A brief stray into the political arena…
Tonight, Saddam Hussein was executed for crimes against humanity. Of course, no tears should be shed for this high level scumbag, tyrant, and war criminal, but while we spit on his still-warm corpse, it’s imperative that we don’t forget how he got into power.
See that picture on the left? That’s recently-fired Bush Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. One of Rumsfeld’s jobs at that time was to open the door for American companies to sell chemical weapons to Saddam; chemical weapons that were used on the Iranians during the 7 Year War, and eventually on the Kurds when they got mouthy.
When Saddam used those illegal weapons to gas ten thousand of his own people, the US congress passed a censure motion. The Senate okayed it, but Reagan vetoed that motion, because while Saddam was unquestionably a ruthless murderer, he was America’s ruthless murderer, and he was ruthlessly murdering people America disliked more than he.
I don’t normally do politics on this blog, but I just thought that, at this moment in history, as we celebrate the end of one tyrant’s career, we should take a moment and remember that he wasn’t created in a vaccuum.
Ask any Haitian, Liberian, Cuban or Honduran.
There’s an old geopolitical saying that goes back many centuries: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Iran was the enemy after the 79 revolution. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was an ally / client state of the US because it was the regional counterbalance to Iran. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was also an ally / client state of other countries, most importantly France and the Soviet Union. There are plenty of photos of various Soviet dignitaries and of Jacques Chirac, shaking hands with Hussein.
All Mr. Chirac did was sell Hussein the Osirak nuclear reactor. Fortunately it was crippled by Israeli air strikes in 1981 and then finally destroyed by US air strikes in the Gulf War.
Do you have any photos of Franklin D. Roosevelt shaking hands with one of the top three murderers of the 20th century, comrade Josef Stalin?
Comment by hank — December 31, 2006 @ 7:47 am
Nice editorial… Very true that this happened and has happened a number of times; the U.S. sticks their nose in other countries politics and it backfires over the long run. History is full of other examples of such.
So we knew there were weapons of mass destruction because we sold them to them. They got used or disposed of and thus they no longer existed.
Comment by George L. Townsend — December 31, 2006 @ 5:13 pm
Welcome to the blog, Hank.
In answer to your statements:
* Mr Chirac sold Saddam a nuclear reactor? That’s interesting. Maybe you should check up on which French company it was that made that sale. If you have any trouble finding it, try doing a search of ‘companies in which Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of directors’. When you do that, you might also find that the same French company, of which Rummy was a director, also sold two nuke reactors to NORTH KOREA.
* Unfortunately, no, I don’t have any pictures of Roosevelt and Stalin. You know why? Because Roosevent isn’t in office any more. George W. Bush is. And not for nothing, but one of America’s other old ‘allies’ was Osama Bin Laden. I don’t have any pictures of Bin Laden and Reagan shaking hands, though they were most definitely on friendly terms, being as they both wanted the Russians out of Afghanistan.
I always find it amusing when a right winger tries to justify the fact that America’s two biggest enemies of modern time were, in fact, once tools of American foreign policy. It’s amusing because they almost always resort, rather than saying “yes, that was a bad thing”, to saying instead, “but [random historic Democratic leader] did that too.”
Over 200 plus years of US history, of course there’s always someone, somewhere, who was a tool. That’s not the pressing point. What IS the pressing point is that, as of now, 3000 Americans have died so that Saddam Hussein can be hanged.
3000 deaths and half a trillion dollars (so far) to get one guy.
And Bin Laden is still out there.
So by all means, let’s discuss the pecadilloes of Teddy Roosevelt. That’ll get us out of Iraq in a hurry.
Comment by Oz — December 31, 2006 @ 5:25 pm