Michael Moore on Saddam's capture (BARF alert!)

Sunday, December 14th, 2003 We Finally Got Our Frankenstein... and He Was In a Spider Hole! -- by Michael Moore

Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.

America used to like Saddam. We LOVED Saddam. We funded him. We armed him. We helped him gas Iranian troops.

But then he screwed up. He invaded the dictatorship of Kuwait and, in doing so, did the worst thing imaginable -- he threatened an even BETTER friend of ours: the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, and its vast oil reserves. The Bushes and the Saudi royal family were and are close business partners, and Saddam, back in 1990, committed a royal blunder by getting a little too close to their wealthy holdings. Things went downhill for Saddam from there.

But it wasn't always that way. Saddam was our good friend and ally. We supported his regime. It wasn’t the first time we had helped a murderer. We liked playing Dr. Frankenstein. We created a lot of monsters -- the Shah of Iran, Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile -- and then we expressed ignorance or shock when they ran amok and massacred people. We liked Saddam because he was willing to fight the Ayatollah. So we made sure that he got billions of dollars to purchase weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. That's right, he had them. We should know -- we gave them to him!

We allowed and encouraged American corporations to do business with Saddam in the 1980s. That's how he got chemical and biological agents so he could use them in chemical and biological weapons. Here's the list of some of the stuff we sent him (according to a 1994 U.S. Senate report): * Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax. * Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin. * Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart. * Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs. * Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness. * Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

And here are some of the American corporations who helped to prop Saddam up by doing business with him: AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (for a full list of companies and descriptions of how they helped Saddam, click here.

We were so cozy with dear old Saddam that we decided to feed him satellite images so he could locate where the Iranian troops were. We pretty much knew how he would use the information, and sure enough, as soon as we sent him the spy photos, he gassed those troops. And we kept quiet. Because he was our friend, and the Iranians were the "enemy." A year after he first gassed the Iranians, we reestablished full diplomatic relations with him!

Later he gassed his own people, the Kurds. You would think that would force us to disassociate ourselves from him. Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn’t let anything derail their good buddy Saddam. We had a virtual love fest with this Frankenstein whom we (in part) created.

And, just like the mythical Frankenstein, Saddam eventually spun out of control. He would no longer do what he was told by his master. Saddam had to be caught. And now that he has been brought back from the wilderness, perhaps he will have something to say about his creators. Maybe we can learn something... interesting. Maybe Don Rumsfeld could smile and shake Saddam's hand again. Just like he did when he went to see him in 1983 (click here to see the photo).

Maybe we never would have been in the situation we're in if Rumsfeld, Bush, Sr., and company hadn't been so excited back in the 80s about their friendly monster in the desert.

Meanwhile, anybody know where the guy is who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Our other Frankenstein?? Maybe he's in a mouse hole.

Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These bastards sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.

First off, it's hard to prove a negative. Anyone can claim anything...but the burden is on the accuser to prove the claim. There is an interesting chart (search: Arming Saddam) that puts into perspective how much material support Saddam actually got from the US. Among the Western nations, the US was actually far down on the list.

The "we armed Iraq in the 1980's" is a constant excuse used by the Left to argue against war with Saddam. While Saddam did get limited military suppport, most of what he got during the Iraq/Iran war was intelligence infomation. In fact, the evidence of this was the Gulf War in 1991. Just how many US made aircraft did you see fighting against our troops? How many US made tanks did you see? Their troops were using AK-47s, and their tanks were Soviet TU-type tanks. It wasn't F-Fighters that we found buried in the Iraq dessert...or that were moved to Iran before the Gulf War; it was Mirage and Migs. Seriously...think about that. We also armed Stalin during WWII with the Lend-Lease Act but that didn't preclude us from engaging in a Cold War, immediately after WWII ended.

And this crap about giving Saddam Bio/Chemical "weapons" is a lie as well. Saddam never got "weaponized" nerve agents or biological agents from the USA. Everything he got from us was a cooperative (UN and Western nations) effort to help Iraq deal with the rampant spread of contagious diseases and viruses that were killing his people. While this did include biological samples of viruses, this was a standard practice with the ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) and other medical institutions as they sent samples to medical researchers around the world...so they could develop immunizing agents to battle these diseases.

This was especially of interest for Baghdad University (who made the request) as they appealed to the UN, CDC and WHO for help in controlling the spread of Brucellosis, Diptheria, Hepatits, Cholera, TB and any number of contagious diseases. It's unfortunate, but in order to find a cure (or immunize) for a disease, the medical researcher usually needs a sample of the live virus. This is a far cry, however, from the claims of "weaponized" materials being sent to Saddam.

Much of these so-called "chemicals" were also based on the same principal of fighting disease...which included Chlorines and pesticides that could be used in agriculture and in water treatment facilities to contain the spread of disease. Before the concern over bio/chem warfare, these were common practices that medical researchers egaged in world wide. Saddam never got instructions from the US on how to weaponize these agents. That he got from the USSR, as they not only instructed Saddam on the process, they contributed the entire weaponized component.

In hindsight this was obviously a stupid thing, but it was not illegal...and if it was, the Senate Banking Committee, who actually investigated these charges, would've brought charges against those who participated. While they did acknowledge material transfers to Iraq, nothing was done outside the law. Unfortunately, this was all the ammunition the left needed to accuse the US of arming Saddam with bio/chem weapons. There is a great article the debunks this myth and explains the details in these tranfers. And even though anthrax was a part of these transfers, these transfers had been occuring since the late 1960's and was common practice within the medical community, before the fear of bio/chem warfare.

Unfortunately, nowadays, anyone can turn chlorine and pesticide into a gas bomb...and fertilizer into a explosive device. This is a far cry, however, from the Sarin and Mustard Gas that was used by Saddam on the Kurds. And the USA never gave Saddam these nerve agents. You wouldn't know that, though, from reading the accusations of others.

Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn’t let anything derail their good buddy Saddam.

I researched this lie the last time a leftist tried it on another forum. Here is my reply:

>In response to the gassing, sweeping sanctions
>were unanimously passed by the US Senate that
>would have denied Iraq access to most US
>technology. The measure was vetoed by Bush. 

That would be a really neat trick, since Bush was only
the Vice President at the time -- since when did VP's
gain veto power?

Are you sure you know what the f**k you're talking about?

The *real* history of the bill (S2763, the Pell Bill)
is that the Senate passed it on 9/9/88, handed it over
to the House on 9/13/88, which referred it to the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs (same day), which
passed the ball to the House Committee on Ways and Means
(still same day).  The HCWM pondered it for a few days,
then on 9/28/88 bounced it back to the Senate with a formal
rejection via H.Res. 552, which, according to the
official summary:

   Expresses the opinion of the House of Representatives
   that S. 2763, which imposes sanctions and calls for
   United Nations action against Iraq, contravenes the U.S.
   Constitution and is an infringement of the privileges
   of the House. Returns such bill to the Senate. 

In other words, they reminded the Senate that it's a
violation of the separations of powers for Congress
to urge the UN to do anything -- that's the job of
the Executive branch (i.e., the President).  The
sticking point was the following provision in S2763:

   Requests the Secretary of State to bring before
   the United Nations Security Council the matter of
   Iraq's use of poison gas against its own nationals
   and to demand that measures be taken against Iraq for
   its repeated use of chemical weapons.
     [official legislative summary]

But there were other problematic provisions as well, like
requiring the U.S. Executive Director to vote against all
loans to Iraq.  Again, as the name implies, the "Executive
Director" is part of the Executive branch of government,
and he takes his orders only from the President.

In short the Senate got carried away in the heat of the
moment and tried to overstep their constitutional bounds.
The House of Representatives said, "think again..."

So no, "Bush" didn't veto it (he was the Vice President
at the time, you dolt.)

Neither did Reagan.  Read this if you don't believe me,
it's a complete list of every Presidential veto
(including pocket vetoes) since 1981:
   http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/PresidentialVetoes.PDF

See any vetoes there about Iraqi sanctions?  For S2763?
Any vetoes of bills sponsored by Sen. Pell?  I didn't think
so.

Next time get your facts straight before you try to tell
us "exactly" what happened.

Rather than just remove the unconstitutional sections,
the Senate tossed the matter to the Subcommittee on
International Development Institutions and Finance
on 10/1/88, which made a lateral pass to the
Subcommittee on International Finance, Trade and Monetary
Policy (same day), where it apparently faded away because
that's the end of the Congressional paper trail on it.

Presumably they figured it was rendered moot,
because by then Reagan had stepped up to the plate
and did (from his position at the top of the
Executive branch) what the Congress was trying to
do in the first place, which was to kick the UN in
the rump and get them involved in the matter.

As a 1/12/89 Houston Chronicle article put it:

   "Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran and 
   Iraq's Kurdish minority - graphic pictures of 
   peasants killed in Iranian villages heightened
   concerns last year - provided a somber backdrop
   for the conference, which was formally proposed
   by President Reagan at the United Nations in
   September."

The chemical weapons conference was held in Paris
and brought together 149 nations which hammered
out a declaration and signed it.

  "The six-point declaration affirms the U.N. 
  role in investigating chemical weapons use and 
  called for a strengthening of existing procedures
  at the United Nations in dealing with such
  use - a reference to enacting sanctions."

And:

  "Arab nations said they wanted to reserve
   the right to possess chemical weapons to
   counter what they claim is a nuclear threat
   from Israel."

(That was voted down.)  And as long as we're
looking for nations to scapegoat:

   "The Iraqis have powerful friends. Both the
   Soviet Union and France, the conference host,
   supplied the Iraqi armed forces with conventional
   weapons, while Arab states gave Iraq vital
   diplomatic, military and financial support
   in the war. A West German concern is said to
   have furnished Iraq with its chemical-arms plant."

So...  I thought you said that "looking the
other way" was, in your words, "exactly" what
the US did when Saddam gassed the Kurds.

You're "exactly" wrong.  The Senate went apes**t,
Reagan personally brought the world together to
deal with Iraq (the UN, unfortunately, ended up
being as wishy-washy as usual) and related chemical
weapons threats (Libya became a hot topic).  As I
browsed the Houston Chronicle archives for 1988-1989
in order to verify my memory on this stuff I ran
across a *s**tload* of constant articles all through
late 1988 and *all* of 1989 which chronicled the US's
continuing hard line against Iraq and unfading outrage
over the chemical weapon attacks.  You couldn't be
more wrong when you try to disgustingly imply that
it was "business as usual" for us -- it's no
exaggeration whatsoever to say that the gassing
of the Kurds was the last straw for US-Iraq relations;
they had already been shaky during the last few years
of the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraq seemed the lesser
of two evils, but the Kurd gassing caused all the
fence-sitters to go leaping off in unison.  There's
not a single favorable, or even neutral, article
about Iraq any time past the gassings.  There's not
a single bit of "business as usual" -- every single
article has the same "we don't trust those bastards
as far as we can throw them, what are they up to
and what are they hiding" tone that articles today
have.  The business sections were full of mention of
broken trade deals with Iraq.  And this was *before*
the invasion of Kuwait.

Taking a hard line against Iraq was one of the
elder Bush's campaign planks:

   He said the verification system of such an 
   agreement "will be an enormously difficult task.
   But the alternative is far worse to contemplate.
   We must outlaw these weapons, once and for all.
   Nothing less is acceptable."

   Bush also cited the human horror of chemical warfare
   demonstrated recently in the Iran-Iraq war. "I thought
   we had banished forever what we all saw only a few months
   ago: a mother trying to protect her child, waving her
   arms against the invisible winds of death - chemical
   weapons."

   Bush said nations that engage in chemical warfare
   should face severe international sanctions, but he
   did not spell out exactly what they should be.
        -- 10/22/88

So in short, you're talking out of your *ss.

Is that the best you've got?  An error-filled string
of false innuendo?  Where's the alleged evidence
for your moronic insistence that the US kneeled
down and kissed Saddam's *ss for oil?

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