iain Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 this quick reply make will make pagetops way too easy Quote
Ratboy Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 Gotta love the lefty thinktank here. Â As well as the righty reactionaries. Quote
Dru Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 i dont think its any faster than regular reply Quote
Dru Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 iain said: ***You are Ignoring This User*** Â What's that Mr. Ignored User Quote
iain Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 iain said: ***You are Ignoring This User*** Â ***You are Ignoring This User*** Â eh? Quote
JayB Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 from this lefty intellectual's blog  But in the coming year the Democratic candidates just have to take off these kid gloves. I'd begin by asking some hard questions about Republican administrations' past relationship with Saddam. Put that photo of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand in 1983 in the commercials; ask hard questions about former Reaganites now serving in the Bush administration who supported Saddam to the hilt while he was gassing Iranian troops and Kurds; find out who authorized the US sale of chemical and biological precursors to Saddam; and be so rude as to bring up the horrible betrayal committed by Bush senior when he stood aside and let Saddam massacre all those Shiites in 1991, after they rose up in response to a Bush call for the popular overthrow of Saddam. The US military could have shot down those helicopter gunships that massacred Shiites in Najaf and Basra. Bush senior clearly told them to let Saddam enjoy his killing fields. And imagine, the Bush administration officials are actually getting photo ops at the mass graves their predecessors allowed to be filled with bodies!  What happened Sunday was that the Republicans captured a former ally, with whom they had later fallen out.  I am guessing that there is just an off chance that full-time political strategists who make their living by uncovering and disclosing any and all pieces of information that have the potential to damage their opponents may have considered this move, and since we have heard nothing from them on this matter, they may have decided that it would not be in their interest to do so, and that there is nothing there to exploit that can't be explained by the exigencies of the day.  If this is all the angry Left has got, then that should provide quite a bit of comfort to their ideological adversaries. We supported Hussein because Iran was viewed as a much graver threat by every Western Power. There's quite a number of photos showing FDR shaking Stalin's hand, but thankfully Democrats in those days displayed a degree of sense on matters of defense that hasn't been in evidence since the McGovern nomination. You make the alliances necessary to neutralize the greatest threat facing you at the time, and if you are fortunate enough to succeed, then you worry about how you are going to deal with the devil that you danced with. Stalin, like Hussein, was one such devil and the US lead the world in ridding the planet of both after the greater threat had passed. All any Republican will have to do to respond to a "gloveless" enquiry such as this is explain the geopolitical context, set forth the choices facing the administration at the time, ask the "gloveless" opponent what he would have done and why - then watch the dithering and waffling commence from accross the stage.  As far as Hussein is concerned, The US was hardly alone in supporting him, and I have posted a link that shows total arms sales by country that shows that France and Russia in particular were more active in arming Iraq than the US by far. Link. It's all right there on the graph on page 22. To summarize - between 1973 and 1995 the US exported 5 million dollars worth of arms to Iraq. In the same period, the UK exported 330 million dollars worth, France sold them 9.2 billion dollar's worth (That's 1840 times more than the US exported), Russia exported 31.8 billion dollars worth of arms to Iraq, and China was a distant second with 5.5 billion in exports. These are facts. So please address them before you go on claiming that the US is uniquely responsible for arming Iraq.  As far as the chemical and biological weapons go, the equipment used to manufacture the gases was sold by the Germans, the chemical precursors by an Italian company. The US permitted the sale of media and fermenters that could be used to grow bacteria that could be used for a number of purposes, but never even came close to providing either bioweapons themselves or stocks that the Iraqis could cultivate and weaponize. We've certainly made our share of mistakes as a nation, but let's at least make an effort to be get our facts straight before we enumerate them. Quote
scrambler Posted December 17, 2003 Posted December 17, 2003 Good points, JayB. Â I'm considering my formal declaration of affliation with the GOP. Â ...or not. Quote
chucK Posted December 17, 2003 Posted December 17, 2003 JayB, I agree that "those were different times" and even if you don't agree with what went on then, it is not a slam-dunk to attempt to tar and feather the current administration with the misdeeds of a previous one. Â What stinks is that we are getting one rationalization after another for why we have invaded Iraq. The current version is that Sadam is a terrible evil guy, who does terrible stuff. Even for you this must smack as completely disingenuous when juxtaposed with the fact that the movers and shakers of the current administration were actually facilitating many Sadam's misdeeds just two decades ago. Â Â Quote
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