Sound bite-me.
Recently, a friend of mine who is, well, no big fan of Al Gore, sent me a link to a YouTube video of him talking about Saddam Hussein, terrorism, chemical weapons, etc. The title of the video is “Gore criticizes Bush for ignoring Iraq’s ties to terrorism”, and it has apparently made the rounds of the conservative blog-o-sphere. Apparently this is supposed to be stark evidence of how Al Gore is a giant hypocrite, lambasting Reagan and then-president Bush #41 for not taking Hussein seriously. Now, I really should be doing my French homework, and I’ve been trying hard to stay out of the political arena for a bit to let my neurons regenerate, but I mistakenly just started to poke around to see what the conservatives are saying.
And I found this post.
Now, I really don’t have too much time to get into this (did I mention my French final tomorrow?), but the irony and just blatant ignorant-yet-erudite manner in which this moron proselytizes just got me pissed. He bemoans how people don’t know their own country’s history, and if they only were smarter and paid more attention to what went on the past then we’d understand that “George W Bush is the greatest president to ever live”. Puh-lease.
Ok, brainiac. Here’s a history lesson for you:
- 1951/1953: U.S. through CIA finances/plans/supports a coup in Iran that deposes the democratically elected Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of pro-West Shah.
- 1967: Iraq breaks official relations with U.S. during the Arab-Israeli War
- 1979/1980: Shah of Iran is exiled, Ayatollah Khomeini establishes an Islamic-based government. In response to the U.S. giving harbor to the Shah, the American Embassy in Tehran is stormed and hostages taken. Iran/U.S. relations are broken off. Ronald Reagan elected U.S. President (the Reagan/Bush presidential campaign and their involvement with the hostage crisis is its own amazing story, FYI).
- 1980: Iraq attacks Iran, thinking the destabilized government will be easy to overthrow (not). The Soviets, opposing the war, stop selling arms to both Iraq and Iran. This creates a huge demand for weapons, and the U.S., opposing the anti-West Iran, starts courting Saddam Hussein.
- 1982: U.S. removes Iraq from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
- 1983: Iran and the Kurds report use of chemical and biological weapons on the part of Saddam Hussein. U.S. response is basically nothing, if not even intentionally ignoring/burying the issue. In December of 1983, Rumsfeld makes his famous “handshake” with Saddam Hussein. U.S. starts selling helicopters and other munitions to Iraq, including anthrax (for research purposes only, of course).
- 1985/1986: U.S. is caught selling weapons to Iran to fund right-wing Contras in Nicaragua, the so-called “Iran-Contra” affair that should have gotten Reagan and many others impeached and/or imprisoned. This, no doubt, seriously pissed off Hussein, and the U.S. gets more hard-lined with Iran, and more friendly with Iraq, in order to maintain at least one friend in the region.
- 1988: Iran calls for a cease fire. Iraq refuses, continuing to use chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurdish rebels within Iraq. Eventually, Hussein backs down and agrees to a cease-fire.
- 1990: Iraq accuses Kuwait of economic warfare, of stealing oil. Iraq invades Kuwait, U.S. replies with Operation Desert Shield, as we had very close ties with Kuwait, did not want one country in the region with too much oil to control (monopoly), and viewed hegemony within the Middle East as disruptive and therefore threatening to oil flow.
Ok hot shot, in that context, I think Al Gore had a pretty good perch to sit on when criticizing the Reagan/Bush legacy of selling weapons, both biological and conventional, to someone like Saddam Hussein. And their motive? Mostly anti-soviet; don’t forget that Reagan certainly harbored plenty of “red-scare” feelings. But also it was playing all sides of the field in order to maintain a geopolitical influence and control of oil flow in the region, at the expense of dealing with extremists in Iran (both the revolutionaries and the Ayatollah, as well as Saddam Hussein). Bed down with one devil to spite another.
Did Gore advocate invading Iraq and overthrowing Hussein? No; he just criticized funding the bastard and lambasted ignoring his terrorist activities and human-rights abuses. Does he advocate disrupting the balance of power within the region, and bringing about civil war, increased terrorism and one giant cluster!*#@? Not at all. So please, please, explain to me what part of history do I not get. Hmmm? Or am I just one of those “Americans [that] are not educated enough or do not have the ability to understand these things”? Honestly, if you think your little rant about history proves that President W. Fucknut is really just a super guy and that Gore, et. al. are a bunch of hypocritical whiners, well then you’re sorely mistaken.
But I will give you this- the current crop of Democrats are a bunch of nutjobs too. You say that Clinton/Gore didn’t do anything in their 8 years in the Whitehouse about Iraq. Well, that’s partly true. They did continue on with the sanctions that devastated the people of Iraq, which also kept Hussein from getting WMDs and sponsoring terrorism as fully as it had in the past. Talk about a turd blossom- there’s one fore you. The Hussein of 2003 was no where near as powerful as the Hussein of 1990; still a tyrannical insane dictator, but nowhere near the international threat that he as made out to be. I don’t credit Clinton/Gore for that, but hey, that’s not really the point here.
Yes, the Democrats capitulated to Bush when he got a-warrin’. Yes, they are as responsible for the nightmare in Iraq as Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the rest of those war criminals. Hillary scares the bejesus out of me for all of her flip-flopping and pandering and promises to have as low of a set of scruples and morales and the rest of them. But that doesn’t make George Bush a hero, not in any way, shape or form. He’s the one that manufactured intelligence to lead us to war. He’s the one that upped U.S. hegemony in the most unstable region on the planet to 11. He’s the one that bullied his way into a war that anybody with half a brain, anybody who knew even a little bit of history, knew was going to be a disaster.
And you’re the one lamenting that people aren’t “educated enough” or “have the ability to understand these things”. Sheesh.
-c
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June 19th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Gore’s point, in the context of the 1992 presidential campaign was clear — if George H.W. Bush wants credit for the 1991 Gulf War, he ought to also accept responsibility for helping enable Saddam Hussein for the better part of a decade…
June 19th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Yes, I thought it was very clear. But it seems to be the nature of the political arena to ignore what people actually say and believe what you want to feel from it. That’s the heart of truthiness, I guess. And I suppose that has been around for as long as oration itself, but it seems to have gotten overly rampant and extreme in the past few years.
I read an interesting article once, where the author was claiming that the Internet served to make our society more divided, and issues more polemical. That kind of flies in the face of “the net bringing us all together” meme, but it kinda makes sense. Given any view you might have, there is going to be a cadre of people out there that totally agree with you. Why reach out and have an argument with someone you disagree with when you can just lurk with those of similar minds? Then there is less motivation to actually delve into issues, to struggle with a topic to perhaps become more enlightened, etc. Interesting perspective.
And here I am, doing just that! Reading Glenn Greenwald, Truthdig, Huffington, etc. Hmmm, perhaps I should start hitting Drudge too. Well, actually, I do have to say that my favorite blog/program out there is Left, Right and Center which I think does do a fair turn at trying to have a broad perspective. At least, they seem to do a better job than Bill Maher at getting a balanced group together (that’s not to say that I’m not a huge fan of Maher, but he does often keep the sides off balance in his favor).
-c
July 5th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I’ll say upfront that I despise Al Gore. I don’t like what he stands for, I don’t like the things he’s been at least partially responsible for, (especially the deaths of 86 innocent people at Waco.) He’s self-serving, egotistical, mealy mouthed and generally annoying. In short, he’s a politician.
I don’t like politicians.
So, considering that point of view, my take is simple: Gore was right in 1992 and he was right again in 2002.
While people are doing mental back-flips over that statement, the reasoning is simple: Hussein was a threat back in 1992. He had WMD’s (we kept the receipts.) He was aggressive toward his neighbors, etc. Gore was correct in being critical of the Reagan/Bush administration in their dealing with Hussein. By 2002, when Gore stated that Hussein was not a threat to the US, he said so because the sanctions imposed by the UN during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations had removed said WMD’s. Hussein was no longer a threat, not to his neighbors or to us.
I still hate Gore, but I’m not going to criticism him for hypocrisy he didn’t create.