Ike was right

On January 17, 1961, three days before he left office, President Dwight Eisenhower warned:

"...we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

If there is a supreme being, and I believe there is, Ike is looking down on the current state of affairs in this country, shaking his head, and saying "I told you so."

The ineptitude of our Department of Defense seems to get more and more appalling by the year. The defense budget is over half of a trillion dollars per year, and yet, the department can't account for over a trillion dollars in allocated money. It's just unbelievable.

Amazingly enough, the DoD asks for more.

Seeing Donald Rumsfeld again is a buzz kill - his obfuscations and intentionally vague answers are about what I'd expect.

It's startling that we sell so much of our defense technology to other countries when it comes back to bite us in the rear end so much. Iraq and Osama bin Laden are two of the more glaring examples (and errors) of this often ill-advised policy.

The irony isn't lost on me that we funded and armed Hussein in the 1980s during Iraq's war with Iran (and turned a blind eye to his chemical weapons use and mass slaughter to tens of thousands). We also armed Osama bin Laden to the teeth in the 1980s in his fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

I'd like to say that some day our political leaders will learn, but they haven't shown any indication that they are about to change.

Saddam swings, Iraq sings

So, Saddam now has flames licking at his ass. And there isn't a wet eye in the Western Hemisphere about it, and probably not in the Eastern Hemisphere, either. This is not in doubt.

Above, Saddam tries on a large hemp necklace on his way to meet Adolf Hitler...

... and the aftermath (above) - Saddam suffers from one wicked hangover. Personally, I think we could have done better. ...

Yea, this would have been a righteous and funny way to send Saddam on his way, but then again, Dick is such a poor shot, he probably couldn't have done the job anyway.

I don't mean to sound like a typical bloodthirsty American. In fact, in a minute I'll get to how I find a lot of American bloodlust very distasteful and disgraceful, but first, more pictures. These are powerful images, and I'm not posting them to glorify Hussein's execution, but these pics are part of history, part of history for this absurd war.

Most Iraqis seem to be celebrating Saddam's demise, but then again, I don't trust what the American media shows us. There's lots of distortion and people with agendas who publish pictures like the one above. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that many Iraqis are quite happy that Hussein is dead. ...

...Like these people, who hanged Saddam in effigy in Baghdad.

However, when you consider what Iraqis are now suffering through, it's not like they are living in paradise. Instead of Hussein slaughtering people, now terrorists are doing the same thing because of America's occupation of Iraq. And YES, it IS an occupation.

Honestly, though, I'm surprised that our bloodthirsty government didn't air the execution on pay per view. And if you think that's ridiculous, you sure as hell haven't been paying attention since this war began. Only a government like ours could come up with fucking playing cards to promote all of the terrorists it wants dead. And we wonder why people around the world hate us.

I don't mean to sound so sarcastic (wait, yes I do), but it's hard not to be cynical about the publicity surrounding Hussein's execution. This administration has tried to manipulate the media to its benefit at every single turn before and during this war. Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Anyone remember the "spontaneous" toppling of the Hussein statue in Baghdad? This has been written about at length, but it was anything but spontaneous. It was a goddamn PR sham. If you watched it as much as I did on TV (and it was impossible to avoid the coverage, if you had your TV on at all - I think QVC even broke into programming), you realized the whole spectacle was blatant pseudo-spontaneity. Remember the American Marine climbing a ladder and putting an American flag over Hussein's face, only to be replaced by an Iraqi flag a few minutes later? Ooops.

I love the fact that this picture exists, and I'm sure it irks the shit out of Rumsfeld, Bush and the rest of this administration. It's from 1983, when Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad to meet with Hussein. The historical record reflects that as long as Hussein was OUR dictator, we turned a blind eye on what he was doing, and that included when he was slaughtering thousands and thousands of his own people.

In the 1980s, when Iraq was fighting Iran, we sold Hussein millions in U.S. weaponry, including poison gas, which he used on his own people and Iranians in the Iran/Iraq War from 1980-1988. Of course, these gassings were used as one of the many justifications for going to war in 2003.

And many conveniently forget that Hussein gassed hundreds of thousands of Kurds following the 1991 Gulf War, and we did NOTHING. Yes, you read that right - NOTHING. And that was after the CIA promised the Kurds that we would intercede on their behalf if they raised up against Saddam. But again, the current Bush administration used 15-20 year old atrocities that we did nothing about at the time as a reason to go to war in 2003. And soooo many Republicans I know bought into the Bush administration's PR spin machine.

Ahh, forget about all of this crap. Just one question - anyone remember Osama bin Laden? Oh, I forgot - Bush is keeping us safer by spending billions of dollars and hundreds of our young in Iraq.

Three of the most incompetent people ever to hold public office after the announcement of Saddam's hanging (above). Bush announced today that Hussein's execution "would not bring an end to the violence" in Iraq. Thanks, genius. You're just full of wisdom, aren't you, Mr. President? Oh, and someone tell Dick the dick that you don't close both buttons on a two-button jacket.

I wouldn't trust these three to organize a class reunion. Only 674 days to go until the 2008 election. It can't get here quickly enough.

Rummy & Saddam met one year after executions

Rumsfeld shakes the hand of a man condemned to death: Rummy shakes hands with Hussein on December 20, 1983. (Hussein was just found guilty in the execution of 148 men and boys on July 8, 1982 in the Shiite city of Dujail after a purported assassination attempt against him.)

For those of you who think I'm making up the whole "Saddam used to be OUR dictator" slant, check out picture above. The Huffington Post is running a caption contest for this pic - enter that Here. There are lots of declassified documents about this encounter, and they make for some very interesting reading.

You can read the declassified stuff Here, but I'll give you the cliff notes:

**A U.S. cable recording the December 20, 1983 conversation between Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein. Although Rumsfeld said during a September 21, 2002 CNN interview, "In that visit, I cautioned him about the use of chemical weapons, as a matter of fact, and discussed a host of other things," the document indicates there was no mention of chemical weapons. Rumsfeld did raise the issue in his subsequent meeting with Iraqi official Tariq Aziz.
National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114 of November 26, 1983, "U.S. Policy toward the Iran-Iraq War," delineating U.S. priorities: the ability to project military force in the Persian Gulf and to protect oil supplies, without reference to chemical weapons or human rights concerns.

**National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 139 of April 5, 1984, "Measures to Improve U.S. Posture and Readiness to Respond to Developments in the Iran-Iraq War," focusing again on increased access for U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf and enhanced intelligence-gathering capabilities. The directive calls for "unambiguous" condemnation of chemical weapons use, without naming Iraq, but places "equal stress" on protecting Iraq from Iran's "ruthless and inhumane tactics." The directive orders preparation of "a plan of action designed to avert an Iraqi collapse."

**U.S. and Iraqi consultations about Iran's 1984 draft resolution seeking United Nations Security Council condemnation of Iraq's chemical weapons use. Iraq conveyed several requests to the U.S. about the resolution, including its preference for a lower-level response and one that did not name any country in connection with chemical warfare; the final result complied with Iraq's requests.

**The 1984 public U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons use in the Iran-Iraq war, which said, referring to the Ayatollah Khomeini's refusal to agree to end hostilities until Saddam Hussein was ejected from power, "The United States finds the present Iranian regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims."

***

How inconvenient for Rummy and Bush. Hmmm, here's a wild prediction - they'll lie and deny their way out of this inconvenient fact, if it even gets any press.