America hating FUCKTARD

That's me. Or so I was told by a couple of charmers -- one identifying him/herself as "neocon" and the other preferring anonymity -- who stopped in at the Chavez post, wherein I claimed amusement at Chavez's stunting in front of the UN. These generous folks apparently had googled the phrase "who applauded Chavez," and were drawn here by the citation that UN delegates had done just that. Let's ignore the obvious grim of existence of people who would feel compelled to sit in a moist and darkened room, searching out George Bush naysayers in blogistan in order to deliver their compelling arguments in support of America. I suspect these two may have been further irked by my ridicule of Bush's comments in the UN the day before, comments regarding Iranian rulers that were, as usual, exceedingly hypocritical:

The greatest obstacle to this future is that your rulers have chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons.

Of course, American has done and continues to do all these things that Bush accuses Iran of doing. I suspect that "neocon" and anonymous, operating, as they surely must, from a platform of diabolically profound ignorance, are probably unaware of this simple fact. I'll address this ignorance and examine each of the three uses of a "nation's resources," which Bush has found so troubling in the Iranian regime.

Resources on nuclear weapons: There is no dispute here that US governments have squandered untold riches on nuclear weapons. Since incinerating several hundred thousand Japanese civilians in WWII, the US has maintained a nuclear arsenal unrivaled in the world. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the extant nuclear arms race of the cold war, the nuclear arsenal has hardly been reduced and in 2004, the Bush administration requested $30 billion over the subsequent four years for maintainance, research and development and production of nuclear bombs. The Bush administration is now spending more on these weapons than the country spent throughout most of the Cold War and is equaling in real dollars what Reagan spent during the weapons frenzy of the Eighties. The Nuclear Posture Review of the Bush administration determined that it needed to "revitalize the nuclear weapons manufacturing infrastructure." This document was issued in December 2001, a mere three months after 9/11. The Pentagon under-equipped troops in the field while Rumsfeld had decided, even at this point, that the invasion of Iraq would be done his way: faster, better cheaper. None of that has quite worked out, but the US continues to dump untold billions into a nuclear arsenal no one knows what to do with, while the Bush administration cuts Medicare, education loans and New Orleans remains a near disaster area for most would be residents.

Of course, Bush's actual criticism of Iran was that it is was "pursuing nuclear weapons," which is apparently much worse than squandering a nation's resources for decades by actually having them. But having them is great.

Resources fueling extremism: Nothing better demonstrates that the US is fueling extremism than the recently compiled National Intelligence Estimate that concluded the war in Iraq has "helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks." This was not a tremendous revelation but merely gave offcial confirmation to what was already obvious: the $300 billion so far spent has done nothing but foment extremism and fuel sectarian violence both within and without Iraq. It has hardened the positions of countries across the Middle East.

But apart from the war, the US has become murkily involved with a group the State Department labels as a terrorist organisation. This is not surprising, really, because the White House seems more than happy to employ such groups as long as it is seen to be in the interests of the United States. Apparently, the lessons of Afghanistan have not registered on the Bush administration, which appears to have an historical memory of about three weeks.

The Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) was initially involved with the Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah. However, these folks were even too extreme for the Supreme Council and were expelled from Iran in 1979. This created some bad blood and the MEK sought refuge and gained the support of Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war; the MEK was committed to bringing down the Islamic regime that had expelled it. Hussein was more than happy to have such a terrorist ally. It was a classic enemy-of-my-enemy-friend loop, with Hussein an anti-Shia Ba'athist and the Maoist MEK to whom those in Tehran weren't Islamic enough and whose leader believes himself to be the 12th Imam. The Hussein-MEK relationship was maintained throughout the nineties even as US embargos were then excercised against both countries (well, except for Halliburton). Once Hussein was deposed, US forces struck a cease-fire deal with the MEK. Unlike the decision to disband the Iraqi army, the MEK was allowed to remain intact and was housed in Camp Ashraf. In fact, Iran had offered al Qaeda leaders in exchange for leaders of the MEK. The Pentagon demonstrated no interest in the deal at the time it was made in the summer of 2003. It would soon become apparent why, when the Iraq Governing Council ordered the MEK out of Iraq, the Pentagon refused; it was considering using the MEK against Iran. In July of 2004, the US designated members of the MEK as "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

By 2005, the MEK -- still a State Department-labelled terrorist organisation -- was supplying the IAEA with information about Iran's nuclear program. Much of it was bogus. But what we see here is a symbiotic relationship. The Bush administration is happy to fuel and support the extremist MEK as long as the MEK is willing to fuel the extremism within the White House, an extremism that right now would like nothing better than to launch an attack on Iran.

Funding terrorism: US governments have been using our nation's resources to fund terrorism for decades. But we don't need to go back beyond the Eighties to recall the rapture another Republican administration experienced when it was funding Central American death squads, the most notorious operation being the Iran-Contra scandal. At the same time the White House was conducting this shady enterprise, the CIA was involved in Afghanistan where operatives happily funded the mujahedeen and Osama bin Laden's efforts there in routing the Soviets. Ahh, those were good days, back when we fueled insurgencies when it was said to be "in our interests." Back then we loved to point out how mujahedeen meant "freedom fighter." We don't hear that much now.

With Iran-Contra death squads in Central America and the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, we also funded state terrorism by our full support of Saddam Hussein and his fight with the then new Iranian Islamic regime that had previously booted out the Shah, a man who supplanted Iran's democratically elected leader and was installed as ruler by the CIA in 1953. Hussein also engaged in brutal repression of his own people -- Saddam's rape rooms! -- and this culminated in the 1988 gassing of Kurds in the notorious Anfal campaign, the trial for which is going on right now.

As an Islamic regime, the Reagan adminstration was none too happy with the Iranians -- even though they had cooperated in the arrangement brokered by James Baker, which allowed the hostages to be freed five minutes after Reagan was inaugurated -- and Hussein would prove to be the next useful tyrannt who would enjoy US backing. Hussein today is standing trial for crimes against humanity using chemical and biological weapons supplied to him by the United States.

These are merely a few reasons why Bush's words ring hollow in the UN and in most of the world. UN delegates and those who have suffered the brunt of US foreign policy hypocrisy are fully aware of all this and much more. None of this matters to trolls like "neocon" and "anonymous" though, so immersed are they in their google hunt for people calling out Bush on his rote drivel.

Well, now they have a new attack front as people around the country criticize an administration and its accompanying Congress who have seen fit to legislate for prisoner abuse, secret military tribunals and against 800 years of legal tradition in habaes corpus. "Maverick" Republicans' recent belly dance in front of the cameras while they approved egregious breeches of the Constitution is all the proof we need that these people are not only not conservatives, they barely appear to be American. Who, really, are the America haters?