Host Lying about Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

A recent assertion on local radio has been that the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations's wide ranging support for Saddam Hussein is irrelevant given FDR's alleged support for a monster like Joe Stalin in WW2.

While one could dismiss this as an unsurprising ignorance of WW2, the insult to the veterans of that war should not be ignored.

In WW2, the US and UK undertook to send 30 months of Arctic convoys to a USSR suffering starvation, genocide, atrocities, and pillage at the hands of the Wermacht. How this act of heroism by the thousands of sailors who risked treacherous conditions, losing thousands of colleagues, is called support for the brutal reign and actions of Josef Stalin is hard to discern.

In contrast, the support of Reagan and Bush for the brutal reign and actions of Saddam Hussein came at the height of his crimes. Reagan and Bush offered this vital support not when Saddam was defending his people from invasion , but while he was pursuing policies of starvation, genocide, atrocities, and pillage against Iranians.

Please review the facts below to determine if it is appropriate to insult the vets of WW2 to cover up Reagan and Bush's support for Saddam:

The Reagan administration pursued a deliberate policy aimed at ensuring an Iraqi victory after their invasion of Iran. In February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism despite the fact that Iraq support for Lebanese groups like Hezbollah only increased from this period.
It is recognized that US support was vital in prolonging the Iranian invasion through extensive and unusually generous loans and credits.

At the same time as Saddam ordered the murder of 150 Shiites from the city of Dujail in 1982 ( the sole crime for which he has been prosecuted,)Reagan issued various National security directives to begin an explicit policy of military and intelligence support. Released documents reveal extensive US knowledge of daily Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the invasion of Iran and battles against northern Kurdish insurgents. However, when the State department commented on this, Donald Rumsfled was quickly dispatched to Baghdad specifically to reassure the Iraq leader of US support. Indeed, Rumsfeld went so far as to offer Israeli assistance which was rejected. Also, despite formal prohibitions on the sale of military equipment before 1984, the administration repeatedly turned a blind eye to the sale of military helicopters and other vehicles. By 1984, this policy of support was advanced to the point that even support for Saddam's nuclear program was touted.

Around this period, when Iran tried to raise the chemical warfare issue at the UN, the US lead the charge in smothering the motion. Similarly, in the years following the killing of over 200 marines by Hezbollah, when the US House passed a bill to place Iraq back on the list of terror sponsors, the administration intervened.
By 1988, with the almost unprecedented use of chemical weapons by Iraq, the Iran invasion stalemated and wound down. Saddam Hussein's biggest concern was Kurdish rebellion in the north where Kurds had joined with Iranian forces. on March 16 and 17, 1988, Iraq attacked Halabja with 36 straight hours of poison gas shelling of VX, sarin, mustard gas, and other toxins ( reportedly also using the same helicopters mentioned above).

The initial Administration response was to blame the attack on the Iranians. Nonetheless, the US Senate passed, in September 1988 , a resolution condemning Iraq and cutting off vital financial support. Again, the Reagan administration intervenes and the bill dies.

By October 1989, when all international banks had cut off loans to Iraq, President Bush signed National Security Directive (NSD) 26 mandating closer links with Iraq and $1 billion in agricultural loan guarantees. In order to assure Saddam that this support would continue despite rising domestic and international disgust for Saddam, Bob Dole visited Iraq with a senatorial group in April 1990, months before the Kuwait invasion. As was the case throughout the 1980s, international sanctions on dual use technology and domestic protocols to prevent the export of sensitive materials relative to national security were to be continually overlooked or surmounted in the case of Saddam Hussein.

Pittman lies to UMass kids about taxation

During a recent debate between Umass Dartmouth College Republicans and Democrats, our WBSM host asked the democratic students how they could justify a redistributive form of taxation when the sixteenth amendment "states that all taxes should be uniform." The students, obviously a little perplexed, responded that a progressive form of taxation is justified and worthwhile.

In effect, the host had forced the erroneous assumption ( lie?) that the constitution mandated a flat, uniform, tax and that the progressive form of taxation, where the tax burden increases with income, is unconstitutional.

In truth, the constitution asserts that all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States . Hence, in an era where state's rights were a highly sensitive topic, the burden of the public treasury would not fall more heavily on some states ( not individuals ..states!!!).
Then, at the turn of the 20th C, the actual 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution stated something approximating the oppositite of what the WBSM host asserted:Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

So, in truth the Sixteenth amendment laid the groundwork for a progressive form of taxation and does not undermine it.

Tell me again how talk radio is superior????