|
Ba'athism is an Arab political doctrine which combines elements of socialist thinking with pan-Arabism. This theory of Arab nationalism conceives of the 'Arab nation' as a single entity stretching from Morocco to Iraq which has been artificially divided by colonialism and imperialism.
Ba'athism originated in Syria, where the first Ba'ath Party was founded in 1953. Ba'athists have held power in Syria since 1963 and held power in Iraq from 1968 until they were overthrown in 2003 by a US led coalition of America, Britain and Australia which invaded Iraq in March 2003 under the pretence of disarming the regime of weapons of mass destruction. The Syrian and Iraqi branches of the movement were deeply divided. There have been further divisions between its civilian and military elements. While the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein employed the slogans of pan-Arabism to justify his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Ba'ath Party in Iraq was reduced to an instrument of state power.
 Research Ba'athism
Terrorism is the systematic use of violence and intimidation to coerce a government or a community into adopting certain specific political ends, such as national independence for a region, or reunification or self-government, or even the adoption of a political system more sympathetic to another country's economic interests. The term terrorism was first coined in England referring to the French revolution, the agents of which were called 'terrorists' by the hostile English press, particularly the Daily Telegraph. Terrorism is so called because of the employment of 'terror' tactics, typically the bombing of property and the murder of civilians which leads to general unrest and pressure from the public onto a government or encourages the public to remove a leader. Within this definition, resistance fighters - civilians who take up arms against another country's uniformed soldiers occupying their country - are not terrorists, but a country which bullies another country with threats of war unless political changes occur within the country, perhaps the adoption of a government more sympathetic to the bullying country's economic interests, clearly is an example of terrorism. Recent examples of terrorism included the Republican terrorists of northern Ireland which sought reunification with the Republic of Ireland through making attacks on the British people in an attempt to coerce the British government into agreeing to their terms. The Islamic fundamentalist attack on the Twin Towers on September the 11th 2001 were not seeking a stated political end, and as such were not a terrorist attack, but were a criminal act of murder and destruction. America's threats to the country of Iraq unless they change their leader - President Saddam Hussein - could be construed as terrorism as the alternative for the Iraqi people is clearly all out war, in which many civilians would be killed and lose their property. A clear use of intimidation for political ends.
Research Terrorism
Saddam Hussein At-Tikriti was an Iraqi socialist politician. He was born in 1937 at Tikrit and died in 2006. In 1957 he joined the Ba'th Socialist party. He entered the Iraqi parliament when the Ba'thists took control in a coup in 1968 and in 1972 was responsible for the nationalisation of Iraq's oil industry. In 1979 he became President of Iraq, a position he held until Iraq was invaded by the USA supported by Britain in 2003. Following the American-led invasion he was arrested, put through a show trial and executed.
Research Saddam Hussein
The Iran-Iraq War between Iran and Iraq lasted from 1980 to 1988, and was claimed by Iran to have begun with the Iraqi offensive on the 21st of September 1980, and by Iraq with the Iranian shelling of border posts on the 4th of September 1980. It was occasioned by a boundary dispute over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, it fundamentally arose because of Saddam Hussein's fear of a weakening of his absolute power base in Iraq by Iran' s encouragement of the Shi'ite majority in Iraq to rise against the Sunni government.
Research Iran-Iraq War
Voice morphing is a technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA by George Papcun and publicly demonstrated in 1999. Voice morphing enables speech patterns to be cloned and an accurate copy of a person's voice be made which can then say anything the operator wishes it to say, appearing in the voice of someone else. Voice morphing has tremendous possibilities in military psychological warfare and subversion, particularly in conjunction with the use of recorded telephone conversations as evidence in courts of law. An agency can use voice morphing to provide a fake confession or incriminating evidence appearing to be spoken by a suspect which in reality is fake. Voice morphing is a powerful battlefield weapon which can be used to provide fake orders to the enemy's troops, appearing to come from their own commanders.
In 1990, the US department of defence considered using voice morphing to produce a propaganda recording of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, which could then be distributed throughout the Arab world and Iraq to discredit the Iraqi leader.
Research Voice Morphing
Saddam Hussein is London Cockney rhyming slang for a pain.
Research Saddam Hussein
|
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia
Southampton, United Kingdom
|
|
|
Abbreviations
