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Orwell would be pleased. (Or maybe John has an evil twin we don't know about?)
I guess it shouldn't come as any surprise at this point. The US will collaborate with anyone to achieve short-term goals, regardless of the long-term consequences or who else may be involved. We've been fucking with Iran and Iraq since the 50's: the Eisenhower Doctrine (keep the USSR and communism out of the MidEast); the Nixon Doctrine (fund the Kurds just enough to bother Iraq), the Carter Doctrine (fuck with Persian Gulf oil and we'll declare war), the Reagen doctrine(keep Iraq and Iran at each other's throats), the Bush doctrine(Gulf War I), the Clinton doctrine (containment/"no fly zones", sanctions), the "Shrub" doctrine(the War on Terrorism...Another war with Iraq. Probably a war with Iran someday too.) Notice how it seems to keep getting a bit more desperate and extreme with each passing administration? It really started in earnest in the 70's (after the Arab-Israeli October War and OPEC boycott) and has been getting worse since then. And of course, its been standard M.O. to cross, double-cross, and triple-cross everyone involved. Help Iraq while helping Iran (selling Iraq all those chemical and bio-weapons while giving stingers to Iran--that whole Iran/Contra thing); since 1960-- funding and arming the Kurds and then betraying and then helping and then betraying them again (I think we're helping them yet again now); coups and counter-coups in Iraq...Iraq was a monarchy until 1958, since then its been run by one murderous general after another, Saddam only being the latest. No doubt he'll be replaced by another one just like him. (As long the new one kow-tows to Washington and the oil companies, we won't care what he does.)
'Scuse my cynicism. Also, I don't mean to lecture, but its important to see this in the context of an on-going situation in that region that's been escalating since before most of us were born.
And truthfully, I just don't see it getting any better. |
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