck Managua, Nicaragua. Nearly 50,000 people came down with the fever and dozens died. This was the first outbreak of the disease in Nicaragua. It occurred at the height of the CIA's war against the Sandinista government and followed a series of low-level "reconnaissance" flights over the capital city.

.....and there are more, this is just a taste so apologies if I implied that my one Native American example was the only occurance of Germ Warfare on the part of the US military.

Hobart

We can all access Google and come up with examples of where the USA has used chemicals/herbicides when it should not have. Personally I belive that you have a valid point when you retort Bonkeys' point of only concentrating on one aspect of your 'argument'.

But lets be honest with each other here. It does not take a genius of Einstein proportions to recognise that the USA is a nation of double standards when it comes down to morality. Your initial post highlights that. And in-fairness I believe that it has the potential to generate mature debate about the subject.

But I am in agreement with the two primary points of what bonkey seems to be saying.

1) We can troll through the archives and find accounts about most of the G7 nations which they would all be embarresed about (probably with the exception of Canada)

2) Your initial post was totally one-sided in it's formation and therefore does not offer a subject for balanced debate.

bonkey

Originally posted by Hobart
Personally I belive that you have a valid point when you retort Bonkeys' point of only concentrating on one aspect of your 'argument'.

I thought I had made it clear that this is the only one I perceived as factually incorrect. Thats why I asked about it (asked about...not contentrated on). Thats when spandau decided to "back up" his argument with rugs and native americans as further proof.

Now, apparently, he's graduated to finding other allegations, and has still singularly ignored the point I made about a dramatic change in political climate which immediately calls the relevance of these additional googlectualised points into question.

Of course, the fact that Mr. ballet hasnt addressed this political shift, and has brought more and more examples of stuff from a time period I have already argued is not relevant to the current situation only serves to strenghten the argument that this is purely and solely an exercise in attempting to cast down the US, rather than offer a considered and informed criticism.

He also seems to have ignored the concept of finding out what a WMD is officially classified as and still seems to be using the "it sounds like one in my book" line of reasoning.

In short...more spin, more propaganda, more mountains that those who will seek to offer less tabloidised criticism will have to climb in order to be taken seriously.

jc

Hobart

Originally Posted by Bonkey
I thought I had made it clear that this is the only one I perceived as factually incorrect

Sorry to harp on about this but am I getting this right?/ You, bonkey, believe that

Question 25: Which is the only country in the world to have used all three types of "weapons of mass destruction" (chemical, biological and nuclear)? The USA

is factually incorrect.

And if I am correct in this assumption you also believe that the subsequent reports of the use of Smallpox against native Americans was, and is, untrue!

vorbis

I've heard the French under Charlemagne used catapults to hurl diseased donkeys into besieged cities. Goddamn weapons of mass destruction. Also lets face it the only reason a european country hasn't used nuclear wmd is because a suitable occasion hasn't arisen.

bonkey

Originally posted by Hobart
Sorry to harp on about this but am I getting this right?/ You, bonkey, believe that is factually incorrect.

Yes. That is excactly what I am saying.

And if I am correct in this assumption you also believe that the subsequent reports of the use of Smallpox against native Americans was, and is, untrue!

No. I did not say it was untrue, and I've no inclination spending any more of my time to go back and quote my own posts again to try and explain what I said.

jc