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Don't forget Reagans involvement with the birth of the Taliban. The enemy (taliban) of my enemy (USSR) didn't work out so well in the long run, did it?
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The international environment for Bin Ladin’s efforts was ideal. Saudi Arabia and the United States supplied billions of dollars worth of secret assistance to rebel groups in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupation.This assistance was funneled through Pakistan:the Pakistani military intelligence service (Inter- Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISID), helped train the rebels and distribute the arms. But Bin Ladin and his comrades had their own sources of support and training, and they received little or no assistance from the United States.23 April 1988 brought victory for the Afghan jihad.Moscow declared it would pull its military forces out of Afghanistan within the next nine months.As the Soviets began their withdrawal, the jihad’s leaders debated what to do next. Bin Ladin and Azzam agreed that the organization successfully created for Afghanistan should not be allowed to dissolve.They established what they called a base or foundation (al Qaeda) as a potential general headquarters for future jihad.24 Though Azzam had been considered number one in the MAK, by August 1988 Bin Ladin was clearly the leader (emir) of al Qaeda.This organization’s structure included as its operating arms an intelligence component, a military committee, a financial committee, a political committee, and a committee in charge of media affairs and propaganda.It also had an Advisory Council (Shura) made up of Bin Ladin’s inner circle.25
But the elections have been over for awhile now. Wasn't Obama's inauguration a few months ago? Stop living in the past, and look at the future.
Back when Reagan ran for president, and then won, he was constantly called all sorts of names by his political enemies. In those years, up to Bill Clinton's second term, I voted Democrat along the rest of the sheep, so don't believe for a minute that I am making things up about Reagan. But he was just a dumb actor, and a lot of worst things, at least according to those who didn't like him.
Is it your contention that Reagan was a smart anything?
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It took me years to realize I had been wrong about a lot of presidents, including Reagan, but only because I later understood how the news media works, and how dirty politics are. It's worst nowadays when people can spread all kinds of rumors and pass it as news on the Internet.
The news media did not have to do anything to make Sarah Palin look incompetent, uninformed, and illogical. She did it all by herself.
As for Internet rumors, intelligent people pay no attention to anything they cannot verify for themselves. When it comes to Palin, there are ample video clips of her making a fool of herself - rumors are not necessary.
Published 4/10/2003 7:30 PM
U.S. forces in Baghdad might now be searching high and low for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but in the past Saddam was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials.
Britain ruled Iraq in order to preserve stability in the region. Iraq is made up of disparate ethnic and religious groups, and without a strong central government it would fly apart. This worked until the British became extremely unpopular after the Suez invasion of 1956. In 1958 came the bloodbath.
An army major, Quasim, seized power in a military coup. The royal palace was besieged, and the young king, Faisal II, and all the royal family were massacred. Nuri was shot in the street and his corpse run over repeatedly by municipal buses. A few years later, Quasim was overthrown in a CIA-assisted coup. Through more coups and purges Saddam eventually came out on top.
Both sides are mistaken. Washington's policy traces an even longer, more shrouded and fateful history. Forty years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency, under President John F. Kennedy, conducted its own regime change in Baghdad, carried out in collaboration with Saddam Hussein.
In 1968, Iraq had a weak president who was beholden to Nasser, a follower of Nasser. But the defeat of [the Arabs by Israel] in 1967 meant that whatever government was in power when that defeat took place had to go. So the Ba'ath saw an opportunity in this and they thought the time has come for them to take over the country again. The background was extremely interesting. There were two things happening within Iraq at that time. They were developing their own oil and very close to giving the concessions for huge new oil fields, to the USSR and France. And the price of sulpher had shot up so greatly that they were about to mine the sulpher mines in the north and sell it in the world market.
The United States didn't want either to happen. The United States wanted the oil for American oil companies; they wanted the sulpher for themselves. They thought that if Iraq went to the Soviet Union or France, Iraq would be lost to them. In this they were joined by the Ba'ath Party. The Party used the concessions for oil and sulpher as a bargaining point to endear itself once again to America. And they arrived once again at some kind of an agreement of collaboration between the two sides. On the American side negotiating for both the oil and sulpher was a well-known personality, Robert Anderson, the former secretary of treasury under Eisenhower. He met secretly with the Ba'ath and they agreed that if they took over power these concessions will be given to the United States.
In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protégé in 1979.
"It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: I have summoned you today to hold comprehensive political discussions with you. This is a message to President Bush.
You know that we did not have relations with the U.S. until 1984 and you know the circumstances and reasons which caused them to be severed. The decision to establish relations with the U.S. were taken in 1980 during the two months prior to the war between us and Iran.
In 1980 he declared war against his neighbor Iran and at the time, any enemy of Iran was a friend of ours. That's the way it started, anyway, for us and Saddam.
"Donald Rumsfeld famously visited him and there were other kinds of collaboration because we were so fearful of the Iranians after they were taken over by the Ayatollah Khomeini and this extreme version of Islam, not just in terms of capturing our diplomats but in terms of wanting to export revolution," CBS News consultant Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "So Saddam was seen as the lesser of two evils and so we did this very Machiavellian calculation that it was better to support him than to allow Iran to go forward."
After reading every post in this thread a couple of things have become very obvious.
People are either left or right or center, trying to convince others to believe their point of view.
I think a lot of people need to step back and decide what is best for our country, regardless of race, gender, party or religion.
I also feel that according to the candidate options or lack of options is because a lot of good people have opted not to get into politics for various reasons, ie, corruption, political elitism among others, and therefore have limited our choices.
I only want what is good for America and all of its citizens.
Enough for the soap box.
Who is this, Greg or Vicky? Sorry, these couple names drive me crazy.
I have been trying, for the life of me, to figure out exactly how the Republican powers that be can actually look at Sarah Palin as a serious candidate for 2012.
Is this some sort of old Republican frat boy prank? Or are they simply planning on using her as a sort of puppet regime should she be elected....heaven forbid!
The last thing that America needs is a President who couldn't locate Afghanistan on a map(or spell it) if her life depended on it. Or worse yet, one who would simply quit in the middle of her term because "those nasty reporters just won't stop writtin' stuff 'bout the family".
I have yet to hear her utter an intelligent sentence...about anything.
I have heard numerous Republican talking heads speak about her as if she was the Virgin Mary/Margaret Thatcher/a female Ronald Reagan And the followers of these talking heads are dumb enough to agree.
For the sake of the country, please just let her go away.
Maybe they just figure , "It worked for the Democrats", Why not us! Hope ,change and I am a black . (Winner!!)
But the elections have been over for awhile now. Wasn't Obama's inauguration a few months ago? Stop living in the past, and look at the future.
The thread is about Sarah Paliln.
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And the followers of these talking heads are dumb enough to agree. 