Saddam on trial
 

So I read that Saddam is going to be charged with a 1982 massacre.

Saddam punished a Shiite village where his convoy was fired upon by killing dozens of men & boys and imprisoning 100, later to kill many of the prisoners.

...which got me to thinking about the date of this photo:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1121810007.jpg

That's our boy Rumsfeld, special envoy from R. Reagan, greeting Saddam the year following the village massacre.

So, I guess our standards for cooperating with "madmen" was somewhat lower in the Reagan years.

In fact, in February 1982 the State Department had removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism.

For the balance of the Reagan years, abundant financial and military aid was given to Saddam.

It will be interesting to see some of this come out in his trial.

For those inclined to want to know more about our history with Saddam, click here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

It's a crime to retaliate and kill and imprison civilians.

But tech..that photo must be doctored. It can't be true..What left wing nut job site did you get THAT from?

(Just want to beat out mule, fint and others to the punch)

Even if the big cheese wanted to assassinate your dad?

But really, haven't you guys always befriended / trained / supported your future enemies ;)

andrew..That seems to be nothing new. AS a simple example, Japan was an ally in the first World War, and so on. Nothing new here. The problem is and always will be that hindsight is always 20/20 and foresight does not exist!!

Yeah - I guess enemies always change, but come on guys - Training and supporting Osama to fight the Russians in Afganistan back in the 80's MUST have seemed like a bad idea to someone!

Future presidential inaugurations should include the phrase 'The enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend'

andrew..wise beyond the norm. One WOULD think that intelligent assumptions could be made about potential future ramifications. But, it seems as if there is a thing called political myopia. We can see it here in this little microcosm called "Off Topic Discussions" . People of all strong political beliefs will cling to past and current decisions as if they were engraved in stone.

Actually, I have to admit, I was all for supporting the mujahadeen back then. I was unaware (as most Americans) of how much help we were sending (we disguised it by giving them Kalashnikovs not Colt ARs). It's the Stingers we gave them that are most regrettable today.

Talk about unforeseen results. Who would have thought the head mujahadeen would become a bitter enemy. But was that mainly due to how we treated them after the Soviets finally left? That's something I'd really like to read up on...

Osama in particular seemed to like the idea of the US supporting, but not being direcly involved with troops in the Middle East. After the Russians left Afganistan, the US withdrew their support and it created that good old tribal warlord thingy.

What seems to have driven Osama around the bend is that the US rebuffed his offer to take care of Saddam with his happy bandits. Instead, the US set up a large base of operation in Saudi Araibia and in Osamas mind, desecrated a holy land. Yes, we know Osama is a very very bad man :), but doesn't he really just want the US out of the Middle East? I mean, where was this threat of terrorism when the US wasn't involved with ground forces?

Yup - I do think we can all learn from history. Noah, I totally agree - this has been an issue since the beginning of time. I still can't believe that world leaders never seem to learn...