posted December 18, 2003 11:07 AM              

Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.

America used to like Saddam. We LOVED Saddam. We funded him. We armed him. We helped him gas Iranian troops.

But then he screwed up. He invaded the dictatorship of Kuwait and, in doing so, did the worst thing imaginable -- he threatened an even BETTER friend of ours: the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, and its vast oil reserves. The Bushes and the Saudi royal family were and are close business partners, and Saddam, back in 1990, committed a royal blunder by getting a little too close to their wealthy holdings. Things went downhill for Saddam from there.

But it wasn't always that way. Saddam was our good friend and ally. We supported his regime. It wasn’t the first time we had helped a murderer. We liked playing Dr. Frankenstein. We created a lot of monsters -- the Shah of Iran, Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile -- and then we expressed ignorance or shock when they ran amok and massacred people. We liked Saddam because he was willing to fight the Ayatollah. So we made sure that he got billions of dollars to purchase weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. That's right, he had them. We should know -- we gave them to him!

We allowed and encouraged American corporations to do business with Saddam in the 1980s. That's how he got chemical and biological agents so he could use them in chemical and biological weapons. Here's the list of some of the stuff we sent him (according to a 1994 U.S. Senate report):
* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.
* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.
* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

And here are some of the American corporations who helped to prop Saddam up by doing business with him: AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (for a full list of companies and descriptions of how they helped Saddam, click here. http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php

We were so cozy with dear old Saddam that we decided to feed him satellite images so he could locate where the Iranian troops were. We pretty much knew how he would use the information, and sure enough, as soon as we sent him the spy photos, he gassed those troops. And we kept quiet. Because he was our friend, and the Iranians were the "enemy." A year after he first gassed the Iranians, we reestablished full diplomatic relations with him!

Later he gassed his own people, the Kurds. You would think that would force us to disassociate ourselves from him. Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn’t let anything derail their good buddy Saddam. We had a virtual love fest with this Frankenstein whom we (in part) created.

And, just like the mythical Frankenstein, Saddam eventually spun out of control. He would no longer do what he was told by his master. Saddam had to be caught. And now that he has been brought back from the wilderness, perhaps he will have something to say about his creators. Maybe we can learn something... interesting. Maybe Don Rumsfeld could smile and shake Saddam's hand again. Just like he did when he went to see him in 1983 (click here to see the photo). http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Maybe we never would have been in the situation we're in if Rumsfeld, Bush, Sr., and company hadn't been so excited back in the 80s about their friendly monster in the desert.

Meanwhile, anybody know where the guy is who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Our other Frankenstein?? Maybe he's in a mouse hole.

So many of our little monsters, so little time before the next election.

Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These ******** sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.

Only our desire to play Dr. Frankenstein dooms us all.

Yours,

posted December 18, 2003 01:45 PM            

I also understand why he writes so angrily.
It is because of the very important point he makes with this article.. it's a crucial point to consider.

America did support Saddam when he was committing horrific human rights abuses.
Not only did we turn a blind eye, but we gave him the weapons to do so.

Are we going to continue to let the institutions of war continue to create monsters just so we can later send our countrymen off to die attempting to remove them?

posted December 18, 2003 04:35 PM            

I may not have liked Bill Clinton, but I never stooped to those levels. He was still my president and he still deserved respect.

posted December 18, 2003 06:15 PM            

I think the question we should be asking ourselves IS: How in the world did a known dictator elude the US military with 1 billion US dollars with 1/3 of it being newly printed 100 US bills that wasn't even issued to the United States yet?

posted December 18, 2003 07:38 PM              

I saw his documentary "BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE" I recommend anyone to see it. It was very well down, and he has recieved a lot of controversy over it.

A lot of people debase his view points, but they are worth considering. People are too concerned with facts; those facts come from the regular media such as CNN or FOX. Not me, but some people can argue those sources are not reliable either. We'll never know for sure who is telling the truth or not. Why bother really?

posted December 18, 2003 08:50 PM            

Why bother when so many people can't seem to see past their emotional need for security to see difficult truths? Our society is a much more comforting place to dwell if you trust what the 6 major media conglomerates are attempting to shove down everyone's throat.
Who am I to take that comfort away?
But then, who are we to sacrifice others' lives for the sake of our comfort?

Tis quite a conundrum for me at times.

posted December 19, 2003 02:29 AM            

I'm wondering if she's thinking what I've been thinking,if all the events that have accured with the US and Iraq and the goal that Bush wants for Iraq,is nothing more then a reverberation of The Platt Amendment laid out on Cuba over a hundred years ago,take a wild guess how that turned out,eventually!

I guess old habits die hard!

posted December 19, 2003 09:45 AM            

Someone with a weary and sore could almost take that as an insult Yet, being one of them, I don`t. We all have a purpose and we`re walking that path to fullfillment in different ways. The insult would be to underestimate those quietly doing their best with what they have and lumping them together in a blanket statement Our different attitudes and attributes are what makes us unique and totally wonderful.

Merry Christmas, juniperb

posted December 19, 2003 12:46 PM            

I know and LOVE these people.
They are my family and my friends.

And yet, I can say that sometimes my loved ones frustrate me. And I feel terrible that I'm frustrated about them not walking along the path of seeing what I percieve to be truth as quickly as I'd like. I feel terrible because I don't think my frustration is going to make a lick of difference, unless I act from that place and then it will only serve to push people away.. I know that there are many roads to morning. We all must make our own way in the world. And yet, no matter what my rational mind says, emotionally I am frustrated.

I fear for my son's future. I fear for it at the hands of those who would succumb to overwhelming greed and allow it override their humanity. Many people like this, as I see it, sit in very powerful positions in our country (and elsewhere in the world) and they only grasp for ever increasing amounts of power and authority and wealth. I don't know what to do about this and I know that in the conversations I've had with my friends and family that are as you described, juniperb, when presented with the facts in plainest terms and they finally admit the direness of the situation, still bump up against this emotional need for security that shuts them down. This doesn't cause me to love them any less.. They are human, like me. We really aren't aren't any different on some levels. To ponder these issues that are becoming ever more desperate is to deal with the powerful emotions that come with them.
Fear, helplessness, sorrow, anger..
All too often the emotions that are brought up by just living one's life without thinking about these things are difficult enought to deal with. My mother, my best friend (a staunch republican, btw) both think I'm completely bizarre and even masochistic to get involved with activism of this sort.
Maybe I am. I don't know.

posted December 19, 2003 03:44 PM              

As you may have noticed, my language is not English, for this reason a lot of times I don't get to detect offensive words.
I don't know if someone here speech other language, but when we do, a lot of times we used words that can offend, even without having this intention.
I, particularly, didn't notice an offensive tone in his article, but like I already mentioned, sometimes that happens even without my intention. So, I make mine harpyr’s words, “I apologize if any of this upsets or offends anyone.”

Yet, with certainty I noticed Michael Moore's indignation. The indignation of someone that feels that such obvious facts pass unnoticed to the eyes of so many people.

No one possesses the truth's monopoly, especially because truth it's soooo relative ...

What I know is that there was an invasion - we will never be able to classified it as a war- to a country that was controlled by a sanguinary dictator. And we already discuss – unceasingly - per months, in this forum, which were the real reasons.
Power, oil, altruism in defending a people that was massacred by their chief in command, WMD, etc, etc... each one of us pointed a cause and nobody got to convince nobody that his/her point of view was valid.
Then, I don't know if this subject continues important, after all, the fact is that what was done was done and nothing can change that.

Yet, anyone that has a minimum of information, knows that Saddam was helped by the US government – Regan/Bush - to developed his weapons of mass destruction. As far as I know, there were never ‘made in Iraq’ bio or chemical weapons.

Saddam is (was) a laboratory's creature that this same government thought he could control... But sometimes, things doesn't work in the way as they were drifted...Then as Michael Moore said, the creature decided that he would be independent of his creator, that’s when the problem was created.

And now what?

Now we have a destroyed country with a population that is suffering the lack of the most basic things, as water, light, food etc, - that without mentioning the ten years of embargo that caused the death of approximately 500 thousand children in agreement to the Red Cross.

We have 660 prisoners locked in Cuba totally private of their most basic legal rights.

We have thousands of soldiers - that know when they arrived but don't know when they will leave Iraq - daily, vulnerable to suffer terrorists attack.

We have the entire world feeling threatened and disappointed by an invasion based on hypothetical evidence not in concrete facts.

We have this new American policy that effectively allows the United States to strike any nation that you feel might attack you, rather than knowing that they will.

And finally, we have a dictator that should be judged by the crimes that he committed.

Then, what to do due this situation?

The minimum that President Bush can do is give to this man an impartial judgement.
The most suitable would be the International Penal Tribunal of Haia, what is impossible since US don't recognize the legitimacy and the jurisdiction of this tribunal.
The least suitable would be an Iraq tribunal, however it is exactly that that we will see.

Again I ask:
What legitimacy will this tribunal have?
Which is the effective penal code in this tribunal?
The code of Iraq?
Which Iraq?
The one before or after the occupation?
BTW, do they have a legislation for such trial ?

Even wanting to believe that all those questions would be fixed somehow, once again, I was disappointed when I saw Saddam being exposed before the tv cameras of the whole world as an animal, submitted to a medical exam that had - in reality - the intention of humiliating him.

On that moment I said to myself; " My God, it’s sooooo difficult to people realize that the only way to not go down at the same level that Saddam, is to give him what he didn't gave to his victims.
It’s to be what he never got to be: fair. And to allow him to have what his victims never had: justice !

Jackie

"I may disapprove what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Voltaire

posted December 19, 2003 03:45 PM              

Thank God I'm not the only ignorant person of this huge world.

Jackie

posted December 19, 2003 04:45 PM            

I'm going out of my leage on this one,with with this rock band. Maybe this IS the 'New American Dream'...

2112:
"I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon. City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey. The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky. I used to think I had a pretty good life here, just plugging into my machine for the day, then watching Templevision or reading a Temple Paper in the evening.

"My friend Jon always said it was nicer here than under the atmospheric domes of the Outer Planets. We have had peace since 2062, when the surviving planets were banded together under the Red Star of the Solar Federation. The less fortunate gave us a few new moons.
I believed what I was told. I thought it was a good life, I thought I was happy. Then I found something that changed it all..."

I. Overture

And the meek shall inherit the earth...

II. Temples of Syrinx

... "The massive grey walls of the Temples rise from the heart of every Federation city. I have always been awed by them, to think that every single facet of every life is regulated and directed from within! Our books, our music, our work and play are all looked after by the benevolent wisdom of the priests..."

We've taken care of everything
The words you hear, the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes.
It's one for all and all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or why.

We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.
We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

Look around at this world we've made
Equality our stock in trade
Come and join the Brotherhood of Man
Oh, what a nice, contented world
Let the banners be unfurled
Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand.

We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.
We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

III. Discovery

... "Behind my beloved waterfall, in the little room that was hidden beneath the cave, I found it. I brushed away the dust of the years, and picked it up, holding it reverently in my hands. I had no idea what it might be, but it was beautiful" ...

... "I learned to lay my fingers across the wires, and to turn the keys to make them sound differently. As I struck the wires with my other hand, I produced my first harmonious sounds, and soon my own music! How different it could be from the music of the Temples! I can't wait to tell the priests about it! ..."

What can this strange device be?
When I touch it, it gives forth a sound
It's got wires that vibrate and give music
What can this thing be that I found?

See how it sings like a sad heart
And joyously screams out its pain
Sounds that build high like a mountain
Or notes that fall gently like rain.

I can't wait to share this new wonder
The people will all see its light
Let them all make their own music
The Priests praise my name on this night.

IV. Presentation

... "In the sudden silence as I finished playing, I looked up to a circle of grim, expressionless faces. Father Brown rose to his feet, and his somnolent voice echoed throughout the silent Temple Hall." ...

... "Instead of the grateful joy that I expected, they were words of quiet rejection! Instead of praise, sullen dismissal. I watched in shock and horror as Father Brown ground my precious instrument to splinters beneath his feet..."

I know it's most unusual
To come before you so
But I've found an ancient miracle
I thought that you should know
Listen to my music
And hear what it can do
There's something here as strong as life
I know that it will reach you.

Yes, we know, it's nothing new
It's just a waste of time
We have no need for ancient ways
The world is doing fine
Another toy will help destroy
The elder race of man
Forget about your silly whim
It doesn't fit the plan.

I can't believe you're saying
These things just can't be true
Our world could use this beauty
Just think what we might do.
Listen to my music
And hear what it can do
There's something here as strong as life
I know that it will reach you.

Don't annoy us further!
We have our work to do.
Just think about the average
What use have they for you?
Another toy will help destroy
The elder race of man
Forget about your silly whim
It doesn't fit the Plan!

V. Oracle: The Dream

... "I guess it was a dream, but even now it all seems so vivid to me. Clearly yet I see the beckoning hand of the oracle as he stood at the summit of the staircase" ...

... "I see still the incredible beauty of the sculptured cities and the pure spirit of man revealed in the lives and works of this world. I was overwhelmed by both wonder and understanding as I saw a completely different way to life, a way that had been crushed by the Federation long ago. I saw now how meaningless life had become with the loss of all these things ..."

I wandered home though the silent streets
And fell into a fitful sleep
Escape to realms beyond the night
Dream can't you show me the light?

I stand atop a spiral stair
An oracle confronts me there
He leads me on light years away
Through astral nights, galactic days
I see the works of gifted hands
That grace this strange and wondrous land
I see the hand of man arise
With hungry mind and open eyes

They left the planet long ago
The elder race still learn and grow
Their power grows with purpose strong
To claim the home where they belong
Home to tear the Temples down...
Home to change!

VI. Soliloquy

... "I have not left this cave for days now, it has become my last refuge in my total despair. I have only the music of the waterfall to comfort me now. I can no longer live under the control of the Federation, but there is no other place to go. My last hope is that with my death I may pass into the world of my dream, and know peace at last."

The sleep is still in my eyes
The dream is still in my head
I heave a sigh and sadly smile
And lie a while in bed
I wish that it might come to pass
Not fade like all my dreams...

Just think of what my life might be
In a world like I have seen!
I don't think I can carry on
Carry on this cold and empty life

My spirits are low in the depths of despair
My lifeblood...
...spills over...

VII. The Grand Finale
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
We have assumed control.
We have assumed control.
We have assumed control.

posted December 19, 2003 05:36 PM              

It's you people that have destroyed the Democratic party...

You've lost Congress,

now the Senate TOO,

AND YOU WILL LOSE the 2004 Presidential election... mark my words!

Can't you see that your radical liberal ideologues have split the Democratic party
You continue to polarize yourselves even further from the American mainstream...

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN, you keep losing elections, Republicans have achieved HUGE successes...

And it's all cause the RADICAL Democrats have polarized themselves TOO FAR from the moderate Democrats...

The civil war within the Democratic party and the resulting shambles of it's structure & support, is all the fault of people like Michael Moore... LOL

posted December 19, 2003 05:52 PM              

WON CONGRESS, WON THE SENATE, Won 2 democratic governorships from the South, won California's Recall... I can list more, just ask...

People I apologize if I come across as belittling... If I were to speak this to your face it would be in a happy, somber tone, and not yelling at you...

In all honesty I would like to see a strong Democratic candidate to overcome Bush... But GOSHDARNIT! The Democrats keep shooting themselves in the foot... this Dean Camp vs. Clinton Camp has TO STOP... it really doesn't help anyone...

posted December 19, 2003 05:53 PM              

Mercury Rx has brought Lost Leo back!

posted December 19, 2003 06:04 PM              

Well I cruise thru daily to use the link to Nation States (my country rocks!) and I just feel some of the commentary in here gets too one-sided... so much so that someone has to knock them off their ideologically pedastal...

posted December 19, 2003 06:20 PM            

quote:

---

WON CONGRESS, WON THE SENATE, Won 2 democratic governorships from the South, won California's Recall... I can list more, just ask...

---

That doesn't hold any water LL,the pendulum will always swing.