[MD] Intellect battles the [immigrant] barbarians

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[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.