Alert readers will have noticed that I’ve been an absentee landlord these past few days. The trend is likely to continue a short while longer; thanks to my esteemed co-bloggers for picking up the slack.
Danger! Danger! Memory Hole Suffers Catastrophic Failure!
Saddam Hussein is now on trial for his genocidal Anfal campaign against Iraq’s Kurds during the eighties. The U.S. media has covered it intensely, while almost uniformly failing to mention that the Reagan and Bush I administrations knew what was happening, helped cover it up, and continued their support for Saddam:
Google News results for “saddam kurds” in U.S. publications within past seven days: 1430
Google News results for “reagan kurds” in U.S. publications within past seven days: 4
However, there’s one significant exception to this—Jim Hoagland at the Washington Post, who deserves credit for writing this column today:
Change is news, and the important news from the second trial of Saddam Hussein is this: The U.S. government is helping expose the ex-dictator’s genocidal assault on Kurdish tribesmen instead of helping hide it.
Welcome the change. But do not rush past the original malfeasance: U.S. officials were directly involved two decades ago in covering up and minimizing the horrifying details that were finally spread on the legal record in a Baghdad courtroom last week. In a long history of U.S. involvement in Iraq stained by official mistakes, betrayals and misunderstandings, the initial coverup of Hussein’s Anfal campaign is among its darkest moments.
I visited Baghdad in May 1987, a month after Iraqi troops began using poison gas and burning Kurdish villages in a systematic program of ethnic slaughter and cleansing. The U.S. Embassy quickly learned of the devastation through a trip to northern Iraq by an assistant military attache. But he denied to me what I had learned elsewhere: that he had reported to Washington the beginning of the operation code-named Anfal. His report was promptly stamped secret…
The Reagan-Bush administration remained silent as it helped the Iraqis fight the Iranians; Washington even made sure Iraq was invited to a prestigious international conference on chemical weapons in 1988.
The important national moral obligation to Iraqis that such American actions have created must not be shoved aside in the debates over strategy and politics that proliferate as U.S. midterm elections approach.
La la la la la la la la la
Last night Christopher Hitchens told the audience on Bill Maher’s show they were “frivolous.” Then he gave them the finger and told them “fuck you”:
HITCHENS: [Ahmadinejad] says the Messiah is about to come back. Who’s looking for a war here?
MAHER: So does George Bush, by the way. [Audience applauds] That’s not facetious.
HITCHENS: That’s not facetious. Your audience, which will clap at apparently anything, is frivolous. [Audience groans, Hitchens gives them the finger] Fuck you, fuck you.
This prompted Instapundit to explain:
Should things go badly with the war, Maher’s audience — and, for that matter, Maher himself — will be cited by historians as evidence of the American opposition’s unseriousness.
Oh, if only it were possible for people like ourselves to be deeply, deeply serious like Christopher Hitchens and Glenn Reynolds. Sadly, that can never happen, for we are empty-headed ninnies.
Self-And-Cross-Promotional-A-Go-Go
1. I want to write something about people who made bets that Iraq had or did not have WMD. I myself bet $1000 they didn’t have anything, and I know someone who bet a dinner. But this really isn’t enough by itself. If you know anyone who made such a bet—in either direction—I’d really appreciate hearing about it.
2. As mentioned previously, Dennis Perrin of Red State Son will be appearing in a debate on the mideast this coming Wednesday the 30th in Tarrytown, New York, just north of Yonkers. Further information and ticket information is available here. Like I said before, if you go be sure to ask Dennis during the Q&A why he loves terrorism. I’ve never understood it.
3. DO NOT MISS these pictures by Bob of his seven favorite places on earth (mentioned in this Los Angeles Times piece he wrote, itself drawn from Prisoner of Trebekistan).
Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on national security
Ken Silverstein of Harper’s recent spoke to Michael Scheuer, chief of the bin Laden unit at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center from 1996-99. The interview took place at an International House of Pancakes:
1. We’re coming up on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Is the country safer or more vulnerable to terrorism?
On balance, more vulnerable. We’re safer in terms of aircraft travel. We’re safer from being attacked by some dumbhead who tries to come into the country through an official checkpoint; we’ve spent billions on that. But for the most part our victories have been tactical and not strategic…
In the long run, we’re not safer because we’re still operating on the assumption that we’re hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we’re hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There’s our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies.
This reminds me of a crazy fantasy I have. In this fantasy, a White House reporter stands up at a press conference and asks Bush the most mindbogglingly obvious question imaginable:
Mr. President, the former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit has referred to U.S foreign policy as bin Laden’s indispensable ally. I’m sure you don’t agree with this characterization, but could you explain for us your understanding of why he says that?
Of course, I know it’s literally impossible for White House reporters to ask the President of the United States mindbogglingly obvious questions. It’s like wanting them to travel faster than the speed of light. Still, I dream my dreamy dreams.