Another Swift Boat Liars for Bush parallel

I mentioned in an earlier post the parallel between Bush's use of the Swift Boat Liars group and his attacks on John McCain in 2000, in which he pretended to keep himself above it all.

Here's another parallel.  This one involves more Old Man Bush, aka, George H.W. Bush, who was Vice President under Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989.  It has to do with Iraq's use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran.

Old Man Bush was deeply involved in both the formulation and execution of Reagan's policies in this situation.  It was very complicated, as those who have some familiarity with the Iran-Contra scandal know.  The US was actively but covertly backing Iraq.  But also selling arms to Iran.

At one point, the Reagan administration, with Old Man Bush as a main player in this action, provided 2,000-lb. MK-84 bombs to Iraq through Saudi Arabia and encouraged Saddam's regime to become more active in the air war against Iran.  Their goal was to increase Iran's need for anti-aircraft missiles, so that they could make more arms-for-hostages exchanges with Iran.  This is the way the Bush dynasty operates.

In House of Bush, House of Saud (2004) Craig Unger describes what happened after Iraq's chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988.  He notes that this incident "was later used as a reason by President George W. Bush to invade Iraq in 2003."

But the attitude of the Reagan/Bush administration at the time was quite different.  As Unger explains:

Various accounts have blamed the Iranians for the gas or have suggested that both Iran and Iraq were using chemical weapons at Halabja.  But according to Joost R. Hiltermann in the International Herald Tribune, the U.S. State Department instructed its diplomats to blame Iran as well to mute the condemnation of Iraq for using chemical weapons.  "The deliberate American prevarication [lying] on Halabja was the logical outcome of a pronounced six-year tilt toward Iraq. ... Sensing correctly that it had carte blanche, Saddam's regime escalated its resort to has warfare, graduating to ever more lethal agents.  Because of the strong Western animus against Iran, few paid heed.  Then came Halabja.  Unfortunately for Iraq's sponsors [the US and Saudi Arabia], Iran rushed Western reporters to the blighted town. ... In response, the United States launched the 'Iran too' gambit.  The story was cooked up in the Pentagon, interviews with thr principals show.  A newly declassified State Department document demonstrates that United States diplomats received instructions to press this line with United States allies... the UN Security Council['s] choice of neutral language (condemning the 'continued use of chemical weapons in the conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq' and calling on 'both sides to refrain from the future use of chemical weapons') diffused the effect of its belated move.  Iraq proceeded to step up its use of gas until the end of the war and even afterward."

Now, obviously, the stakes at Halabja, where five thousand people were killed by poison gas, were a lot more serious than the immediate stakes in the Swift Boat Liars controversy.

But the tactic is strikingly similar.  Our ally Iraq used poison gas?  Let's evenhandedly condemn the use of poison gas by both sides, whether both sides were using it in this incident or not.

Our allies are lying shamelessly about our opponent's past?  Let's evenhandedly condemn the use of attack ads by both sides.

Yeah, if you tug at the threads of the Swift Boat Liars business, it shows an awful lot about how the Bush dynasty operates.