Day By Day© by Chris Muir.Friday, September 23, 2005
Saddam Hussein as a "Secular Leader"
Watched a few minutes of The Factor's replay of the Phil Donahue interview last night, and it reminded me of an old question of mine.
If George Bush had used federal money to construct the world's largest Christian Church, and then used it to house all the pages of the New Testament written in his own blood, AND if George Bush had changed the U.S. flag by adding the words "I love Jesus Christ" in his own handwriting, wouldn't every liberal in the U.S., along with virtually every conservative and right-minded American, rightly say that Bush was a religious zealot and a Christian extremist?
Yet Saddam Hussein does all these things and leftists like Donahue jump to his defense by saying that he was a "secular leader", who would never have abided Islamic extremists or religious fundamentalism.
Tell me how this isn't an absurd argument.
The truth is that Saddam Hussein was a secular leader and socialist when Iraq was a Soviet client state. Being "secular" helped him procure First World weaponry and maintain power.
After the fall of the USSR, however, it was much more advantageous to accommodate the Islamic Fundamentalism that was defining the power structure of the Middle East after the Cold War. Thus he supported Hamas, thus he built Mosques and changed the flag and started to make appearances in traditional Islamic dress.
Because that was now in his best interest.
The argument that Saddam Hussein was a stalwart and unshakable ideological opponent of radical Islam is ridiculous, and those who make that argument should start getting called on it.
If George Bush had used federal money to construct the world's largest Christian Church, and then used it to house all the pages of the New Testament written in his own blood, AND if George Bush had changed the U.S. flag by adding the words "I love Jesus Christ" in his own handwriting, wouldn't every liberal in the U.S., along with virtually every conservative and right-minded American, rightly say that Bush was a religious zealot and a Christian extremist?
Yet Saddam Hussein does all these things and leftists like Donahue jump to his defense by saying that he was a "secular leader", who would never have abided Islamic extremists or religious fundamentalism.
Tell me how this isn't an absurd argument.
The truth is that Saddam Hussein was a secular leader and socialist when Iraq was a Soviet client state. Being "secular" helped him procure First World weaponry and maintain power.
After the fall of the USSR, however, it was much more advantageous to accommodate the Islamic Fundamentalism that was defining the power structure of the Middle East after the Cold War. Thus he supported Hamas, thus he built Mosques and changed the flag and started to make appearances in traditional Islamic dress.
Because that was now in his best interest.
The argument that Saddam Hussein was a stalwart and unshakable ideological opponent of radical Islam is ridiculous, and those who make that argument should start getting called on it.
