U.S. policy contradicts itself, supports killing

By Chris Dobson
Skiff Staff

George W. Bush has bombed Iraq, which makes him the third consecutive president to do so and this the fourth presidential term that the Neo Babylonian empire has unjustifiably attacked the ancient home of the Babylonian empire.

Let’s take a long, slow walk back through the events of 1989-90 — the year Vanilla Ice lit up the charts with “Ice, Ice, Baby,”

Ollie North was pardoned and slap bracelets were tragically falling out of style. Look at it as a multiple choice test. Which of these actually occurred?

A.) The United States entered Panama to catch the “Swamp Rat,” drug runner and Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

B.) Iraq enters Kuwait to end the slant drilling of those pesky rebellious Kuwaitis.

C.) The United States enters to liberate Kuwait from the world’s newest Hitler.

Do you know what’s wrong with the previous three statements? They are all rife with background ideologies that must be examined. Let us examine them in order and reflect duly.

The wording of the first implies that we were welcomed into Panama and allowed to enter. This is not true. The United States lost 26 Army Rangers, and Panamanian casualties numbered in the thousands. We removed the ‘elected’ government and illegally extradited Noriega, the head of their government. Now some say we needed to invade, the term used worldwide for our action in Panama, because Noriega was the head of a narco-militaristic regime that flooded American streets with cocaine.

As the San Jose Mercury noted, the CIA had him beat by almost a decade importing cocaine to help offset the cost of funding the ‘Contra’ rebels or death squads, both apply. I’m sure that everybody knows about that canal they have down in Panama, but did you know that until 1895, when the United States invaded Colombia, there was no Panama? Colombia won’t give us the terms we want; no problem, we invaded and created a new country and negotiated with them.

The wording of the second implies that Kuwait welcomed the Iraqi army and allowed them to enter. This is not true, and the Iraqi army sustained minimal loses as they paraded through Kuwait.

They removed the ‘elected government’ and destroyed Kuwait’s capacity to drill along its northern border. Iraq also claimed that Kuwait is historically part of Iraq and was a remnant of the colonial era. Some Iraqis said they needed to invade because Kuwaitis were stealing oil from the people of Iraq.

Iraq’s oil reserves are second in the world next to Saudi Arabia’s.

Oil proceeds provided for the people of Iraq free education and health care, as well as a state-of-the-art water system. By comparison, the people of Saudi Arabia were given a free pick-up truck, which women are prevented from driving, and free higher education, which women were prevented from receiving.

It’s funny how similar these two incidents are. Perhaps, Hussein is guilty of being a copycat. It’s not hard to understand why.

It’s always hard to hear “do as we say not as we do.” Why, if the United States can unilaterally solve their problems, could Iraq not act along the same lines? It seems hypocritical to take action and then condemn others for it. If Saddam Hussein is the next Hitler, which our former CIA director and President George Bush said, then what I ask is the United States?

Hussein brought his complaints before the UN numerous times, but they were not addressed. After the invasion of Kuwait, the United States said leave, and Iraq did.

So we attacked them as they left, removing the puppet regime put in place by Iraq. The reason no negotiation could be allowed hinges on the fact that exposing Saddam’s actions would expose our own in Panama. It’s true that this man was gassing his own population, but the next question should be, “Where did he get these weapons of mass production?” The vast majority came from what the British and American governments call machine and farming tools.

Another term is dual use technology, that which can be used for both farming or militarily. Orwellian language must be applied here because a modern artillery piece is both a machine and a tool and could possibly plant corn up to a range of 12 kilometers and within 300 meters of the targeted field.

The U.S. government did not just stand by while Hussein gassed his own populations; we supplied the weapons and allowed these atrocities to occur. Then in the Iran-Iraq war throughout the 80s, the United States supplied both sides. Hmm ... that would mean that we supported neither side and instead sought to profit from the destruction and death spread by our weapons.

Chris Dobson is a senior history and political science major from Arlington.
He can be reached at (c.p.dobson@student.tcu.edu).

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