Re: During Saddam's salad days in the '80s, Europe was right in there with their American counterparts selling Saddam weapons of all sorts.
But what's your problem with Saddam Hussein?! You talk as if the toppled Iraqi leader were the Devil incarnate, the arch-evil of our times! For many decent people in Europe and elsewhere, Putin is no better, nor were the successive leaders of apartheid South Africa and Chile's Pinochet. And the ailing Ariel Sharon was rightly dubbed the Butcher of Sabra and Shatila. Not to mention the long-forgotten darlings of the US: Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Suharto (Indonesia), Fransisco Franco (Spain), you name him/her....
Re: If Europe had as much power as the US, they would not be taking the slightly higher road as much as they do.
That's quite right. It's not so much the Americans and their policymakers who are intrinsically evil or nefarious as "power" itself. Power, geopolitical power, is like Tolkien's rings(*): it changes the benign nature and character of its bearer --for the worst. A hundred years ago, it was Europe who was spellbound by the "ring of imperial power" and it took two world wars for her to bequeath the malevolent ring to the US....
Gus
(*)Rings of Power
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
[...]
Why were the Rings of Power Made, and what were their Powers?
The reason is tied to the regret the Elves had for the passage of time. The Elves were immortal and were fated to live as long as Middle-earth lasted. As such, the earth changed with the passage of time, and the Elves saw many things that were fair become destroyed and lost by the hurts of evil. Sauron, as tempter, awoke a desire in the hearts of Elves to heal the hurts of the earth and create a paradise on this side of the sea to compare to Valinor - and to be its rulers; whereas in Valinor they were only subjects and below the Valar. The Rings of Power were primarily made to slow the passage of time and preserve their creations of beauty. Yet they had other powers as well.
Tolkien provides a revealing insight on to the nature of the Rings and their powers in one of his letters:
"The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. `change' viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance - this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor - thus approaching `magic', a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron...such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible." [Letters #131]
[...]
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