lonita said, “Colour me shocked.” Evidence comes to light that the biological weapons we're apparently going to invade Iraq to destroy were created from seed stock supplied by the U.S.A. in the 80's.
What goes around comes around. The West uses Saddam Hussein during the 80's to fight Iran and keep the Middle East fragmented. We give him all sorts of really nasty toys to play with. When he points them at other countries we demand he give the toys back, and amusingly enough, push him closer to alliance with Iran! And have we learned any lessons whatsoever since then? Of course not! We went into Afghanistan, and with the help of the Northern Alliance, we got rid of the ruling Taliban. Great, the Taliban were a pretty nasty bunch. But then we leave the country to the Northern Alliance, who have spent all the time since re-planting all the opium that the Taliban got rid of. No word about this from the Western governments, of course. The cynic in me would say it was part of the deal to get their cooperation.
When Australia sent troops to East Timor, our main job was to protect the citizens of the country from the (Indonesian-army supported) warlord, so Timor could hold free and fair elections, and build up sufficient democratic government to determine its own future. What have we done in Afghanistan? We just kicked out one lot of bad guys, and installed a new lot who we hoped would stick to making trouble in their own country. Wasn't that what we were trying to do when we put the Taliban in power in the first place? I'm confused.
If we bring about ‘regime-change’ in Iraq, we'll just end up doing the same thing, swapping the puppet who cut his strings with another, in the hope this one will stay docile for long enough to not be a problem until the current batch of politicians are retired and writing their memoirs.