About that FDR photo and Zarqawi...

[theHandpuppet]

There have been numerous threads regarding reports that a photo of FDR was found at the site where Zarqawi was killed. I haven't had time to peruse most of these threads but I did do a quick google search about FDR's status in and relation with some Arab nations.(Another poster demanded I explain it, for what reason isn't quite clear to me.) What I did find (and granted, this was a very brief search) was not info about FDR and Iraq but about FDR's close relationship with the Saudi royal family.

I'll admit my knowledge of ME history is woefully inadequate but when I espied passages referring to the conference at Bitter Lake the light bulb went off. I'd read of it many years ago but had shoved that knowledge deep into the recesses of my cranial vault.

Anyway, here are two articles pertinent to the subject at hand -- please note that unlike the current WH resident, FDR wasn't photographed holding hands with the ruling family members.

Make of this what you will.

http://www.saudiembassy.net/Publications/MagSummer99/Gift.htm
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2005/saudi-relations-interest-03-17.html

[BayCityProgressive]

1. I am sure politically it was prudent to have relations

with them just as it is now. I have also heard that Ho Chi Ming admired FDR. Many third world leaders admired him because he was anti-colonialist. He also was the first president to really stand up for Jewish rights.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Oh I'm sure that's true

I just find it curious that for some reason certain quarters are intent on planting some sinister intent in the discovery of FDR's photo in an Arab home. What did they expect to find? A picture of Donald Rumsfeld?

[MADem]

3. Hell, we needed that oil to run the war, and the oil companies

had already divvied up the goods. The Germans were all over Iran for a bit, it was touch and go. Although we were pretty self-sufficient back then, FDR had NO IDEA how long the war would drag on, so he was contingency-planning in a big way, not just for that war, but the next one (because humans never learn, now, do they?).

No oil, no tanks, no planes...of course he snuggled up to those guys, he had to, it was strategically mandated. And they were THRILLED to the gills to be noticed.