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Originally posted by Mojo_PeiPei
Ctembreull you neglect the fact that at the time when Donny was cozing up with Saddam Iran had just gone through a violent revolution where a radical theocratic regime took power and held 60 American hostages. We never pushed Saddam to attack Iran either by the way. He is a Sunni, Iran was Shiite ran, and as we all known Saddam is a paranoid nut. He was afraid of a Shiite revolution happenening in Iraq (which in thought definently sounds plausible due to the Shiite majority) just like happened in Iran, thats why he attacked.
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So what you are saying is its ok to tolerate bad guys as long as they benefit American foreign policy objectives...how on earth does that justify their support of him given the way they currently portray his regieme? Also, this is just one of many examples of brutal regiemes the US government has propped up/approved of/worked with...under both parties...liberal or conservative. Indonesia, various African or South American regiemes - too many to name - have had dictators that they have worked with. I'll beleive that it might be a case of its better than the alternative, but then that brings in the problem of inconsistency with how they respond thanks to what's happened in Iraq. Why were Saddam's crimes worse than so many others? Because it became convenient to make them a problem...a horrific thing. If it hadn't fit other policy objectives - part of global oil strategy (containing China and such), desire to reshape the middle east in a manner beneficial to allies and objectives in region (a peace favourable to Israel but tolerated by a submissive Palestinian regieme that can police its population for them, strategic pivot against Iran, move away from Saudi Arabia etc..) and so on - there wouldn't have been a war. The problem is just the hypocricy of claiming that anyone would care about the Iraqis if it wasn't convenient.
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Furthermore Reagen may have been reckless but he was a good president and he did tons of good for world security by bankrupting the Soviet Union. Besides when it comes to cattering to Idiot foreign leaders Liberal/Dem's haven't done much better, you have Carter and Clinton both all up on Arafat's nuts and Clinton bending over to hook up Kim Jong II.
Last but not least you are really naive if you think the world suddenly just turned against us, the only thing this whole fiasco did was give forum for the world's Anti-American sentiment.
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Carter and Clinton were did those things...and Republicans did others. Its not a matter of simple ideology making one side a bunch of saints...everyone seems to want to try and portray themselves as some kind of idealist/good person in international relations, yet they all act in basic national interest.
Also, there is definately alot of anti-americanism out there...but this war certainly didn't help discourage it.