Bravo Romeo Delta over at Protein Wisdom has an excellent post up dealing with one of the lefties constant attack points. That point being that we, meaning the United States, supported Saddam while he gassed his own people:
In Darlene’s Post ”Peace at any Price”, one commenter, Alphie, makes the assertion that the U.S. played an arguably dominant role in the creation of the Iraqi CW capability, as noted below:
Sure we didn’t sell Saddam chemical weapons, Tom.
What do you think Rummy was dropping off for Saddam in the famous handshake photo?
Subsequently, he was asked to provide further information to support his assertion, which he did in his comment here. The document he provided is a U.S. State Department memo to Lawrence Eagleburger (then Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs – the number three at State) dated November 22, 1982, entitled “Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons”.
What did the memo say? Well here are a few clues:
In keeping with our policy of seeking a halt to CW use wherever it occurs, we have been considering the most effective means to halt further Iraqi CW use including, as a first step, a direct approach to Iraq.
We raise the issue now neither to into a confrontational exchange with you, nor to lend support to the views of others; but, rather, because it is a long-standing policy of the U.S. to oppose the use of lethal CW.
Over many decades the U.S. has sought to deter the use of lethal and incapacitating CW when their use appeared to loom as a possibility. Iraq’s use of lethal or incapacitating CW could further undercut an important agreement observed by nearly all nations against chemical warfare.
And many more….check it out.
Silly moonbats.
See author page
It is my understanding that what support we gave to Saddam was mainly to prevent his being overpowered by Iran. Basically we supported him to a stalemate. It wasn’t in our interests for either Iran or Iraq to win. So yes, he was gassing his people and yes we were providing him with some support (mainly intelligence, if I recall correctly). Can you imagine if either side had won the Iran/Iraq war? I think I am rather glad we gave Saddam a little help.
I’ve dealt with the same idiocy on my pages. I have told more than one of these loons to either give the credible evidence that Rumsfeld, or Reagan gave Saddam help with chemical weapons or acquiesced to the gassing of the Kurds or shut up.
They come back with that same photo of Saddam and Rummy which proves nothing.
Their insistence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction sure does undermine their insistence that Saddam had NO weapons of mass destruction.
But when you confront them with that inconsistency they just try and change the subject.
To them it’s all a game. It’s not like anyone of them gave a damn about the poor Iraqis or Kurds murdered by Saddam.