Beta wrote:If he's actually executed it will set a precedence. There's a lot of warlords out there that have committed crimes far worse than Hussein. Will this add pressure to the US to go after them??
The US does go after them, right after our government installs them/backs them and then they are no longer any use. Sure the US government backed Iraq in their war with Iran. This of course after the US overthrew the government of Iran in the 1950s to protect western oil interests and then placed the shah in power. The overthrow of the shah in 1979 and the rise of radical muslim students lead to the hostages at the embassy and later the war with Iraq.
And don't forget Reagan's line about the US not negotiating with terrorists in the mid 1980s. A short while later it was brought out in Iran-Contra that we were indeed negotiating with terrorists and using the Iranians as go betweens. Reagan even inscribed a Bible that was given to the Ayatollah Khomeini that was delivered by Oliver North.
Noreiga in Panama. Marcos in the Phillipines. Musaraf in Pakistan, etc...
Ever heard of the School of the Americas (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas)? This US-based institution has turned out some of the worst dictators in Latin and and South America.
The SOA has been accused of training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and have been found to advocate techniques that violate accepted international standards, particularly the Geneva Conventions. Graduates of the SOA include men such as Hugo Banzer Suárez, Leopoldo Galtieri, Manuel Noriega, Efraín Ríos Montt, Vladimiro Montesinos, Guillermo Rodríguez, Omar Torrijos, Roberto Viola, Roberto D'Aubuisson, Victor Escobar and Juan Velasco Alvarado. [8] Because many of its students have been associated with death squads, and coups in Latin American countries, the school's acronym is reparsed by its detractors as the "School of the Assassins".
Our government has been doing shady things since day one. We have all slept better at night, whether we acknowledge them or not. Please do not feign shock and outrage when these episodes come to light, though. I am by no means condoning these actions.
