LETTER: Iraqi Freedom?

Editor,

With the idea that “Iraqi Freedom” is about to burst on the scene, a history lesson is in order. Does the United States really spread freedom across the globe?

The U.S. government supported Saddam Hussein in his brutally repressive regime during the 1980s. As President Bush himself has pointed out, Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people.

Declassified State Department documents reveal that Iraq was also believed by the United States to be using chemical weapons on an “almost daily basis” in its war with Iran. President Reagan did not deem it appropriate to defend the world from these weapons at that time.

The United States, in fact, rewarded Saddam with loans supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars to support Hussein and his chemical arsenal. If our nation is such a bastion of freedom that we don’t tolerate brutal autocracies, why did we continue to spend U.S. taxpayer money assisting the Iraqi dictatorship?

Our current leaders insist that Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons is unacceptable, yet it was the United States that helped quash Iran’s pleas that Iraq stop using chemical weapons during the 1980s.

Our allegedly freedom-loving government also has a history of supporting the so-called “death squad democracies” of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala with military and financial aid while they tortured and murdered members of opposition political parties over the past quarter century. It is also enlightening to remember our government’s long-time support for the racist apartheid government in South Africa.

Don’t take my word for it – check the Human Rights Watch Web site at www.hrw.org, or even better, a site at George Washington University that links to declassified U.S. government documents on these topics at www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB.

Our financial and military support of these “rogue nations” makes “Iraqi Freedom” seem questionable. Will a democracy or a cruel dictatorship such as Iran under the Shah (also U.S.-supported) be implemented in Iraq? Given the information found here and from many other sources, it is certainly best to take U.S. government claims of freedom-loving with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Glen Spielmans