connecting*the*dots

So I ended up watching PBS Frontline last night about the Saddam/Iraqi crisis going back 25 years.

Either our government is perpetually run by a bunch of short-sighted morons or we’ve always had long-term vision for conflict and strife. I really don’t know which one is more frightening, but at least one is the truth.

The CIA gave Saddam power. Our tax dollars went to overthrowing the previous Iraqi government (which in the process led to close to 1,000 executions by Sadaam on coming to power) and handing the reigns of a strategically important country in the Middle East to a wanna be dictator, who frequently and vociferously declared that he longed to be the “Sword of the East” to destroy the West.

Now please answer this question for me: Were the men running this nation at the time so stupid to think that this wouldn’t come back to haunt us? OR were they so obsessed with overthrowing Iran that putting a maniac like Saddam in office was just an afterthought as long as he could do the job? That seems to be the standard operating procedure for our government; insert dictator in land a to accomplish disputable goal b so our hands don’t smell like c.

I went to art school, but hell, even I took Algebra. If a=b and b=c then a=c. Karma is fuzzy math, our actions are not.

So now we swoop in to “defend the safety of Americans.” Oh yeah, we also want to end an era of human suffering in Iraq. I guess it only took us 12 years to realize that there were human beings there, and not just brown people. I mention that because after we kicked the shit out of Sadaam the first time around in Desert Storm, we urged the Iraqi people to overthrow the government… from the decks of our aircraft carriers.

And what happened when the people actually rose up to take back their country? General Stormin’ Norman gave the Iraqi’s permission to fly armed helicopters in the just established “no-fly zone,” leading to the systematic killing of the resistance movement.

All the while the Iraqi people are pleading for us to come in and finish the job of taking out Saddam, Colin, Daddy Bush and the rest of the world sat back in containment mode.

Look, I’m not against removing Saddam, but this country has made so many blunders in Iraq since the 70’s, I’m just discusted how we’re attempting to storm in there and sweep the proverbial dirt under the proverbial rug.

Sadaam is our Frankenstein. Where’s the accountability?