Representative Press Blog

Shadroui should have learned some history before he wrote that article about Chomsky

George Shadroui wrote an article called, "Dissecting Chomsky and Anti-Americanism".

Shadroui writes, "Chomsky (and many on the left) tries to implicate the United States in the behavior of Saddam Hussein because we gave him minimal support during the 1980s and the Iraq/Iran war. To read Chomsky, you would think the United States brought Saddam into power and kept him there, which is itself a falsehood."

Shadroui should try to learn some history before writing such statements. The US hand a VERY big role in bringing Saddam to power. First of all, the CIA was willing to work with this murderous thug in the late 50's and early 60's and the Ba'ath party "was essentially installed by the CIA in 1963" See The CIA and Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein: Taking Out the CIA's Trash
And the support we gave Saddam was not "minimal", it was decisive support in the war of aggression against Iran. The US "removed Iraq from the official list of terrorist states in 1982 so that the US could freely provide the tyrant with aid." (see pp 111-112 Hegemony or Survival ) In fact the US partnered with him in war crimes. It is an understatement to say that Scott Ritter and Richard Butler don't agree on everything, but on this they both agree: U.S. advisers were helping Iraq carry out gas attacks against Iran. The U.S. and Saddam Hussein were partners in war crimes
Notice the piss poor job the mainstream media has done informing the American people about these facts? Basically, mainstream media did not report to the American people the involvement of the US in the early history of Saddam, the early history of the Ba'ath party, and the dramatic fact that the US participated in war crimes with Saddam's government.
Since Shadroui refuses to understand Chomsky's criticism of mainstream media, he assumes that mainstream media would tell him bout these things. The fact that the media basically suppressed these facts fits into the propaganda model that Chomsky talks about.
Eric S. Piotrowski deals with Shadroui's article too