The Circles of Time; or How Many Short-Sighted Republicans Does It Take to Keep the U.S. at War for Decades?

Q: What could be scarier than being doomed to fight a war of our own making with an incompetent wanna-be dictator?

A: Watching him recreate the very scenario that got us into this mess in the first place.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, our fearless (and stupid) Emperor of the United States not only built his entire administration with Cold War antiquities to run a post-Cold War democracy (and ruin it), it seems that we are now supporting terrorism in Pakistan in the hopes of toppling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government (and, by default, their nuclear ambitions).

In fact, as early as July of 2005, reports surfaced of the United States supporting (but not openly--Iran/Contra scandal anyone?) a rebel Pakistani group who knowingly attacked soldiers and citizens in Iran. And again in November of 2006, reports surfaced of the United States protecting conferences held by these rebel groups.

But wait! you may be saying. How is this history repeating itself? Are you just another deranged liberal nutcase yanking at straws? Let's look at who put Saddam Hussein in power, shall we? Look here.:

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The last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago, Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the historic moment.

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Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time, America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan administration feared that the Iranian revolutionaries who had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and its vital oilfields. On the-theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic aid and covert supplies of munitions.

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And remember that little thing called the "war on terror," where we are supposedly trying to hunt down Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and other persons who were actually involved in the 9/11 "incident"? We used to be great buddies. Really! See here:

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The creation of the West's newest and perhaps deadliest enemy began in 1979, when the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in an effort to prop up the country's communist government. The CIA, eager to stop the spread of Marxist ideology, spent $3 billion arming and equipping the Islamic rebels, known as the mujahedin. The rebels objected to the secular, puppet government.

After a decade of combat that has been compared to the U.S. experience in Vietnam, war-weary Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and the United States stopped supporting the rebels. The CIA didn't offer to rebuild the ravaged country or work out a replacement government. Soon, civil strife erupted among Afghanistan's tribes, leaving the country's 21 million residents without running water or health care.

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"In an ironic reversal of roles, it is this militancy, born in the crucible of the Cold War and baptized in Afghanistan by the U.S. itself, which the U.S. now proclaims as its principal enemy," Pakistani political analyst Ayaz Amir said.

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And here we are again: backing a rebel group to overthrow a regime we don't care much for. The latest story was on ABC's World News Tonight, in which U.S. officials said:

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U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.

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And we all know how much the Shrubya's hate Congressional oversight, right? I mean, Congress might try to exercise it's constitutional authority and derail this mess before it comes back to bite us in the ass, and what Bush needs that? Further,

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A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false" and reiterated that the U.S. provides no direct funding of the Jundullah group.

Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.

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Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

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Doesn't the irony just make you want to barf?

Of course, now that we're admitted state sponsors of terrorism, does that mean we'll be invading ourselves anytime soon? Bush has been eyeing those oil reserves in Alaska for some time now...