COWARDS! LIARS! HYPOCRITES!

I want to scream this at the top of my lungs whenever I see some Republican Party stooge procliam their concern for the Kurdish people in Iraq. Where the Hell were these underhanded scoundrels when their presidents -- Namely Ronnie Regan and George Bush the First -- were funnelling cash and materials into Saddam Hussein's war machine in the 1980s. They helped Hussein build his chemical weapons infrastructre, and even gave the Iraqi dictator his initial stocks of anthrax and botulism. Are we to believe they had no knowledge of Hussein's intent to use these weapons? Did Mr. Saddam suddenly turn into a bad guy overnight in 1990?

Underhanded though they may be, these cowards, liars and hypocrites aren't quite stupid enough to admit to that. But their excuse now is to blame this on past policy "mistakes" and trumpet that it is now our sacred duty to right these wrongs.

Bullshit.

The fact is these folks have not repudiated any of the policies of their previous masters -- the policies that aided and abetted the ruthless Iraqi dictator's genocide. In fact, they're pursuing the same policies as before; supporting "friendly" dictators like Musharraf in Pakistan, for example. It's all business as usual as far as the White House is concerned. Even the same people from those "mistaken" administrations are now major players in the current one: Richard Perle, John Negroponte, John Poindexter -- key players in the Iran-Contra scandal in which our government funded and supported Central American terrorists (a criminal enterprise also excused as merely a "mistake of the past"). Not to mention Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- who was Regan's pointman in Baghdad in the 1980's. It was Rummy who helped pave the way for U.S. aid and intelligence to start flowing to Hussien.

These uber-conservatives love to cry crocodile tears over the Kurds, yet it was the Republicans who have betrayed the Kurds more than once, and gladly handed them over to Saddam when it was politically convenient to do so (Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissenger -- who shafted the Kurds multiple times).

These conservatives love to bring up Hussein's massacre of Kurds, but rarely mention the Iranians he also killed -- many more of them were gassed and murdered by Iraqi chemical weaponry. They also neglect to mention that the Turks have killed more Kurds over the years than Saddam Hussein. Should we invade Turkey, instead?

So the next time some reactionary fool tries to use the Kurdish situation as justification for Bush's dirty little war on Iraq, ask them what happens after the presumed U.S. military victory. If bringing freedom and democracy is paramount in the squalid little schemes of George W. Bush and his right-wing goon squad, then what happens if the Kurdish people demand their independence -- as is their absolute right? What happens if Turkey objects to this -- and that goverment surely will -- and tries to suppress any independence movement in Kurdistan with force?

No doubt it will stupefy or infuriate them, because they haven't thought these things out beyond the immediate emotional gratification of 'giving it' to Saddam Hussein. That's often the case with cowards, liars and hypocrites.

-Timmy Ramone

(An audio copy of this article can be found HERE. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and broadcast this commentary, provided it is broadcast/distributed in its entirety and is not edited or altered in any way.)

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