WE FINALLY GOT OUR FRANKENSTEIN... AND HE WAS IN A SPIDER HOLE

-- by Michael Moore
December 14, 2003

---

Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.

America used to like Saddam. We LOVED Saddam. We funded him. We armed him We helped him gas Iranian troops.

But then he screwed up. He invaded the dictatorship of Kuwait and, in doing so, did the worst thing imaginable -- he threatened an even BETTER friend of ours: the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, and its vast oil reserves. The Bushes and the Saudi royal family were and are close business partners, and Saddam, back in 1990, committed a royal blunder by getting a little too close to their wealthy holdings. Things went downhill for Saddam from there.

But it wasn't always that way. Saddam was our good friend and ally. We supported his regime. It wasn't the first time we had helped a murderer. We liked playing Dr. Frankenstein. We created a lot of monsters -- the Shah of Iran, Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile -- and then we expressed ignorance or shock when they ran amok and massacred people. We liked Saddam because he was willing to fight the Ayatollah. So we made sure that he got billions of dollars to purchase weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. That's right, he had them. We should know -- we gave them to him!

We allowed and encouraged American corporations to do business with Saddam in the 1980s. That's how he got chemical and biological agents so he could use them in chemical and biological weapons. Here's the list of some of the stuff we sent him (according to a 1994 U.S. Senate report):

• Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
• Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
• Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.
• Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
• Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.
• Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

And here are some of the American corporations who helped to prop Saddam up by doing business with him: AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (for a full list of companies and descriptions of how they helped Saddam, go to: www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php )

We were so cozy with dear old Saddam that we decided to feed him satellite images so he could locate where the Iranian troops were. We pretty much knew how he would use the information, and sure enough, as soon as we sent him the spy photos, he gassed those troops. And we kept quiet. Because he was our friend, and the Iranians were the "enemy." A year after he first gassed the Iranians, we reestablished full diplomatic relations with him!

Later he gassed his own people, the Kurds. You would think that would force us to disassociate ourselves from him. Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn't let anything derail their good buddy Saddam. We had a virtual love fest with this Frankenstein whom we (in part) created.

And, just like the mythical Frankenstein, Saddam eventually spun out of control. He would no longer do what he was told by his master. Saddam had to be caught. And now that he has been brought back from the wilderness, perhaps he will have something to say about his creators. Maybe we can learn something... interesting. Maybe Don Rumsfeld could smile and shake Saddam's hand again. Just like he did when he went to see him in 1983 (you can find a photo at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ )

Maybe we never would have been in the situation we're in if Rumsfeld, Bush, Sr., and company hadn't been so excited back in the 80s about their friendly monster in the desert.

Meanwhile, anybody know where the guy is who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Our other Frankenstein?? Maybe he's in a mouse hole.

So many of our little monsters, so little time before the next election.

Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These bastards sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.

Only our desire to play Dr. Frankenstein dooms us all.

Yours,

Michael Moore mmflint@aol.com www.michaelmoore.com

For a look back to the better times of our relationship with Saddam Hussein, see the following:

• Patrick E. Tyler, "Officers say U.S. aided Iraq in war despite use of gas," New York Times, August 18, 2002. www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0818-02.htm
• "U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their possible impact on health consequences of the Gulf War," 1994 Report by the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affiars. www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsearch/FocusAreas/riegle_report/report/report_index. htm
• William Blum's cover story in the April 1998 issue of The Progressive, "Anthrax for Export." www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html
• Jim Crogan's April 25-May 1, 2003 report in the LA Weekly, "Made in the USA, Part III: The Dishonor Roll." www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php
• "Iraq: U.S. military items exported or transferred to Iraq in the 1980s," United States General Accounting Office, released February 7, 1994. www.fas.org/man/gao/gao9498.htm
• "U.S. had key role in Iraq buildup; trade in chemical arms allowed despite their use on Iranians and Kurds," Washington Post, December 30, 2002. www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52241-2002Dec29?language=printer
• "Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. policy and the prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980-1994," The National Security Archive, 2003 www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/iraqgate/iraqgate.html

THE SPEECH WE DIDN'T HEAR... BUSH RESIGNATION HAILED BY WORLD LEADERS

by Greg Palast

September 11, 2003

[Washington] The surprise resignation of the forty-third President of the

United States, George W. Bush, on the second anniversary of the terrorist

attack on America, was hailed by chiefs of state throughout the world. Mr.

Bush announced that after, "two years of bloodshed, economic devastation,

and spreading fear in America and abroad," he saw no choice but to accept

that, "I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I have proven

unqualified."

The text of the former President's September 11 address to the nation

follows:

"My fellow Americans:

I come to you tonight with a heavy heart. Two years ago today, thousands of

innocent Americans were murdered by terrorist maniacs. In the script I've

been handed, I'm now supposed to tell you that America is safer today, and

that the world is kinder and nicer and happier, because of I'm such a

brilliant general in the War on Terror.

But who are we kidding? Yesterday, Osama released his new hit video. The

terrorists are having a picnic ever since I turned over our foreign policy

to Saudi Arabia and Exxon-Mobil.

And here's the point in my speech where my handlers would have me tell you

about how I've been praying hard, making it sound like I just got off the

phone with the Lord. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty darn

offensive, downright blasphemous, to drag the Lord's name into every cheap

campaign speech and chest-pounding war threat. Osama says he talks to God

too. Let's leave Him out of the politics from now on, OK?

Look, in my speech this past Sunday, I used the word "democracy" about 11

times when talking about Iraq. It's democracy Florida-style, I

sppose.Except we're not fixing the vote this time ... we aren't letting

these people vote at all. "Iraqis aren't prepared for democracy." That's

what Dick Cheney and Saddam Hussein told me.

So we're blowing 100 billion bucks we don't have to colonize a country we

don't want. Rummy tries to explain it to me each morning -- oil this and

oil that -- but I just don't see it. And one of our kids dying there every

day - where are their parents, anyway? My dad didn't let that happen - he

got me out of the service. Didn't I look neat in that fly-boy suit?

And, let me tell you, I just looked at our nation's piggy bank. Uh-oh. When

I arrived, the last guy left me $4 trillion and said, "Be careful with all

that cash in this neighborhood." Well, I have to level with you, America:

it's all gone. The cupboard's bare and this year alone we blew half a

trillion more dollars than we have in our bank account. Man, I can't believe

I went through all that dough stone sober.

And what did we get for it? A Fatherland Security Department that's trying

to read the labels on everyone's underpants. Think about it, all this

Total Information Awareness KGB stuff: two years ago Americans were the

victims - but my government has made Americans the suspects. I don't know

about you, but this guy Ashcroft scares the bejeezus out of me.

And today I'm told that over nine million Americans are out of work. That's

not so bad: I haven't done much work in my lifetime either. But my mama

explained to me that not everyone's daddy can lend them an oil well to tide

them over.

> >>

> >> It's like I can't get anything right. The lights are going out in Ohio

> >> and the North Pole is melting. I don't get it. I appointed all those

> >> regulators that Ken Lay told me to, and I got rid of all the rules

> >> that

> >> got in the way of patriotic Polluter-Americans .... and what's the

> >> upshot? America the Beautiful is looking like she's had a pretty rough

> >> night. Won't be long before the whole country smells like Houston.

> >>

> >> And now the stock market's floating face down in the swimming pool --

> >> despite everything I've done for those guys on Wall Street. Even my

> >> plan

> >> to give every millionaire an extra million seems to have backfired.

Greenspam says I've created "business risk." Says I spook investors. But

when I asked Greenspam for a solution, all he did was hand me a bag of

pretzels.

Hey, I can take a hint. OK, I'm over my head on this one. I look back

over these last years, and what have I got to show you for it: two years of

bloodshed, economic devastation, and spreading fear in America and abroad.

When I ran for this office, I said the issue was, "character." And just

look at the characters around me. I've gotten all their resignations today.

And while I've got some character left, here's my own good-bye note too.

Let's face it: I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I

have proven unqualified. You know it. And I know it.

It's at this point in the speech where I'm supposed to say, "And may God

bless America." God better, because Dick Cheney won't. Don't panic: I'm

not turning over this sacred office to Mr. Contracts-R-Us.

Instead, I've petitioned the United States Supreme Court to pick a President

for us. Those guys picked the last one, why not the next one?

And so, my fellow Americans, you can take this job and ...."

Here, Mr. Bush's words became unintelligible. As usual.

- - - -

> >> Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best

> >> Democracy Money Can Buy.