Did Saddam Hussein Name a Helicopter After the Kurds

Did Saddam Hussein Name a Helicopter After the Kurds?

American duplicity didn't begin with George W. Bush. He has just raised it to new heights.

I am not entirely sure what he is up to, probably because my mind just can't quite grasp how one can become, in a mere fifty-six years, so twisted that any fairness, any humanity, any understanding of justice or of humility, has been squeezed out by greed and lust for power.

I could come up with dozens of examples over the past two years, but I think we have heard them all, and, quite frankly, I don't think it accomplishes a lot to have a "G.W. Bush Roast". I think it makes more sense for us, as Americans, to ponder how we got where we are, with the vast majority of Americans approving of the actions of this President, who recently lambasted Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, imploring the United Nations to "force" him to obey the sixteen UN Resolutions of which he is evidently in defiance.

Naturally he "forgot" to include other nations which are in defiance of UN Resolutions, most notably that nation with a head of state Bush recently referred to as a "man of peace", which is, of course, Israel. Let's ignore for a minute that this "man of peace", Ariel Sharon, engineered the massacres at Lebanese refugee camps in 1982 and was subsequently removed from his position as Israeli Ministerof Defense. Let's just concentrate on the fact that Israel is in defiance of sixty-eight UN Resolutions, not to mention many violations of the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

Okay, I promised you that this would not be a "Bush Roast", so I'll move on.

I was recently musing on Bush's favorite whipping boy, Saddam Hussein. I mean, why does America find this guy so odious?

Oh, I don't mean why doesn't every good and moral and upright and just and decent human being find him odious.

That is obvious. He kills inhabitants of his own country with poison gas, even women and babies.

He invades a nearby nation, outraging the international community with his transparent grab for its resources and strategic value, heedless of the cost to human lives.

He reportedly has vast stocks of "weapons of mass destruction", possibly even nuclear weapons, and, may even be poised to use them in anger.

But my question was: Why does AMERICA find him so odious?

After all, what is so terrible about killing human beings who happen to live inside your borders? America slaughtered thousands of Native Americans, wiping out entire tribes, just because they had the audacity to stand in the way of the imperialistic expansion of "settlers", and actually attempted to fight back, albeit with stone-age era weapons.

And what is terrible about invading another nation, merely for the purposes of forcing it to accept interference in its internal affairs, so as to become a strategic trophy and showcase for the philosophies and mores of a nation thousands of miles away, and to become a lesson of sorts for other nations for what will happen to them if they don't obey? After all, that's what the US did in Vietnam. Oh, I know, I've heard the rationalizations about "stopping the spread of Communism", and all that malarkey, but the US seems to have a pretty cozy trade partnership with China, for a country that's worried about the support of Communism.

And what about Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction"? What's he got, some biological weapons? Maybe even a nuke? Hey, America has thousands of nukes, and has proved that it's not afraid to use them in anger. Bush has even recently threatened to use them again. Biological weapon attacks may be survived, by use of gas masks or employing antidotes. Nukes are hard to have an antidote against, since basically the victim is vaporized.

I guess my point is this: Has America really examined itself lately? Are we even thinking about the effect our constant support of imperialism, world-wide, and our repeated saber-rattling is having on other nations?

Are we even aware of how incredibly insensitive, vile and disgusting our attitudes toward other human beings are, that we allow our President to continue to employ them, in a day and age where we're supposed to be becoming more enlightened?

And where in the world do we get off calling our weapons Apaches, Cherokees, Tomahawks?

Where in the world is this kind of arrogance okay, to name weapons after conquered tribes and their cultural symbols?

Did Saddam Hussein ever christen an attack helicopter, the Kurd?

Makes you sick to even think about it, doesn't it?

"Then God said to Jonah, 'Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?' And he said, 'I have good reason to be angry, even to death.' Then the Lord said, 'You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?'" Jonah 4: 9-11 (NAS)

Test: Read the entire book of Jonah (it's real short, only four chapters) and think about the reason why God was so hard on Jonah, after he had finally obeyed God and successfully preached repentance to the Ninevites. It is as if God was asking Jonah himself to repent of something. What was it?

September 17, 2002