Facts contradict Bush doublethink

To the editor:

A recent letter perpetuates the Orwellian doublethink of the Bush administration, which tries to link Saddam Hussein with Islamic extremists by simply mentioning them together. The facts flatly contradict this.

As a secular dictator who treated Islamic leaders harshly, Saddam was the exact opposite of an Islamic extremist.

This was precisely the reason why he became our government's proxy to oppose Iran's ayatollahs violently during the 1980s. As such, Saddam could do no wrong. When Iran's larger army threatened Saddam's defeat, our government helped Saddam develop and use the weapons of mass destruction it now decries. When in 1987 an Iraqi jet attacked the USS Stark (killing 37), the Reagan administration used twisted Orwellian logic to justify punishing Iran instead. After Saddam gassed his own people in 1988, the Reagan and Bush administrations reacted by giving Saddam more aid than ever before.

When the rebellion George H. W. Bush incited after Gulf War I turned into a popular one that might install an Islamic government in Iraq, our leaders callously let Saddam slaughter the insurgents and put them in the mass graves that these same leaders now shed crocodile tears over.

As our leaders struggle to control a region they have no right to, I expect them to continue the failed policies that gave us Saddam in the first place. I fear that 20 years from now children of today's soldiers will return to overthrow the next immoral monster our government props up in the name of freedom.

MARCUS BOND

Cape Girardeau