Island Life: This just in: incumbent President worst in history of the union
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The tired old anti-American myths come out. The US supported bin Laden. The US supported the Taliban. The US sold chemical weapons to Saddam. All untrue but endlessly recycled by those needing to demonise the US. And imho such demonising of the US plays into the hands of the very worst enemies of liberal values.
The bulk of the material Saddam used for chemical weapons came from European countries and China, not the US. Mainly in the form of "dual use" chemicals and technology and often illegally. One of the most important enablers of Saddam's WMD was the Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat.
James has a point, legitimate criticism of the US has morphed into something quite ugly and not based in any way on facts.
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Neil, I take your points about Europe and China, but the picture of a smiling Rumsfield (in Iraq to seal the deal on chemical agents) shaking hands with Saddam is pretty damning.
Also, it is well known that the US were big supporters of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, who later morphed into the Taliban. It's also documented fact that Condi was doing deals with the Taleban in the months prior to 9/11 - hence their (US) shock when the attack came.
For anyone wanting a chuckle, rent Rambo III
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but the picture of a smiling Rumsfield shaking hands with Saddam is pretty damning
Agreed, I'm not arguing the US comes out of this looking like an angel. Chirac considered Saddam a personal friend and was indeed the very man who sold Saddam a nuclear reactor (for peaceful purposes of course). Not many countries come out of that period looking good.
I don't think it's accurate to say the Mujahedeen morphed into the Taliban. The Taliban were always a quite separate and initially very small group which came out of the (Saudi funded) Pakistani madrasas. The Mujahedeen comprised a large range of tribal groups some of which weren't very wholesome in their own right.
(The best book I've read on all of that is Steve Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden. It was recommended to me by an American who was no fan of Bush and is pretty scathing of US policies towards Afghanistan through the 80s and 90s. And no, the US did not support bin Laden but they did make other mistakes).
I'm not sure what deals that Condi is supposed to have made with the Taliban. I know the US was looking at providing funds to help stop opium production but that money wasn't going to go to the Taliban.
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Neil, did you actually bother to read through the documents at that link I posted, and the affidavit. Your statement re US support for Saddam simply is untrue and I would suggest is, in the absence of any contrary evidence, to use your words "not based in any way on facts". Just saying something, as James does, does not make it true.
There is seemingly a volume of evidence to back the support (military support way beyond a few MiGs and Mirage F1s), and I doubt you'd find anyone in any authority in the US government to refute it. The denial is little more that that, repeated over and over in the hope it becomes regarded as a truth. Another link, and another, and another, and another, and another...that took me about ten seconds to find
I too have read Colls' book, but you only tell part of the story. I think links to quite a few other documents that counter your, what can only be called a hopeful re-writing of history, have been posted here a couple of times. Suffice to say that Blin Laden's then organisation was funded to a large part by the ISI which Coll agrees was CIA funded, both directly and via the Saudis, who also contributed after intense US pressure.
Here is Coll in 2004 (some months after the book)
A very broad pattern was established in which the CIA subcontracted the anti-Soviet jihad to ISI. Pakistani intelligence is a division of the Pakistani army and not organized as a civilian intelligence service. ISI is generally commanded by a two-star general, and its cadres are drawn from the officer corps of the Pakistan army.
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I find no evidence that the CIA had direct contact with bin Laden, but they were allies with Saudi intelligence during the 1980s. The formal alliance with Saudi intelligence was a check-writing operation in which the Congress would appropriate covert funds each year and then somebody would fly to Riyadh where Prince Turki al-Faisal would write matching-funds checks, which would go into the formal accounts of the CIA administered out of Washington, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
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Here bin Laden would have collaborated intimately with the Afghan Bureau of ISI, and so the whole structure that we became familiar with ten years later—ISI, al Qaeda, and Saudi proselytizing money and official money and murky money—was constructed in the mid-1980s, and Saudi intelligence was right there on top of it in a fairly operational way.
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The Afghan ex-Mujahideen who spoke at Canty Uni after the 9/11 & the invasion of Afghanistan was indifferent at best to any US involvement.
He thought bin Laden was monied up and spiteful towards the yanks as much as the Russians. -
Just saying something, as James does, does not make it true.
When the 'rough-spoken' (read idefensibly inarticulate) Bush is your role model, wilful ignorance is the order of the day. Add Karl Rove to gallery of role models, and active disinformation becomes a virtue.
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Why people vote for Bush and why Gordon Brown should be worried
Heh - hope that worked, I thought it was an interesting article anyway .........
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