Darren Kaplan has a lengthy refutation of the idea that the US "created" Saddam in the 1980s. We did try to use Iraq to contain the Iranians, but Germany, France, and Russia all sold him significant amounts of military hardware. While the US’ actions were hardly laudable, the actions of those countries who armed the tyrant with T-72 tanks and Mirage fighters hardly have any moral high ground on that issue.
The Saddam Myth Exposed
Published
I wasn’t aware that you were accepting “but other people did something worse!” as a justification for immoral actions. I thought Repubs were all about personal responsibility and whatnot.
I’m not defending our actions in supporting Saddam, although they weren’t without some justification. (We were trying to prevent Iran from gaining dominance in the region, which would have certainly been disastrous.)
What is disingenious to to argue that the US “created” Saddam when we weren’t the ones directly providing him with weapons and training. The US is not blameless, but a fair appraisal of events would stress that blaming Saddam on the US is neither fair nor accurate.
Moreover, even if we did, it would only strengthen our moral obligation to remove him.