[MD] Intellect battles the [immigrant] barbarians

[Platt Holden]

Looks like Arlo would prefer to have Iran governing Iraq today instead 
of a fledgling democracy. By all means, let's surrender to a regime 
whose stated goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the map.

Platt


> [Platt to Khaled]
> I doubt if Saddam would have gained power renouncing good old Muhammad.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Before I start, I've always wondered why we call Saddam Hussein by his
> first name, would we do this if his name was "Joe"? .... "I doubt if Joe
> would hav gained power...". But I lifted this from a comedian, who I
> forget, but it has made me think about every time I see someone say
> "Saddam did...".
> 
> History lesson. Hussein came to power in 1979. That is one year before
> Reagan took the presidency. The same year Khomeini took power from the
> Shah in Iran. Iran and Iraq, in 1980, began a bloody long war, between
> the religious factions in Iran and Hussein's secular Iraq. From
> Wikipedia, "During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian
> forces fighting on the southern front and Kurdish separatists who were
> attempting to open up a northern front in Iraq with the help of Iran.".
> Wikipedia continues, "Iraq successfully gained some military and
> financial aid, as well as diplomatic and moral support, from the United
> States, the Soviet Union, and France, which together feared the
> prospects of the expansion of revolutionary Iran's influence in the
> region."
> 
> In 1983, Ronald Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq, with the
> Washington Post reporting that the United States "in a shift in policy,
> has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in
> the 3-year-old war with Iran would be 'contrary to U.S. interests' and
> has made several moves to prevent that result." In March of 1984,
> reports surfaced of Iraq using mustard gas against Iranian civilizans
> along the border. Despite world outcry against the use of chemical
> weapons The New York Times reported from Baghdad on March 29, 1984,
> "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations
> between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic
> ties have been restored in all but name.""
> 
> The US State Department, in 1984 "pushed through the sale of 45 Bell
> 214ST helicopters to Iraq. The helicopters, worth some $200 million,
> were originally designed for military purposes." (LA Times) In 1988
> evidence surfaced that these same helicopters were used in the
> deployment of chemical warefare. The US Senate proposed sanctions that
> would have denied Iraq most US technology. "The measure was killed by
> the White House."
> 
> A full chronology of the US's involvement with Hussein, an ally we
> supported and armed, despite his use of chemical weapons against
> civilians and the internal human rights violations occuring within his
> own country, is available here.
> (http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php)
> 
> In 1987, during the height of this war, Ronald Reagan began selling arms
> to Iranians in exchange for hostages. We begin arming both sides of a
> conflict murdering civilians and employing chemical weapons. Our
> morality is unshaken. There are no cries from the "Reagan Republicans"
> to toss out evil dictators. Indeed, we are quite happy to deal with them
> so long as we destabilize the region. Thousands of people die, but
> right-wing neocons don't care.
> 
> Yes, I find it always humorous, worthy of a loud guffaw, to watch the
> holier-than-thou moral champions of the right now trumpet themselves as
> "liberators of the enslaved", when we not only armed two dictatorial
> regimes (one secular, one religious), turned away as thousands and
> thousands of people were murdered not only in border wars with our
> weapons, but in the deployment of chemical weapons at the very least
> made possible by tools we sold, but backed Hussein against world
> criticism because a destabilized middle east (with no central or worthy
> superpower) best served American economic interests... yes, the grand
> narrative of "We the Morally Righteous Liberators Have Saved You" rings
> not only phony and hollow, but sadly and pathetically meaningless.
> 
> Of course, we are America The Holy, we can do no wrong, we, in our ever
> righteous actions, are superior and above the immoral "others", and so
> our solution of "bombs and fear" is the only one possible. Anyone who
> suggests otherwise is an "enemy of liberty", a "traitor", and one of
> those rat-like liberals, scurrying in the gutters.
> 
> 
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