Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, two of the biggest boogeymen in our day and age, were hand-crafted by many of the same people in the current Bush Administration. Bush deserves fault for failing to capture Osama and for destroying a country that posed no threat to us. But what's even worse is that Cheney and Rumsfeld setup the battlefield long ago.
REPUBLICAN MONSTER #1: Saddam Hussein
(video here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/shakinghands_high.wmv )
Saddam became a monstrous dictator because of the Reagan administration. Rumsfeld met with him in December of 1983 after over a year of negotiations on how the U.S. would secretly back Iraq and help them defeat Iran. Ironically, it was the Reagan administration's illegal dealings with Iran that led to an upset in the 1980 Presidential election. On the day Reagan became President, the American hostages were freed when their demands were met. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_scandal )
But Reagan (including Cheney and Rumsfeld) weren't done medling with the terrorists. From the article linked above:
In 1983, members of Al-Dawa ("The Call"), an exiled Iraq political party turned militant organization, were imprisoned for their part in a series of truck bombs in Kuwait. In response to the imprisonment, an ally of Al-Dawa, Hezbollah took 30 hostages, six of whom were American. Hezbollah demanded the release of the prisoners for these hostages. Members of the Reagan Administration believed that by selling arms to Iran, Iran would influence the Hezbollah kidnappers in Lebanon to release their hostages. At the time, Iran was in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War and could find few nations willing to supply it with weapons. It would also, according to National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, improve strained relations with Iran. For that reason, President Reagan authorized the transfer of weapons to Iran.
The "Members of the Reagan Administration" were Cheney and Rumsfeld, the same two criminals who have been wrong about the Iraqi's greeting us as "liberators" and the resistence being in its death throes.
However, in 1982, the year before they were selling weapons to Iran, they were dealing with Iraq. From
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82 By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism.
For all the Republicans who today love to point out that Saddam had chemical weapons and used them against Iran and the Kurds... they should realize that their beloved Reagan officials were wheeling and dealing with Saddam
AFTER he started using WMDs in JULY of 1983 and escalated their use through NOVEMBER of 1983,
ONE MONTH before Rumsfeld was shaking his hand. And Rumsfeld certainly didn't go there to scold Saddam about the use of Chemical Weapons... he was there to discuss
Regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting.
And in 1984 and beyond, when Iraq was using chemical weapons produced by dual use equipment provided by the U.S., the U.S. only had this to say: "we presumed that this was Iraq's intention (to use the equipment for military purposes), and had not asked." (with regard to dual use equipment).
And when asked whether the U.S.'s conclusion that Iraq had used chemical weapons would have "any effect on U.S. recent initiatives to expand commercial relationships with Iraq across a broad range, and also a willingness to open diplomatic relations," the department's spokesperson said "No. I'm not aware of any change in our position. We're interested in being involved in a closer dialogue with Iraq"
In fact,
while the U.N. was condemning Iraq (something the freepers like to do today, they're a bit behind I'm afraid), between the years of 1983 and 1990,
the U.S. sold over $200 MILLION in weapons to Iraq. This doesn't count the 100s of millions of dollars in dual use equipment that was sold to them by the U.S. (including helicopters that were immediately made into military vehicles). In addition,
the Republican Administrations gave over $5 BILLION in agricultural credits (reference with sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Pre-war_Iraqi-American_relations )
In late July of 1990, negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait began to stall. The U.S. informed Saddam:
We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late ’60s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via (Chadli) Klibi (then Arab League General Secretary) or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly.
To Saddam this was a green light to invade Kuwait, and the Bush administration, another Republican administration, knew it. The rest, well, is more recent history, and we all pretty much know that Saddam has been the punching bag for the Republicans, the very people who put him in power and gave him weapons and who turned a blind eye when he was using WMDs.
REPUBLICAN MONSTER #2: Osama Bin Laden
Now what about this Bin Laden character? It's seems his story is a bit simpler. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Bin Laden became militarily involved by forming the Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, Office of Order in English) in 1984. The MAK provided funding from the Bin Laden fortunes and worked with Pakistan to provide a steady stream of jihad fighters into Afghanistan. From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#Family_and_childhoodSome have said that MAK was supported by the governments of Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia, and that the three countries channeled their supplies through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This account is vehemently denied by the U.S. government, which maintains that U.S. aid went only to Afghan fighters, and that Afghan Arabs had their own sources of funding, an account also supported by Al Qaeda itself <15>.
Robin Cook, former leader of the British House of Commons and Foreign Secretary from 1997-2001, wrote in The Guardian on Friday, July 8, 2005,
Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."
By 1988, Bin Laden split off from MAK to for Al Qaeda. In 1990, Bin Laden denounced Saudi Arabia's (his home country) dependence on the U.S. and demanded the end of U.S. Military bases in Saudi Arabia. Ironically, these bases were established during and after the Gulf War, a connection between these two demons we face today, both brought to you by Republican Foreign Policy. Of course, we know the rest of the story... Bin Laden attacked military targets, embassies, and the World Trade Center (even though he's denied the 9/11 attacks). Bin Laden finally won a major objective when George W. Bush closed the U.S. Military bases in Saudi Arabia. Mission Accomplished.
Republicans should realize that they are the #1 sponsors of terrorism. I can't think of any better reason for them to switch parties and vote Democratic in this year's election. That is, unless, Republican voters LIKE to sponsor more terrorism.
A vote for a Republican is a vote for Terrorism.
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