Bloody Hands of Saddam Hussein Drip on United States (12/30/06)
With the execution of Saddam Hussein, the United States has lost an ally-turned-enemy. What it has gained remains to be seen.
When Hussein invaded Iran in September 1980, the Carter Administration applauded. When he used chemical weapons during that war, the Reagan Administration looked the other way. When he told us he would invade Kuwait in 1990, the Bush I Administration said we would stay out of it.
Then he did what he said he would do and the Bush I Administration sent troops to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait. Politicians of both sides of the party stopped calling him "our man in Baghdad" and started calling him the "Butcher of Baghdad." Conveniently, we were dropping the Soviet Union as an enemy and needed a new one during this time.
We talked about the upholding of principles and the rule of law, but when the Bush I Administration persuaded the daughter of a Kuwaiti government official to testify before Congress about atrocities in Kuwait without revealing her true identity, we crossed a line. Is it ever necessary to lie about true evil?
The same man whom Donald Rumsfeld went to make peace with in 1984 as an emissary of the Reagan Administration was our new punching bag from Desert Storm on. Several times under Presidents Bush I and Clinton we bombed Iraq, ostensibly for disobeying United Nations resolutions. Yet we had hid our anger over his previous transgressions, like the invasion of Iran, because they favored us. Whether we admit to it or not, we assisted Hussein in his early crimes.
Hussein's enemy phase ran its course after 9/11. We had a new enemy now in Osama bin Laden and a new war in the "War against Terrorism" and no longer needed Hussein. So we made up some reasons to attack Iraq and later changed the subject by starting to speak of Iraqi democracy, all the while plotting Hussein's eventual demise.
If the Iraqis ever do switch to a democracy, they ought to consider the lack of principle the United States has shown in dealing with Saddam Hussein. A nation that says it opposes invasions of other nations and the murder of its people cannot hold the hand of one who commits these crimes. Even if the nation shakes off the hold of the dictator, it cannot shake off the blood from his hands.