Ok -- Saddam was evil, a bad man, he was a tyrant, he was an asshole

[CatWoman]

he gassed his own people, he created mass graves, he didn't put the toilet seat down.

But tell me this: Those of you who are married and/or have children: Was he worth the life of your spouse or your children?

Could he not have been disposed of some other way?

By this, I mean from within?

[charlyvi]

1. Yep.

As I heard an Iraqi woman say on CNN just before the war, "It isn't up to the United States to depose Hussein--it's up to us". Amen.

[Yellow_Dog]

28. Is this just saber rattling?

or have YOU or someone in YOUR family joined since the invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam by the illegal invasion of a sovereign country? Or are you just a member of the 101st cowardly keyboardists?

[LynnTheDem]

34. Yellow, I think you've misunderstood charlyvi's post.

He was replying to Catwoman's question of shouldn't deposing Hussein have been up to the Iraqis.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Lots of bad men in the world. The US would go broke and have

hundreds of thousands of casualties if we were to "take care of" all of them.

[tavalon]

23. What's more

America often props up dictators far worse than Saddam and we even supported him before we didn't support him. This was about oil and getting our foot into the middle east.

[tnlefty]

3. He was weakened and he knew it. I'm just waiting to see the

repugs heads explode when it finally dawns on them that this evil man they've been programmed to hate told the truth about no longer having WMD and that their 'fine christian man' lied to them.

[xray s]

4. Bush #1 could have insisted on Saddam's arrest after Gulf War 1

He could have led a worldwide coalition to bring him before the World Court to be tried for crimes against humanity.

Instead, Bush #1 told General Schwartzkopf and his Army Apache helicopters to stand down while Saddam's helicopters massacred thousands of Shiites who rose up against him after Gulf War 1. He purposely left Saddam in power.

That, in a nutshell, is all you have to know about the morality and motivations of the BFEE.

[understandinglife]

5. All of the above. But, none of it justifies Bush's illegal war & ...

.... and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq.

Period.

We have all the evidence of mendacity and illegal war-making we need to indict and prosecute Bush, Blair and every other neoconster scum-bag on the planet having any involvement in the Bush's illegal war on Iraq and all the torture and other atrocities that have been committed since August 2002.

Peace.


Emad Hajjaj, Al-Ghad Newspaper, Amman, Jordan

www.missionnotaccomplished.us - How ever long it takes, the day must come when tens of millions of caring individuals peacefully but persistently defy the dictator, deny the corporatists cash flow, and halt the evil being done in Iraq, and in all the other places the Bu$h neoconster regime is destroying civilization and the environment in the name of "America."

[seabeyond]

6. he could have been. he tried to surrender to bush in oct

he said he would leave the country and tell his army to work with bush. but conveyed back, no.....he wanted a fight

[CatWoman]

7. Yes, I remember that

and * said "NO"!!

He was itching for an invasion.

I remember Saddam supplied us with a WMD report.

Bush didn't even bother to read it. Just jumped in front of the camera to denounce it as lies.

[Massacure]

8. The amount of casualties is irrelevant. What is relevant is BUSH LIED.

There were no WMD. I would have supported any president who wanted to overthrow Saddam just for the plain fact Saddam was an asshole. As the republicans say, however, "It deserves a straight up or down vote." Bush didn't give it a fair up or down vote wits hies lies about WMD.

[CatWoman]

9. I agree

and I'm hoping it will open some eyes around here....

[Vladimir]

20. If I may, I think that would miss the point

which to my mind is very much *not* whether Bush lied. To frame that question that way is to accept that there could have been a right way to go about intervening in Iraq, and I do not believe this to be true. Fundamentally the reason that interventions do not work is that you have to have a movement within the country which commands widespread support to be able to govern once you leave - you can't just set up a bunch of polling stations (however well intentioned) and expect things to click into place. Look at the most recent attempts: Bosnia and Kosovo are still protectorates, and will be for the foreseeable future, because the local political consensus is completely at odds with what we want for the region. Afghanistan is as bad now as it ever was. And that is without even going into the system of vested interests which would have ensured that the economic side of the invasion - privatization of all in sight, banning of local crops, etc. - would have gone on however 'well intentioned' the original intervention. Ultimately, after an intervention, any government arising is going to be very cozy to the "liberating" powers, and probably not represent the interests of its people very well. So while I reserve the right to a future exception, I would say that in general humanitarian interventions are simply wrong.

PS As a final note, I think the crucial point is that we as the West need to learn to stop judging who was and wasn't an asshole and stop exploiting the rest of the world. Then we might find that "they" don't "hate us" so much any more...

on edit: A possible exception would be an intervention by African Union forces (with no US/UK/non-African involvement beyond such as specifically requested by the AU) in Sudan. The situation is grave enough, and the AU could be seen as an appropriate peacekeeper by both sides.

[Hello_Kitty]

27. I thought Saddam should have been removed from power in '91.

Otherwise, why the hell were we there? Yeah, I know, it was petro-political bullshit but still.

You are correct. If these neo-cons will LIE about WMD they will lie about anything and no one should trust them. Certainly not with the lives of young people.

[ROH]

10. Removing Saddam...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html
Bush said: "Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing."

So did it really require 1,855 allied lives and an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilian lives to capture/kill Saddam and his two sons?

[Protagoras]

11. Ted Bundy was a Filthy Villian

But that doesn't really let the Boston Strangler off the hook even if he killed Ted Bundy.

The argument that tries to justify our illegal war and the accompanying attrocities on the grounds that Saddam's attrocities were EVEN BIGGER (and that's questionable at this stage)...is like trying to justify Rape because the other guy was going to Rape and Shoot you.

I'm just full of awkward analogies today :P

[tjwash]

12. Not while he was sitting on all that oil.

Why do you think people like Fidel Castro are still in power? From a human rights standpoint he is every bit as bad as S.H. but the bush cartel's concern for him is in micro give-a-shits.

[Hubert Flottz]

13. The Bastid actually left the toilet seat up? LMAO!

Bush used chemical weapons on well over a hundred people in Texas prisons! None survived the attacks! Some may not have been guilty of anything but having some serious bad luck, or no money for a smart and decent lawyer!

Saddam was a total prick who tortured and murdered people, but if the neocons had needed him, or could have still used his services, then he'd have been okay by them! (tortured, murdered)(tortured, murdered) (tortured, murdered)(tortured, murdered)(tortured, murdered)(tortured, murdered)(tortured, murdered)(tortured, murdered) Look at some of the other assholes around the world who do the same sort of shit that Saddam was doing, but yet the neocons are still great bidness pals and partners with them, including the Bin Laden family!

Hell Prescott Bush was a business partner of the people who were gassing the Jews in the 1940s! Prescott even had links to the very people who were making the gas used on the victims of Hitler's death camps! Prescott would have kept right on making money off the Nazis medical experiments, slave labor and killing of the Jews of Europe, for the entire war, but FDR enforced the trading with the enemy act and put a stop to it!

[CatWoman]

14. ROFL!!!

"The Bastid actually left the toilet seat up?

And I fell in, dammit!!

:hi:

[Hubert Flottz]

18. Sheiite Happens!

Saddam was a no good bastid! He raped, tortured and murdered at those Evil prisons of his, like Abu Ghraib prison!

raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered raped, tortured and murdered

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/mideast/gulf/iraq/prisoners/

American leaders are above that kind of shit, right?

EDIT} The fact that Bush even came close enough to steal the election again in 04, is an indication of the sorry state of the Union! Around 50% of the people who vote in this country are damned fools!

[ROH]

15. Nominated (n/t)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. If he'd given up the oil he'd be drinking beer with Boobya in Crawford.

And, we'd be hearing what a swell guy he was from the politicians.

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Absolutely right!! If he had been as co-operative as the Saudis with his

oil, he'd be holding hands with Gumby in Texas too.

[Inland]

17. Not at the predictable cost of war and the alternative of sanctions and

inspections now and possible war later.

But we know that, now that Bush has given us that perfect vision into the past.

[MrScorpio]

21. The question that should be asked: Was he a threat to us?

He was surrounded on all sides by either the US Military or his arch enemies.

His Army was destroyed during the Gulf War.

He was on Osama Bin Ladin's shitlist.

He had no terrorist organization of his own.

His Air Force consisted of a few broken down Russian jets

UN inspectors weapons inspectors were all up his ass.

The range of his missiles were only restricted to the region.

He had no WMDs.

He had no possible to way to project his meager military against the United States.

He had no viable ties to the Islamic Jihadists.

The military chiefs, former diplomats and intelligence community were dead set against invading.

And George Bush and his cronies had to INVENT SHIT in order to come up with a reason to invade Iraq.





I guess you can figure out where I stand.

[CatWoman]

22. all right, Smarty Pants

don't make me sic your "buddies" on ya!!

:D

[Czolgosz]

24. It's a shame we didn't have some recent model for how to deal with

a ruthless dictator who committed atrocities (like ethnic cleansing) against his own people. Wouldn't it be great if we had such a model that didn't involve risking so many American soldier's lives? I ask myself over and over: what would President Clinton have done if he was ever confronted with such a dilemma?

[babylonsister]

25. I guarantee he wouldn't have started a senseless

war with no justification. But now I'm suspicious of whether OBL had anything to do with 9/11. It's a real shame that the truth is so hard to find.

[Disturbed]

26. Saddam committed an unpardonable sin.

He was selling oil via the Euro. He just had to go, along with his sons and his cronies. No forgiveness!

[bvar22]

29. Saddam was on the way down before the invasion.

He was becoming increasingly less rational. He very much resembled Hitler during his last days in the Bunker. His country was in ruins and being confronted by a Superpower. Saddam was boasting of miracle weapons and commanding non-existent armies. His orders were not being followed by his subordinates who had been commanded to Fight to the Death!

Some reports describe a man detached from reality who was spending his days locked in his quarters obsessed with writing Romance Novels. (Writing pulp Romance Novels was indeed true. How obsessed he was is still uncertain).

The man that was pulled out of that hole was certainly not in command of anything. It is reasonable to ask how long was Saddam irrelevant. Who was really running Iraq the last few years.

This would also beg speculation as to the urgency for the bush* invasion. Were bush*/Neocons in such a hurry to invade BECAUSE Saddam was losing his grip?

The following link is to a report about the Romance Novels.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/zabibh2.htm

Everything else in this post is from personal observation of the information supplied by our Media, and personal speculation about was REALLY happening.

[babylonsister]

39. Oh, goodness! A voice of reason!

Another reason why it was so easy to initiate this war without thinking about consequences. Ironic that the blivet exhibits similar traits.
Our news sources are sparse - scary.

[Fescue4u]

30. I agree. My kids are worth Far more than any number of IRaqis

Its simply not worth the risk.

[Stirk]

31. What people seem to forget is that

the reason Hussein enjoyed the support of men like Cheney and Rumsfeld during the Reagan years was precisely *because* he was a ruthless tyrant. *That is why he was given chemical weapons and lots of other military support*. For them to turn around now and say that it's the reason he had to be removed is ludicrous.

[tabasco]

42. Thanks for pointing that out.

Ronald Reagan, through the CIA, gave Saddam Hussein anthrax, botulinin, and nerve gas precursors (insert tab A into slot B and voila - nerve gas!). One of the most vile acts ever by our government.

Funny how the freepers forget how Reagan gave Saddam all these WMDs.

[ginnyinWI]

32. Ralph Nader, on Cspan this morning, said:

He said that if Saddam had truly been a threat, Israeli intelligence (a very capable intel org.)would have for sure known about it, and all the neighboring countries would have taken him out. But he simply wasn't a threat. He was a weakening dictator and everyone around him knew it.

I do think Nader knows what he's talking about on this. It's worth going to Cspan.org and listening to his interview--about a half hour.

edit to add link: http://www.cspan.org/videoarchives.asp?CatCodePairs=,&ArchiveDays=100

[ulysses]

33. add to that the fact that we put him in power in the first place.

Is anyone's life worth the fact that we've changed our foreign policy tactics?

[UTUSN]

35. & His Being an A-hole Was Our Problem--BECAUSE??????????

[Zuni]

36. We had no cause to invade

there are dictatorships and tyrannies like China and Saudi Arabia that we do quite a bit of trade with, there are mass killings going on right now that no one is lifting a finger to stop...the Sudan where the mass killing is going on now.

In Iraq, the main periods of mass killings (I am talking major purges) were at the end of the Iran-Iraq War (1988-1989 the Anfal) and in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.(putting down the aborted Iraqi uprising)

What was going on between 1991 and 2003 was certainly thuggish and oppressive, but Saddam had done most of his killing in those two bouts. In 1991, the CIA and george HW Bush are partly responsible for encouraging the Iraqi people to stage an uprising then failed to support them when Saddam began a truly ghastly counterattack. A few well placed air strikes by American planes against Republican Guard columns moving into Shia or kurdish villages would have ended the whole massacre, as the Republican Guard would have scattered and fled. They would have thought that this meant re-engagement and backed off. That is all Bush I had to do. He would have prevented the worst of Saddam's atrocities and probably caused Iraq to free itself. This is inexcusable. Bush lied to the Iraqis when he had the CIA promise them material and military support, and let them get killed.

In 2003, we had no danger from Iraq, even if Saddam had a warehouse or two full of mustard gas. It plain was bad policy that threatens international stability, US credibility and is also possibly leading to a civil war in Iraq.

The Bushes (father and son) have really fucked up on ME policy---real bad. i am afraid it will take decades to repair the damage.

[moondust]

37. Inside job.

Definitely preferred. Considering that many Iraqi military officers were apparently bribed into not fighting back or simply refused to fight back during the invasion, how difficult might it have been to find a few of them willing to carry out a bomb plot similar to the one carried out against Hitler? The technology of the 1990s would have made it all but fail-safe.

[Sparkle]

38. Yes. Hear Hear!

And we, especially repiglicans, need to remember that Saddam was once our kind of evil asshole and tyrant.

[knight_of_the_star]

40. The people choose their government

If they choose to do nothing about a ruthless tyrant, than they have made their choice. If they wish to unseat such a person, then they have made their choice. For another to make that choice is wrong no matter the situation.

[geek tragedy]

41. No, it wasn't. It's not worth the life of my cousin who's over there

right now.

The fact that Saddam was a monster in no way justifies this war.

[applegrove]

43. I wish the UN had gone in. Wouldn't have faced such an insurgency.

And procurement contracts would have gone to Iraqis first. Would have kept them busy and involved.