Monday, July 19, 2004

Ah... Nostalgia

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a Flash Animation must be worth... oh... a couple thousand website links at least.
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1 comment:

Jeffrey Hill said...

That’s odd…no mention of the Cold War. Go figure – the most significant element on the world stage that dictated our foreign policy in the Middle East at the time, and comrade Blumrich doesn’t think it warrants any mention. What about the gaps in his chronology when the Soviets backed Saddam? And how did Iraq end up on the states that support terror list? Also, Blumrich barely mentions the Iranian threat. Boy, it’d be nice if America could wield its diplomacy with virgin white purity, but that is not the way the world works. Personally, I’m amazed at how principled we are when it comes to weapons proliferation and in who we try to back, Iraq being no exception. In the midst of the cold war sprang an Islamic revolution – Reagan had to pick a dog, neither dog being good. He chose the Ba’athist dictator because he rightly determined that Iran was a greater threat to the region & the world at the time. That’s not to say that Iraq was not a threat. It simply means that Iran was a greater threat. From the declassified papers, it’s clear that the administration had deep moral problems with Iraq’s use of chemical weapons – but they still had to back their dog – it’s called realpolitiks. America didn’t invent it, but we are subject to it. The US is not like a cartoon character that can defy the law of gravity because it didn’t study law.

We didn’t start the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam was his own agent - not our puppet or the Soviets. The conclusion that “we always had him” is ridiculous. Despite American private companies that allegedly provided chemical and biological agents to Iraq under a “don’t ask questions” policy, Reagan’s stance against the use of WMDs was a thorn in our relationship with Saddam that prevented us from doing more disdainful things in our support of him.

That said: agreed, it’s a black mark on us. Does that mean we shouldn’t fix a problem that we helped create? Assuming that you think we should not support oppressive dictators, then you should be a Bush supporter. He’s changed our cold war policies and has criticized our previous practice of supporting thugs to maintain a false security. In its place, Bush has reaffirmed our goal of spreading democracy to enhance a real stability in the world. You can bet that there will be more black marks, moments of hypocrisy and realpolitiking in the execution of this new stance, but the stance is good.

12:56 PM

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