Barack Obama is being criticized by many for caring about the horrors of chemical warfare in Syria, and demanding retribution on the Syrian government. His heart is in the right place, as chemical warfare was outlawed in 1925 by international treaty.
In the 88 years since then, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Bashar Al Assad are the ONLY dictators to have used it in warfare.
Hitler, of course, was opposed by the forces of freedom in World War II.
But what about Saddam Hussein, when he used it in 1988 on his own people, and also against Iran, in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, before the Persian Gulf War and before the Iraq War?
Well, the President of the United States was Ronald Reagan, and in 1983, he sent Donald Rumsfeld, then a private citizen, to meet with Saddam Hussein, and arrange for sale of chemical weapons that might be used against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, which was done by Saddam, as well as attacks on some of his own villages and civilians in Iraq.
So Ronald Reagan has to bear some of the responsibility for what Saddam did, and yet, he never said a word about the use of chemical weapons!
In a situation that involves ethics and morality, Ronald Reagan struck out BIG TIME, and he should be held accountable, but his conservative supporters overlook that, as they build up Reagan as an icon, who could do no wrong!
On the issue of chemical warfare, Barack Obama scores a home run, and Ronald Reagan, again, struck out!
What is it with these Republican leaders? Are they actually this ignorant of history or is that they believe their voters are too stupid to know anything about history and are simply too lazy to check a fact or two fed to them by these people they vote for??
Think Progress noted that
“Former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) appeared on Fox News arguing for a military response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians. While pushing the same limited strikes plan that the Obama administration wants, Ros-Leithein attacked the president for not moving more forcefully against Damascus. In doing so, she told Fox that Reagan never would have stood for the sort of attack that killed an estimated 1,400 civilians:
What Ros-Lehtinen seems oddly unaware of, however, is that Ronald Reagan did exactly the opposite. For the majority of the 1980s, Iraq under Sadaam Hussein was locked in combat with the Islamic Republic of Iran in a war that killed more than 1,000,000 people on both sides. The United States explicitly backed the secular Hussein over the Ayatollah Khomeini’s government in Tehran, still smarting from the embassy hostage crisis that had only ended when Reagan took office. That backing not only included the shipment of tons of weapons to support Baghdad, but also looking the other way when Iraq unleashed its chemical weapons stockpiles — including sarin and mustard gas — against Iranian civilians and soldiers alike.
Recently declassified documents from that time indicate that not only did the U.S. government know that Hussein possessed these weapons, but “conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin.†President Reagan also remained silent during the Al-Anfal campaign, in which Hussein used poison gas against the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq to put down a revolt against his rule. In what has later been called a genocide, more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed, nearly 100 times more than the attack that took place outside of Damascus last month.
Quoting ROS-LEHTINEN:
“It is against the norms of international standards and to let something like this go unanswered, I think will weaken our resolve. I — I know that President Reagan would have never let this happen. He would stand up to this. And President Obama — the only reason he is consulting with Congress, he wants to blame somebody for his lack of resolve. We have to think like President Reagan would do and he would say chemical use is unacceptable”.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/09/05/2578261/ros-lehtinen-syria-chemical-weapons-reagan/
Ileana Ros Lehtinen has shown she is totally incompetent on the subject of foreign policy, despite having been the past Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
To demonstrate how much Congress has declined, recall that she was the successor to the esteemed former Senator and Congressman Claude Pepper in Florida, who served his constituents in South Florida from 1962-1989, after being defeated for his Senate seat, which he held from 1936-1951, by McCarthyite attacks and assaults!
Obama has zero moral authority, he has repeatedly supported the murder of millions of American waiting to be born babies.
And, Dave, do you support feeding and clothing and housing poor children at taxpayer expense when the parents are unable to do so? Are you willing to do that, and if the answer is no, YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE and have no moral authority yourself, typical of so many so called Right to Life, meaning Right to be Born, advocates, and then not interested in the plight of poor children! Cutting Food Stamps, for instance, for poor children, is reprehensible!
So your for their murder as well, very progressive.
I am not for murder, Dave, but I am for taking care of the poor, are you? You throw terms around very easily, and are probably for the death penalty, which makes you a hypocrite, as well as a Know Nothing! And you should know the correct spelling for “your”, don’t you think?