Col. David Hackworth — who I only know from his frequent appearances on Fox News — writes an article headlined: “Please, no more made-in-the-USA monsters.”

In 1963, after Qasim was knocked off in a second CIA black op, Saddam scurried home to slay his way up the power ladder and eventually become head of the dreaded al-Jihaz a-Khas, the feared intelligence apparatus of the Ba’ath party.

From there, with a little more help from his CIA pals, he continued to plot, plunder and massacre his way to the head-beast slot, where we anointed him our newest very best friend. Not just because of the Cold War or Iraq’s rich oil deposits, but also because he went after our former best friend and newest major enemy, Iran. We supported our fave new despot with the works: arms and munitions, precursors for chemical and biological weapons, and intelligence information gained from our ultrasecret intelligence intercepts of Iranian radio traffic and other hot skinny from our satellites showing up-to-the-minute Iranian battle dispositions.

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Even current SecDef Donald Rumsfeld rushed to Saddam’s palace in 1983 to bow and scrape and assure the Bully of Baghdad he had a Ronald Reagan-signed blank check for almost any bombs and bullets in our arsenal. After which our generals and admirals taught him how to use them, completing his morph into a master of Military Miscalculation.

Then, in 1990, Saddam did a Noriega and foolishly bit the hand that fed him — as has almost every U.S.-sponsored Cold War dictator from every dark corner of every continent. His ill-conceived blitzkrieg against one of our primary gas stations, Kuwait, only served to get him locked down in Iraq for 12 no-fly-zone years, with heavy sanctions and bombing raids.

And when he still didn’t get it, the pre-emptors decided to take him out for good.

Now billions and perhaps trillions of our dollars and our best and brightest will be rebuilding Iraq to create a stable government — a beacon of democratic light in a dismally troubled region.

But that’s only if we don’t empower yet another world-class serial killer, and then in a decade or two have to spend still more precious American lives making another regime change in a country that’s already paid too hard a price.

Also via Cursor.