Dictators We Have Known

Dictators We Have Known

There has been strong reaction to the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Many see his execution as just retribution for the crimes he committed against the Iraqi people and Iran. Aside from the issue of capital punishment, which is dealt with in another piece at this site, a substantial amount of reporting has been given over to the issue of how Hussein’s death was a just end to the life of a tyrant and dictator. Well, it’s always good to rid the world of any measure of evil, as there seems to be great quantities to go around, but the U.S. complicity in Hussein’s tenure as a tyrant raises many, many questions about the honesty of U.S. policy when the track record of our government and that of some of our allies is considered.

Here is a partial, very partial, list of dictators who the U.S. has openly supported along with the counties where they have plied their dirty work, usually involving the death and disappearance of thousands and often many more. There was Augosto Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Fulgencio Batista of Cuba, Francisco Franco of Spain, Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, Carlos Armas of Guatemala, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlaui of Iran, and Manuel Noriega of Panama.

If the reader has any doubt about the crimes these criminals perpetrated then check a simple reference like Wikipedia. It will only take a moment and you can have the details of our allies’ wrongdoings confirmed. Feel free to add to the list and make up a list of your own, as there are plenty of tyrants to go around!

Saddam Hussein was an awful monster, but he was our ally up until 1990 when he made the mistake of countering the Bush I administration and went ahead and invaded Kuwait. When Hussein was gassing the Kurdish population of Iraq no one in Washington lifted a phone to complain. When he attacked Iran the U.S. even provided much of his weaponry and gave him strategic advice on that lethal campaign. There’s even a photograph of Donald Rumsfeld, yes Rumsfeld the architect along with Bush and Cheney of the current war in Iraq, shaking hands with Hussein in 1983 when he acted as Mr. Reagan’s special envoy. Now where was that photo in all of the coverage of Hussein’s hanging?

The point is, the U.S. has a policy of supporting tyrants in many cases, just as long as they don’t go too far astray and start acting on their own.