Monday, October 11, 2004
Defending Hussein?
A Mr. CC from Texas wrote to Downsize DC (my day job) and said that we had claimed that, "that Hussein wasn't the brutal dictator that our politicians claim he is." He went on to point out that, "It was Hussein who committed the Chemical Massacre of the Kurds." Then he asked, "If that wasn't the work of a dictator, what kind of person was Hussein?"
I have never, ever said Saddam Hussein was not a brutal dictator... he was.
However, to answer CC's question very precisely, the Kurd gassing story is very questionable, if not an outright myth -- part of a pre-war propoganda campaign designed to further demonize Hussein. The mass killing of Kurds to which CC appeals took place during the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S. government was on Iraq's side. As we documented at TruthAboutWar.org, both sides of the Iran-Iraq War were using different chemical agents on each other. The (U.S.) Army War College believes that the chemicals that killed the Kurds were Iranian, not Iraqi.
But CC's question still must be addressed, because the contention that we were fighting the war to bring freedom to Iraq is part of a massive public relations campaign on behalf of the President, based on the premise that if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed. We did not go to war to fight dictators. Besides, that argument would've been insufficient to get the American people to allow any President to take such unprecedented action.
But if CC or anyone else reading this message believes that our government should be in the business of dethroning brutal dictators, then our government should stop funding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, each of which have consistently funneled money to brutal dictators and oppresive socialist regimes, who have in turn used these very funds to oppress their people. It is also interesting to note that NO ONE in the Bush administration is proposing going to the continent of Africa to stop far larger numbers of people from being dislocated from their homes and, all-too-often, brutally slaughtered.
A Mr. CC from Texas wrote to Downsize DC (my day job) and said that we had claimed that, "that Hussein wasn't the brutal dictator that our politicians claim he is." He went on to point out that, "It was Hussein who committed the Chemical Massacre of the Kurds." Then he asked, "If that wasn't the work of a dictator, what kind of person was Hussein?"
I have never, ever said Saddam Hussein was not a brutal dictator... he was.
However, to answer CC's question very precisely, the Kurd gassing story is very questionable, if not an outright myth -- part of a pre-war propoganda campaign designed to further demonize Hussein. The mass killing of Kurds to which CC appeals took place during the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S. government was on Iraq's side. As we documented at TruthAboutWar.org, both sides of the Iran-Iraq War were using different chemical agents on each other. The (U.S.) Army War College believes that the chemicals that killed the Kurds were Iranian, not Iraqi.
But CC's question still must be addressed, because the contention that we were fighting the war to bring freedom to Iraq is part of a massive public relations campaign on behalf of the President, based on the premise that if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed. We did not go to war to fight dictators. Besides, that argument would've been insufficient to get the American people to allow any President to take such unprecedented action.
But if CC or anyone else reading this message believes that our government should be in the business of dethroning brutal dictators, then our government should stop funding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, each of which have consistently funneled money to brutal dictators and oppresive socialist regimes, who have in turn used these very funds to oppress their people. It is also interesting to note that NO ONE in the Bush administration is proposing going to the continent of Africa to stop far larger numbers of people from being dislocated from their homes and, all-too-often, brutally slaughtered.
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