Which One's a Witch?

Juan Cole, in his excellent posts, brings up the presence of a witchhunt for former Baathists in the current Iraqi "government." [Why they are not purging themselves of Ahmed Chalabi is another story.] But, according to one of Dr. Cole's correspondents in Iraq:

The Baathist purge office has been reactivated, again under the guidance of Chalabi, and this cannot accomplish anything except make the insurgency worse. The average Iraqi does not care about mid-level Baathists, they care about peace, and if peace is contingent upon keeping or hiring a few Baathists with ties to Saddam, that is an acceptable contingency.

It is interesting what the United States will tolerate in the way of "formers." The picture above is of Wernher von Braun.

The official US biography of this man states:

Wernher Von Braun was one of the world's first and foremost rocket engineers and a leading authority on space travel. His will to expand man's knowledge through the exploration of space led to the development of the Explorer satellites, the Jupiter and Jupiter-C rockets, Pershing, the Redstone rocket, Saturn rockets, and Skylab, the world's first space station. Additionally, his determination to "go where no man has gone before" led to mankind setting foot on the moon.

Is this the same Wernher von Braun?

At the end of W.W.II, the U.S. Army had a special team of well trained soldiers travel through Western Europe to conscript German scientists into the W.W.III effort against the Soviets. They put the word out that any German scientist would be allowed to live in comfort if they came over to the Western side. Soon war criminals from all over Europe were scurrying for the safety of the U.S. Army.

One of these men was Wernher Von Braun.

Why, yes it is. And there is more:

He had used concentration camp victims to produce his V-1 and V-2 for Hitler. Many of his slaves died of starvation while working in his underground factories. Other were beaten to death for not being fast enough. 25,000 slaves died for Von Braun's dream.

Now just scroll down the page or click on this link to refresh yourselves how Werner and his buddies treated their "slaves."

So, you see, it depends on whose ox is being gored (I love that simile) as to whether you are evil or not. Sort of like that guy Karimov.

Reminds me of that old John Phillip Sousa march: "Under the Double Standard."