Americans Must Enjoy Getting Suckered
By James T. Moore (02/15/07)
It's hard to believe that any American politician would do something intentionally wrong in foreign affairs. So there must have been other mistakes made somewhere. Mistakes? Yep, the same old same old. It seems that we somehow always put in charge, or support, a banana head who couldn't manage a girl's baseball team.
And the money-grabbing misfits keep on a’comin’.
Remember the Shah? He was the dude that the U.S. government put in charge of Iran until he outlived his usefulness to us.
Remember Fulengio Batista? He was the bonehead the U.S. made interim leader of Cuba, and almost wrecked the country.
Remember Castro? He’s another gem the U.S. stupidly helped bring to power in Cuba, and he finished wrecking what Batista couldn't get done.
Remember Aristide? He’s the brutal dictator that we “installed” to rule Haiti. Then he was forced to quietly leave.
Remember “Papa Doc?” He’s the despotic ruler our U.S. marines supported when he was in danger of losing his head.
Remember Pinochet and Allende? The two dictators who took turns “ruling” Chile. With U.S. help of course.
Remember Saddam Hussein? He’s the die-hard dictator we helped arm and finance in the late 1980’s, and then smugly hung him out to dry in 2003.
Remember Osama bin Laden? He’s the “terrorist” that in 1979 was given financial aid, weapons, and training by our very own CIA---who still don’t know where the hell he is.
Remember Chalabi? He was chosen by the Pentagon and Dick Cheney to rule Iraq, until he got caught making money the easy way---counterfeiting it---resulting in a warrant for his arrest..
In must be our self-destructive national demeanor at work. Every time we choose someone to run a puppet government, we invariably choose some bearded boob who couldn’t catch a cold at the North Pole, and load him down with American dollars. And in so doing, the USA gets shafted again. For the nth time.
Chalabi though, I admit, was unique among the U.S. picked dunderheads. First, he got more money out of us than most puppet presidents: more than $40 million in US. Government funds. And second, he got to sit with First Lady Laura Bush during the president’s State of the Union address. Whoopee.
He was also unique in another way
Unbeknown to us, Chalabi had been “leaking” to Iran that U.S. Intelligence was breaking their codes. Chalabi, now presumably in Iran, called the allegations “political”, which is neither here nor there since the real crime is why U.S. Intelligence didn’t know this; and if it did, why we put this bum in a key position in the Iraqi government in the first place.
But there’s even more to this unsavory fiasco. Although the Bush administration has stopped all financial and diplomatic backing for Chalabi and his bunch, he, unbelievably, still gets support from some of Dick Cheney’s staff and from prominent neo-cons outside government. We just can’t seem to blow this guy off clean---another example of American big-heartedness, even with traitors, gone awry.
Or maybe we just never learned how to dump a charismatic four-flusher when we discover that he’s been taking us for a costly joy ride. Iraq's current President Jalal Talabani, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki come to mind here, How long we let this pair of puppets take us for saps is anybody's guess.
Problem is, when you add up all the U.S. dollars (mostly borrowed) that are going down the sewer to finance these smalltime chiselers and their U.S. financed, faux governments you begin to imagine what all that money could have been used for here in this country. And it hurts. Really hurts.
My father used to say, “There’s a sucker born every minute and two to take him,”
I thought my Dad was just making that up. Not anymore.
James T. Moore
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