Ba'ath to the future - genocidal bastards are our friends again

The USA is using the remmants of the old Ba'athist terror network to destabalize Iran. These are, of course, the remmants of the organisation that savagely murdered hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites in 1991, following the abortive uprising against Saddam Hussein, which Bush I instigated. So at least, when it comes to killing Iranian Shi'ites, they should know what they are doing. According to the excellent Patrick Cockburn:

... George Bush successfully requested $400m (£200m) from Congress last year to fund covert operations aimed at destabilising the Iranian leadership. Some of these operations are likely to be launched from Iraqi territory with the help of Iranian militants opposed to Tehran. The most effective of these opponent groups is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which enraged the Iraqi government by staging a conference last month at Camp Ashraf, north-east of Baghdad. It demanded the closure of the Iranian embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian agents in Iraq. "It was a huge meeting" said Dr Othman. "All the tribes and political leaders who are against Iran, but are also against the Iraqi government, were there." He said the anti-Iranian meeting could not have taken place without US permission.

The Americans disarmed the 3,700 MEK militants, who had long been allied to Saddam Hussein, at Camp Ashraf in 2003, but they remain well-organised and well-financed. The extent of their support within Iran remains unknown, but they are extremely effective as an intelligence and propaganda organisation.

Though the MEK is on the State Department's list of terrorist groups, the Pentagon and other US institutions have been periodically friendly to it. The US task force charged by Mr Bush with destabilising the Iranian government is likely to co-operate with it. (1)

So, lets make this clear. Iraq was invaded because Iraq was supposedly involved in international terrorism, part of an 'Axis of evil' and because the Ba'ath party was an evil organisation that had the blood of hundreds of thousands on its hands.

But now the USA is working with the remnants of the same Ba'ath Party's most odious extremities, an acknowledged terrorist organisation. The very people who committed the atrocities in 1991 are now being recruited to commit more acts of terror now. Funded by the American tax payer.

This is, of course, very familiar. The US government has always been willing to pal up to the most vile and murderous tyrants in their inept attempts to exert control over the region (THINK: Iran Contra. THINK: US aid and military intelligence to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. THINK: Rumsfeld clutching Saddam's bloody paw. THINK: Glaspie telling Saddam to sort out his issues with Kuwait his way.) Possibly, some in the US government are regretting executing Saddam: "He could have been really useful against the Ay-er-tollers, you know, he knew how to kill 'em."

It is just so f__king depressing that they never learn. And they crease their Simian brows in (perhaps genuine) confusion as to why they are hated and reviled in the middle east.

It seems to have escaped the Bush administration's puny attention that there are still hundreds of thousands of US soldiers in Iraq. Perhaps they believe their own propoganda that they have some control over the country. In fact, they are barely tolerated, and the reason they aren't being targeted even more savagely is because the Iraqis are more interested in killing each other over some squabble over succession dating back fifteen hundred years. But if Iran calls on the Shi'ites to rise in Iraq they will, and the blood will flow on all sides.

1 - "Military action 'would destabilise Iraq'" by Patrick Cockburn, published in The Independent, 5th of July, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/military-action-would-destabilise-iraq-860509.html)