More hypocritical crap from politicians, the UN, etc. Suddenly now the head of an African country is a bad guy. What about when he attacked the Americans through Pan Am 103… Or helped other terrorists… assassinated dissidents… that was 1972 to 1988, so they only had 23 to almost 40 years to wring their hands and then sit on them. OIL? Dirty secrets?? —Will We Bail THEM Out Now?
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.
Um, if you believe that this is a new phenomomen, then OB you’re a twit. He has been known as a pyscho from day one. Did you forget the American bombing of Tripoli after that incident? There are dictators and crazies throughout history and presently, Stalin, the Kims, Amin, and others. I suppose we could invade every country that has a dicatorship.
C’mon, if you’re smart enough to ask those questions you’re smart enough to already know the answer. I share your rage, though.
But he sure knew how to dress in style. I felt an Eagles song in there somewhere….
He’s always been a maniac. He was a maniac when he greeted the Palestinian “Biathalon” team after their “triumph” at Munich. He was a maniac when he bankrolled the Entebbe hijacking and countless other terrorist operations in the Mid-east and Europe. He was a maniac when he got his ass kicked publicly by the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Sidra and by the U.S. Air Force in Operation El Dorado Canyon. He was a maniac when he got ass kicked less publicly by the French in Chad.
But never forget, to a lot of people (who should have been smarter) who bought his Son of The Desert camel shit, his vagueley socialistic kleptocracy, his pathological loathing of Israel and his tweaking of the big bad west and their big bad corporations – he was a hero. And the suffering of the Libyan people be damned. Same people who consider Castro, Chavez, Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il to be heroes.
So lets review, Saharan Dictators 101.
Hosni Mubarak – pawn of the United States, recipient of American military aid, U.S. trained and equipped Army. Deposed by a populist movement largely because his Military refused to declare war on the Egyptian people on his behalf.
Moamar DaGoatFuck – Rabid Anti-American, Rabid Anti-Semite, Finanacier of terrorists, Military trained and armed by the now-defunct Soviet Union.
Orders his own Air Force to attack protestors blaming the dissent on drugs, Americans, Jews, Al-Quaeda and the girl who played Tootie on Fats of Life.
I hope to see his head on a pike before the week is out.
Don’t hold back Ivan, tell us how you really feel 😉
I’m confused Hugo. Is Gaddafi the Charlie Sheen of the Middle East. Or is Charlie the Moammar Gaddafi of Hollywood. >; )
I love when a lefty-humanist type gets outted for play’n with a dictator for a million (nelly furtado) ..now she’s gonna donate it to some lefty bs charity 🙂
I *knew* Tootie had something to do with all this! Off with her head!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/…
as we’re on the subject of nutjobs
they are only monsters and maniacs annd shit, after the u.s. sucks all their resources from them. til then, they are the bestest bum buddies to the u.s.
look at bin laden, him and the bushes ate lunch a lot of times together, probly still do. but when he wouldn’t obey bush jr. for whatever reason, suddenly, he is a mad dog, that plots to fly planes into buildings. and folks, that has not been proven 100 per cent yet either. just another way the u.s. will fuck you, if you turn against them.
that’s some sad shit, basil…
Maybe the guy was just trying to entertain himself. After all, who’d sleep with him with a face like that?
..yea and que the morons calling for western intervention..to stop the killing and preserve the rights …of ..umm ..some peeps that are having their “rights” denied
..this pretty much sums it up…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAmIS64Uw_g&feature=related
The most shrill criticism of Canada’s “Lack of Response” to the Libyan situation typically comes from the 2 parties most opposed to spending one red cent on anything other than our ability to send a “strongly worded dispatch”, the two parties most oppsed to our membership in international coalitions that actually can do something meaningful when things turn truly pear-shaped. And no, I don’t mean the U.N.
haha i love the strongly worded dispatches, they spend weeks crafting a carefully worded response which most people don’t give a crap about
Perhaps if Jack Layton gave him a strong word or two, and maybe a trip behind the woodshed would cure him of his despotic ways?
Iggy could tell him the best way to fasttrack a green card.
Dexter would be telling the average Iraqi that getting by on $2 is pretty good, in his best Monty Python voice “you lucky bastards”
Kelly would advise hiring consultants not mercenaries.
Did any of you see todays Chronicle Horrid ?
The Political cartoon was GREAT.
It showed Harper standing on a G-20 summit protester, while bitching about Gadaffy treating his citizens like shit !
L O L…just loved it
Yessssss, and when Harper suspends the constitution, outlaws all other political parties, stays in power for 40 years and uses the new CF-35 Joint Strike Fighters to strafe the next gathering of G-8/G-20 protesters it may even have some relevance.
try again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAmIS64Uw_g
NS needs the Govenor of Wisconsin to relocate – I’d love to see a tag match between him and Joan Jessome.
I believe you mean the former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura who does that crappy CT show. BTW he was never a SEAL.
JV claimed he was a SEAL???? ROFLUISM
ew, politics. *runs away*
That Gadaffi sure cuts one hell of a promo.
LOVE how the morons in the UN made Libya part of some human rights council. Let’s make Hitler the keynote speaker at a kosher brunch while we’re at it.
the best way to get rid of people like that, and harper, is to send mm to talk to them. if they don’t shoot themselves after 15 minutes of his blathering, nothing will stop them. and i thought smelly bigturdo screwed him awhile back.
Bro Tim – I do mean Wisconsin, he’s the laddie who is trying to wrestle their huge debt by taking on the bloated unions. My money would be on Joan Jessome.
“After all, who’d sleep with him with a face like that?”
The same is said about you.
And this thread is about the typical Western double standard. As long as the dictators are on America’s good side or Israel’s it’s all good. Look at Noriega; a supposed-dictator in Central America who was a CIA agent.
The Shah was a brutal dictator but installed by the US and UK so it was okay to kill Iranians then. But since Ahmedinijead gives the West a big middle finger he’s bad. Same with Saddam. The US was giving him weapons to kill people and when he cooled relationships the fake show-war to overthrow him happened.
Ghadaffy-Dick puts the lie to the old anti-American slam “He may be a bastard but at least he’s our bastard” He has always been a bastard, but he was never ours. Noriega rose to prominence in the the army of avowedly anti-American General Omar Torrijos. Exceptionally gifted double agent? or just a typical skeeve who knew how to play both sides of the fence. The Shah did persecute a goodly number of Iranians trying to drag them into the 20th century but is it appreciably more or less than the Mad Mullahs have butchered in trying to drag them back to the 13th? With the benefits of nuclear fission and the Kalashnikov of course.
So the West armed Saddam huh? Been hearing this one since the first Gulf war but it doesn’t explain why the Republican Guards were equipped with T-55s (Soviet design) T-64s (Soviet design) T-72s (Soviet design) and their equivalent Chinese knock offs. Same with his Air Force. Names like Mikoyan-Guerevich, Sukhoi, Ilyushin and Tupelov tend to dominate. Oh, also the French Dassault Mirage, but then anyone with France as an ally really doesn’t require the luxury of enemies, do they?
So here’s an open question that might just pose a counterpoint to the endless harping about the West’s supposedly hypocritical attitude to human rights.
Name me an pathologically anti-western country that is not guilty of human rights abuses. Doesn’t excuse us, but it might put some of this puerile self-flaggellation into perspective.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2558/388703…
Nice One Hugo. lolz >: )
Was Jesse Ventura a Navy SEAL? Wow, that’s a question of semantics demanding the wisdom of Solomon, or at the very least, Montrealman. He graduated BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training including the famous Hell Week) Class 58 at Coronado. Class graduates were then sent on to either Underwater Demolition Team training (emphasis on various types of diving, reconnaissance and things that go boom) or SEAL training (emphasis on patrolling, ambushes, reconnaissance, and things that go boom) depending on where manpower was needed. This was in the early 70’s and the Vietnam war had blurred the already thin line between UDTs and SEALs. Ventura was assigned to Underwater Demolition Team 12, deployed to the Philippines. There is no evidence that he ever served with a SEAL team or that he ever saw combat. So strictly speaking he was a UDT, not a SEAL. Administratively, the UDT were merged into the SEAL teams in the early 80’s so now there is no distinction, but that doesn’t give Ventura the right to retroactively call himself a SEAL.
It needs to be pointed out that SEALs don’t tend to look down on UDTs as a lesser form of aquatic life. They know the lineage of the Teams goes back to the original frogmen of WW2, the Naked Warriors who surveyed Japanese held beaches with nothing but swim trunks and a combat knife.
None of which excuses Jesse Ventura from being a self-promoting, delusional looney tune. IMHO
LOL at Jesse Ventura being a delusional looney tune.
Anonymous Whistleblower: “They want you dead, Governor!”
Forlorn J.V. “But Whyyyyy?”
LMFAO.
Probably because he wore pink tank tops, feather boas and earrings as a wrassler.
Had anyone told me back in ’87 when I saw Predator at the Casino that not one, but two of the cast members would one day be State Governors – I’d have backed away slowly without making eye contact.
And one was the son of a Nazi in Austria to boot.
Yeah, but he did marry into the family of one of America’s biggest boot;eggers.
Jack Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer also. One of his messages back to the US from the UK was, “Hitler is taking care of our Jew problem.” Something like that.
Was it Jack or Henry (Ford)?
Are you sure that wasn’t Joe Kennedy – the father. His anti-semitism is well documented. He was certainly a proponent of abandoning England to the Nazis after Dunkirk.
You’re right it was Joe.
Yes, t’was Joe actually. My mistake. Balfour was also a notorious anti-Semite.
Ivan,
Your comments about Iran and Iraq are somewhat misleading and that’s putting it mildly.
The politically correct view of the Shah of Iran is that he was a Western-educated secularist who only wanted to modernize his country. When one is burdened by this facile view, one also believes that the folks who overthrew him were violently opposed to his modernizing initiatives.
This standard view, of course, makes no mention of the fact that the Shah was a brutal dictator who came to power in violent coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. This coup was organized and funded by the secret services of the United States and Great Britain. Mosaddegh’s nationalization of the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951 had angered the British, who thought it was THEIR oil and upset the Americans, who thought it set a bad precedent to let an oil producing Middle Eastern nation manage its own resources.
The Americans also organized a secret police force for the Shah, the notorious and brutal SAVAK. The CIA helped out with teaching the fledgling organization the appropriate interrogation techniques. The SAVAK eventually included in their repertoire tearing out finger nails, shocks with cattle prods, acids dripped into victim’s noses and rape, among other treatments inflicted on anyone who dared to openly disagree with the Shah.
This is all well-documented history and it explains much of the anger that was unleashed by the Iranian people in 1979. Of course, the blinkered and politically correct view promoted at the time by the American media was that the Shah was overthrown by a bunch of “Mad Mullahs”.
As far as Saddam Hussein was concerned, he was the recipient of large amounts of U.S. military support throughout the 1980s because he went to war with the Iranians, those nasty “Mad Mullahs” who had taken American embassy hostages and overthrown America’s “Man in Tehran”, the Shah. The Americans thought it would be great to arm Saddam with the various “weapons of mass destruction” that twenty years later seemed to upset them so much. In the 1980s the Americans provided Saddam with the materials and technology to build an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, which he then used against the Iranians and his own people.
To dismiss questions about the brutal and self-serving policies that various Western governments have inflicted on other parts of the world as “endless harping” makes it obvious where you stand in regard to human rights.
To dismiss vocal objections to these same brutalities as “puerile self-flagellation” marks you as a large idiot.
You really should stick to giving history lessons on the Third Reich. Your knowledge of other parts of recent history is obviously sadly lacking.
I apologize for the name calling.
It was out of line.
Good post, Comandante.
I’d like to read your thoughts on Manuel Noriega as well.
“Large Idiot”- Really? – I thought we had moved beyond ad-hominem name calling? Let me see.
I don’t recall denying that the Shah was a bastard (our bastard, to be sure). I just don’t believe that torture, repression and mass murder stopped occurring in Iran as soon as his 200 top generals were put in front of a wall and gunned down. So the question remains. In the 30 years that the Mad Mullahs and their assorted bearded sock puppets have been running the Islamic Republic – have more or less people been murdered by the state? Have more or less people had their human rights violated? Are the Iranians better off. Or is it somehow better that they are being repressed by people who are not puppets of the west. (Gotta admit, that bit of progressive, lefty compassion has always confused me). The crowds on the streets of Tehran seem to not think so, and I don’t foresee a warm fuzzy Egyptian type end to this conflict.
As far as Saddam’s regime is concerned, whatever assistance, mostly in terms of tactical intelligence he received from the United States during the Iran war was still a drop in the bucket compared to the Soviet supplied infrastructure of his military. Weapons of mass destruction? The SCUD was a Soviet weapons system. Now I know his chemical weapons capacity was supplied by various European countries who may or may not have been aware that the technology and resources they were selling him were going to be turned into mustard gas, Sarin & Tabun (nudge nudge-wink wink). But again,the Western contribution to his bellicosity and militarism was pretty niggardly compared to what he received from “dose doity Commies” for being a Baathist son of whore.
As far as human rights go – I’m in favor. I also support flossing, picking up after your dog and fresh minty breath. I kind of agree with the British Viceroy in India who succeeded in stomping out suttee and supposedly said
“You say it is your custom to immolate widows. Well we have a custom too. When a man murders a woman he is hung with stout hemp rope. So you build your funeral pyres and we shall build our gallows next to them”
Of course, that’s just straight up nasty old imperialism, Ain’t It? So, do we force our values of human rights on the developing nations that we are involved with. Or do we turn a blind eye and leave them, in Gandhi’s words “To God or Anarchy” We did that with Afghanistan after the Soviet pullout and boy, did they ever get assfucked with both.
Of course now we are involved in Afghanistan, supporting a corrupt, incompetent, repressive regime. Well, ain’t that just enough to spoil your trip to Varadaro. Get my point.
And my question remains, name me a pathologically anti-western country that is not guilty of the most heinous human rights abuses. You may have to look further than the rantings of Chomsky, Mother Jones and Utne Reader to find the answer. Until then, I’ll keep giving lessons on recent history. It’s not so much that I believe my “myths” are correct; It’s just that I find them more credible than yours.
Apology not necessary. Big Boy’s Game; Big Boy’s Rules >; )
Canada’s in no position to lecture other nations about human rights.
When you get right down to it there are damned few, if any, nations fit to lecture other nations about human rights.
It is true that the Iranians are probably no better off under the current regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but one wonders where they might have been if their own democracy had not been crushed by the Americans and British in 1953.
The Americans can even take some credit for getting Ahmadinejad elected to the Presidency in 2005. Bush’s ill-advised sabre rattling polarized the Iranian electorate in the run-up to the election which weakened support for the moderate, centrist candidates and pushed voters into the arms of the conservative hardliner Ahmadinejad – another Bush administration foreign policy failure.
You are wrong to minimize the American contributions to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in the 1980s. Their input was significant.
For starters, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in order to facilitate the transfer of “dual use” technologies, ie. technologies that could easily be weaponized.
The U.S. government also funneled billions of dollars to Saddam through private bank accounts in the U.S.
The Americans transferred to Iraq dozens of samples of pathogens such as plague and anthrax in a form suitable for weaponization, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control trained Iraqi scientists in the handling of these materials.
All of this was in addition to significant amounts of intelligence and logistical support for Saddam in his war against Iran.
You mentioned Saddam’s Soviet military equipment. Perhaps you didn’t realize that almost all of this military equipment dated from the 1960s and 1970s. After Saddam went to war against Iran, the Soviets embargoed the shipment of their war materiel to Iraq because they saw the conflict as an opportunity to gain influence with the Iranians.
The truth is that it was the Americans, once again, who came to Saddam’s aid. They set up a program dubbed “Bear Spares” in order to provide spares and replacement parts to regimes with large inventories of Soviet equipment but little in the way of ongoing Soviet product support. The Americans did this in order to gain influence and leverage with states like Saddam’s Iraq. The Egyptians had a lot of Soviet equipment and were actively manufacturing replacement parts. The Israelis also had significant inventories of captured Soviet war equipment. The Americans provided the funds for much of this material to go to Saddam in the 1980s. So you see, it wasn’t the Soviets who were Saddam’s major backers in the war effort against the Iranians, nor was it those fickle Europeans. It was the Americans, Israelis and Egyptians.
It is laughable to me that you would use an example from the era of British imperialism in Asia to make a point about human rights. I could give you pages of examples that would show British imperialism in a far different light.
You ask the question “do we force our values of human rights on the developing nations that we are involved with?” This turns historical fact on its head. The history of American foreign policy in the twentieth century demonstrates a consistent practice of denying developing nations the same human rights that “we” in the West expect for ourselves at home.
The Americans frequently trumpet their mission to promote democracy around the world but their actions belie their self-congratulatory pronouncements. The historical record is quite clear in this regard.
As I said before, your weak grasp of the history of the last sixty years is glaringly obvious.
Ivan’s right Fat, who is ‘in position to lecture’? – or even – in a better position?
Wow. “Bear Spares” – never heard of that one before. I knew that the French and Germans were supplying dual use technology and the Osiris reactor (conveniently “redacted by the I.A.F)., but i never realized the extent to which the Americans were assisting the Iraqis. I always thought it suspicious that they accepted the apology for the Exocet attack on the Stark so readily. Guess I’ve got some thinking to do. Prick. >; )
And throughout history we had countries who were allies, then enemies, then allies, then enemies, etc. Japan being one. Allied WWI, enemy WWII, ally now. How many times throughout history did France and Britain go from friend to foe as did Spain. Yes the US did back the Shah but that was due to the USSR, locality, and of course oil. The same with Iraq. With the Soviet collapse, the situation changed. In 10 years time who knows who will be friend or foe, which is why we should have a strong military.
just trying to bring some levity bitches http://media.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uplo…
*narf* How ya doin Pain? Just you and the creatures today?
the bear is home…but the critters are my constant companions of late http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_fullxfull.184…
Good point, Hugo. Props.
Right, BT, everything changed because there was no more communism. “We don’t have an enemy anymore so lets create a new one out of …. uh these guys!”
hey, we’re almost as useful as the un…but funnier^^
More competent; less corrupt.
Bro Tim,
The Shah of Iran was a U.S. puppet. He was installed by the U.S. after the American and British governments toppled a democratically elected leader in a bloody coup. He was propped up by massive amounts of U.S. military aid. As I pointed out above, his secret police force (SAVAK) was set up and trained by the CIA. SAVAK interrogators were instructed in the use of various “techniques” by the CIA. As a result, the Iranian secret police became the most hated feature of the Shah’s regime.
Calling the Shah of Iran a “U.S. ally” is taking politically correct double-speak to a new high (or low depending on your point of view).
You may like to dismiss the U.S. backing of the Shah and his brutal regime as an unfortunate consequence of the Cold War. If so, then you might also add to the CIA’s overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953, their overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 and Allende in Chile in 1973. In all three cases, these leaders were toppled and replaced by brutal dictators who then inflicted on their own populations widespread programs of torture and extermination.
You might want to maintain that these vicious dictators, responsible for horrendous human rights abuses and crimes, were simply “allies” in the Cold War but then I think that says something about your own humanity.
Some folks proudly trumpet their ignorant “US versus THEM” mentality and apparently don’t give a shit about the messy details.
Bro Tim you are one of them.
Don’t forget, this is what you get, when you try to control the world.
http://visibility911.com/ford/wp-content/u…