Courting Disaster: Getting into bed with autocratic regimes

Posted: Aug 15, 2006

 "Riddle me this Batman ..." was a common phrase of the caped crusader's nemesis, The Riddler, in the popular television series, Batman.

Today, our society is filled with riddles to which we pay little or no attention.

What do you call a man who lives in the lap of luxury but gives it all up to join the military and travel to a foreign land to fight for what he believes in?

An American hero?

No. A terrorist.

Sure, he's a hero if he's an American and gives up a pro football career and gets killed in Iraq. But if he's a wealthy Saudi who leaves his exorbitant life after graduating from college and heads to Afghanistan to fight in caves with fellow Muslims from all walks of life to repel the invasion of the Soviet Union, what do we call him?

And if that same fellow arrives back home to find his own nation invaded by hundreds of thousands of military troops from yet another world super power and leads a protest against his own government for treason, what is he considered then?

Welcome to the life of Osama bin Laden.

Here's another riddle.

What do you call an oil company that operates the largest oil field in America?

British.

So how does British Petroleum wind up owning and operating a huge American oil field in Alaska? A quick check of the history of the relationship between the U.S. government and British Petroleum reveals that it was BP that was booted out of Iran in 1950 (for cheating the Iranians and refusing to negotiate fairly) and cried to the British government to do something about it. It did. It sued Iran in an international court and lost, then it amassed a huge naval armada off the coast of Iran to blockade Iranian transportation of oil ... and then asked the U.S. to go to war with them against Iran.

President Harry S. Truman declined two requests by the British to go to war against Iran in 1951 and 1952. But still conceded to a allow a covert CIA operation in conjunction with British Intel.

In 1953, General Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the go-ahead of the CIA operation known as Project Ajax (led by Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy and cousin of FDR) to undermine and overthrow a democratic Muslim government and install a brutal dictator.

Why?

In order to reinstall BP in control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

That's right. The U.S. government overthrew a democratic nation on behalf of BP and enjoyed 26 years of free-flowing oil from Iran that was split between the U.S. and Great Britain.

Here's another riddle.

What do you call an enraged populace that rises up to overthrow a brutal oppressive government and institute their own leadership?

The American Revolution?

Try the Iranian Revolution.

After the U.S. and Great Britain lost control of their cheap oil flow, the U.S. stepped across the border of Iran and befriended Iraq's brutal dictator in 1979.

What do you call a really ticked off leader that has lost control over his empire?

Napolean? Hitler?

Try Jimmy Carter.

On January 23, 1980, in a state of the union address to America, Carter declared war by claiming the entire Middle East as "vital interest" of the U.S. for which America would do anything to control "by any means necessary, including military force," Carter proclaimed.

That same year Iraq invaded Iran at the behest of, and with the assistance of the United States. That eight-year war killed more than a million Arabs, displaced millions more and wiped out entire villages with the use of chemical weapons of mass destruction supplied by the U. S. to Saddam Hussein.

So what do you call the brutal dictator of Iraq who rapes, tortures and murders at will?

If you're president George H. Bush, you call him "friend."

Up until July of 1990, Saddam enjoyed the favor of the U.S. with billions of dollars of credit, U.S. military technology and hardware and a continued dialogue with the White House that operated on a foundation of friendship with Iraq. Yet, within the span of eight days, Saddam's friendship with Bush went from high hopes declared by U.S. Ambassador on July 25, 1990 to Hitleresque characterizations of Saddam by president Bush on August 2, 1990.

After showing the Saudis satellite photos that supposedly depicted the Iraqi army (120,000 strong) amassed along the border of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Saudis agreed to allow U.S. troops into the Muslim Haly Land to defend the Islamic Kingdom. I still haven't found the place in the U.S. Constitution that states the U.S. military will be sacrificed in battle to defend a Muslim nation with which this country has no treaty to defend. And the world is still looking for the satellite photos to be released that convinced the Saudis to open up their lands to be used for staging an invasion of Iraq.

Russia and France are especially hopeful to see those photos since they both produced images taken by their satellites at that time that proved there was no Iraqi army amassed along the Saudi border. And the subsequent battles we engaged in with Iraq proved they were right.

But Americans don't ask many questions, continue to shy away from riddles and presume the U.S. government is always right, always moral and always protective of American lives. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has engaged in war in the Middle East for more than 15 years. From 1991 to the present day, the U.S. has bombed Iraq every year with the exception of 1994 and '95.

There are many more riddles that Americans fail to ask or answer, which would reveal valuable truth behind the reasons the U.S. invaded Iraq in 1991 and has continued to bomb that country every year since, waging war with Islam and committing atrocities that Americans have remained virtually clueless about to this very day.

We fail to ask any questions as a population. And our leadership has absolutely no clue and refuses to even ask or investigate anything that seems obvious to even the most dull among us, if it means standing in opposition to the propaganda emanating from the White House and Pentagon.

There are so many questions out there about 9/11 that will be asked in the coming weeks, as the anniversary nears. We would do well to treat those questions as legitimate rather than riddles that simply amuse and entertain us.