Originally posted by redmenace
The point I make is don't judge a person based on the fact he was photographed with someone. I mean using the same standard, we could criticize Churchill and FDR for being photographed with Stalin and being very polite and chummy with him.
If they'd given Stalin picks for distribution in the gulags, they probably would have. That's the difference; when Churchill and FDR were allied with Stalin, it was against an aggressive attack by Germany that threatened all of europe and beyond. It's different from putting biological weapons in the hands of one tyrant fighting another, in a local war of attrition.
It's about consequences; the US funded islamic rebels in Afghanistan, taught them guerilla warfare tactics and provided heavy weapons like Stringers - and then abandoned them as soon as the big bad communists moved away, to see Afghanistan collapse into civil war and strife. And people who are abandoned, won't thank you for it later on. Possibly more importantly, it shown a Arab jihad could destroy superior forces of foreign aggressors (Because US support was covert). And that would be a stimulant to militancy.
And in Iraq, we have the support of a dictator, with active provision of weapons (including the satellite photos needed to gas Iranian formations), simply to fight a war by proxy. A dictator is a dictator, after all, regardless of their allegiance, and they use war to strengthen their position. Thousands of lives squandered by Iraq and Iran on a proxy war, and for what purpose? Selling some arms, playing a bit of politics?
I don't think any of these are unforseeable consequences.
