The Madman and the USA

In an article (linked by No War Blog [1]) in Foreign Policy, Mearsheimer and Walt [2] argue that Saddam Hussein is not the wildly crazed, suicidal, undeterable, irrational madman we are told by the White House that he is. They review a few facts that seem to be forgotten by the press in their Countdown to War:

The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-88 [...] Although the war cost Iraq far more than Saddam expected, it also thwarted Khomeini's attempt to topple him and dominate the region. War with Iran was not a reckless adventure; it was an opportunistic response to a significant threat. [...]

The Gulf War, 1990-91 [...] The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait. The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did. [...]

Saddam's Use of Chemical Weapons [...] The United States backed Iraq during the 1980s -- when Saddam was gassing Kurds and Iranians -- and helped Iraq use chemical weapons more effectively by providing it with satellite imagery of Iranian troop positions. The Reagan administration also facilitated Iraq's efforts to develop biological weapons by allowing Baghdad to import disease-producing biological materials such as anthrax, West Nile virus, and botulinal toxin. A central figure in the effort to court Iraq was none other than current U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was then President Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East.

[1] http://www.nowarblog.org/archives/000633.html
[2] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/wwwboard/walts.html

4:19:31 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Raked Pine Needles

We raked some pine needles and bagged them up, bagged them up and brought them to town, bagged them in Houston and drove them here, where we unbagged them all and threw them down on the ground.

We threw the pine needles down by the tree that grows outside the window. We threw them down and spread them around so they cover the ground with a mound of light brown. So the tree sits there now blanketed in pine, an oak in the cold and the bitter north wind.

We raked some pine needles and brought them to town, just for our evergreen Monterey Oak tree.

12:28:58 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []