THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS IS STILL EVIL
I read an Associated Press article about how the US aided Iraq's nuclear weapons program. "I found a nice gift from the US Atomic Energy Agency Project at the library -- the Manhattan Project Report," Khidhhir Hamza, a nuclear physicist who defected in 1994, said Thursday.

I wish this surprised me, but it doesn't. The US has a history of siding with odious fellows only to have such support bite them in the rear end. There seem to be two popular scenarios.

The first is that we support a despicable regime so blindly that it forments revolutionary conditions and gets overthrown. The new regime is far more hostile to us than the old one. Castro in Cuba. The Sandanistas in Nicaragua. The Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran. One might could also argue Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

The other popular scenario is to blindly adhere to the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" canard. It is the collorary to the famous statement by FDR's Secretar of State regarding the Dominican Republic's dictator, "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

As a result of slavish believe in this principle, we supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets... the Mujahadeen who became the Taliban. We supported Saddam Hussein against Islamic fundamentalist Iran. We supported Manuel Noriega in Panama. This wasn't passive support, it was active. We gave Saddam nuclear documents. We armed him. Most of you have seen the notorious picture from the 80s of a smiling Donald Rumsfeld (now Secretary of War) shaking hands with Saddam. Noriega was trained at the CIA-run School of the Americas (nicknamed the School for Torturers due the infamy of many of its alumni). As you know, we subsequently demonized all three of those regimes and invaded all three of those countries.

We found out too late that once someone stops being OUR son of a bitch, he remains A son of a bitch. Yet, we have yet learned our lesson. It hasn't even given us pause for caution. We alienate civilized countries like France and Germany and court repressive dictatorships like Saudi Arabia.

How many more Frankensteins are we going to create before we are going to figure things out? Even Pavlov's dog figured things out faster... and he was a canine. Human rights abusers are not reliable partners. Those who show contempt for freedom at home can not be trusted in any fight to spread freedom abroad.

Remember, the lesser of two evils is still an evil.