conkermaniac

Yes, I agree that his treatment of the Kurds was despicable, but I never knew about his past. I wonder why the Ba'ath party would let a sadist rise to power as he did?

I agree with almost everything you said there, except the part about North Korea having the desire to attack the United States, although they certainly have the capability. I think Kim Jong Il knows well the consequences of an American invasion -- he's only just rattling its sword. As long as we leave him alone, he's not going to be doing anything. After seeing what happened to Iraq, Kim is boasting his nuclear plants just to scare the Americans off. And he's succeeded -- Bush has diverted his attention to Iran now, without giving so much as a thought to attacking N. Korea.
I agree...political motives are rarely honest. I think it's just naive that so many Americans actually believe that the US army was sent in there to liberate the Iraqi people.

Bush truly took advantage of the high moral standards that most Americans have. "Here's a brutal dictator -- he needs to be removed!" While I agree that he did this only to distract the public from the weak economy, the failed "War on Terrorism" could have very well been another one of his motives. Because he has used so many gimmicks (some of which serious, such as the Iraq War) to distract Americans from the desperate economic situation it really makes me wonder if he even knows how to resurface the economy at all.

Conker

brighid

I don't know, but if I remember correctly after ascending to power he had certain party members (those oppossed to him I suppose) removed in front of everyone else, and had them taken out back (with in ear shot) and had them killed. He killed incompetant men during planning sessions ... so I think I know how he maintained power.

I think the Ba'ath party is simply just as brutual and despotic as he is. Why did the Republican Party choose Bush to be it's leader? Compassionate Conservatism? Yeah ... right!

I do agree with all else you have said and I don't think Kim has the "desire" in the sense of we have the "desire" to attack others, but I do think he has the desire to defend his country and I think if given no other choice he may rattle more then his sword.

Brighid

Radcliffe Emerson

The US continued to do business with Saddam after the Kurds incident, and one branch of government told him we didn't care in 91 when he said he would invade Kuwait, then we turned around and went after him for it.
Yes, I will continue to say we should have left Iraq alone, and allowed the UN to continue to handle them.
We do not have the right to go around interfering in other cultures, nations, until they initiate force, which Iraq was not doing this time around.
Paul Wolfowitz is on record with the Guardian in the UK as saying we only went after Iraq because of the oil.
China has murdered millions of Tibetans since the 50s, but Tibet doesn't have anything we want, so we just offer token protests and continue to do business with China, allowing the killing to go on.
Thousands starve in African countries, we offer token assistance and stay out of their civil wars, etc because they don't have any resource we want.
Our constant interference in these countries' internal operations are the reason so many of them around the world hate us to begin with, nothing more or less.
I recall in the late 70s hearing how Khadafi was a great ally when he first took power in Libya, then the CIA started threatening him and trying to influence how he ran his country, so he turned on us. Same with Hussein and other dictators we have supported.
So yes, we should have left Iraq the hell alone.

brighid

Megadave,

An interesting article for you to read from the La Times: (if you aren't registered it will be required)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...mment-opinions


"There was a time when the sickness of the political far left could best be defined by the rationale that the ends justified the means. Happily, support for revolutionary regimes claiming to advance the interests of their people through atrocious acts is now seen as an evil dead end by most on the left. Immoral and undemocratic means lead inevitably to immoral and undemocratic ends."

Brighid

RLV

As you yourself pointed out (honestly, even if in small type ), most of these deaths occurred in or prior to '91. Then there was a large scale massacre, and I've said that then a full-scale invasion to remove Saddam from power would have been justified.

But we are talking 2003, and there is no indication that the regime was murdering people on a scale even near that. Saddam's regime in these latest years has been similar to many other dictatorships: brutal against political opponents, unfair to many, but leaving most of the people to conduct their own business as far as they didn't interfere with the dictator.

Will not? I'm not an expert on the matter, but I think that after the war many people would call that an unjustified rebellion. Of course, they had lost, so they didn't write the history books.
And, as you ask for certainties, do you have the certainty that the world in general and what now are the US in particular wouldn't have been better had the rebellion not occurred? No. Nobody can be certain. You can only make educated guesses, estimations. This is what I'm trying to do with the Iraqi situation, rather than trusting that any change will be for the better.

I could easily point out another revolution. Things were bad under the Tsars. Something had to be done, even if you couldn't guarantee a good result. Don't you think so?
And then came Stalin.

Excuse me, but this is precisely what you asked us to do. Your OP says "what would YOU have done?". This is what I was answering: what I would have done. I didn't think your question excluded me.

Is there such a poll? Amazing! Could you provide a source for that? I'd be very interested to see the provenance and the methodology used. You'll pardon me if I'm sceptic of such a poll taken in such a situation, but I'd rather examine the data before saying more about it.

I can't say with all certainty, of course. Neither can anybody say the contrary. But it's not a question of jurisdiction, but of uncertainty. I can only say that, AFAIK, the invasion is not justified.

Btw, the US gov't was equally out of jurisdiction, according to this criterion, to launch the invasion in the first place. So, they shouldn't have done it, don't you think so?

We could argue about how bad was the situation before the invasion, and why, but I don't think anybody will deny that the situation now is worse than before. Don't you think so? Bombing a country rarely has any benefical effect in its infrastructures and standard of living. If the Iraqi economy had been a consideration, changing the embargo would have been a much easier and less bloody (and way cheaper) way to improve it.

Is it improving? No. The plans for the rebuilding are many, but they are only being applied to the oil industry. No, I'm not surprised. The plans for a new Iraqi army are that it will be functioning one year from now. And an army is not a police, which is what the citizens need now. (Probably the nwe Iraqi army will be sent to fight against the Iraqi resistance). Looting is widespread. There were reports of cases of cholera in Bassra. There were reports of famine in the remote areas, where the help was not arriving. Some of the damage, like the destruction and looting of the Library and Museum of Bagdad, just can't be restored. The presence of US soldiers is being contested by many. Some of them with armed attacks, some of them with political demonstrations. The Kurds want a separate state, controlling the oil fields in the north. The Shiite want a islamic teocracy, and they are a majority. Frankly, the prospects for an Iraq better than before are not too favourable, if you ask me.

So, so far the Iraqi people has had several thousands people dead and many more thousands wounded for the privilege of having worse living conditions than before and a military occupation in place of Saddam's regime, with the possibility of a partition of the country and/or an islamic teocracy and/or a civil war.

I still think this is way too costly a bet for such an uncertain result. I would have asked for some 99% certain benefits in exchange of the lives of thousands of people.


R.L.V.
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RLV

[QUOTE]Originally posted by brighid
I do believe that Sadaam is as personally bad as the American media has portrayed him. He rules with an iron fist and has no problem killing opponents on the spot if it suits him. Prior to rising to power in the Ba'ath party he was well known for his ability to torture people. He assassinated his predecessor to ascend to power and he has maintained his political and military power through the same brutal means. He did gas the Kurds an innocent civilian population and he did put down those who were on the sides of the multi-national force of Gulf War I. [...]
[QUOTE]

I fully agree with brighid's rant.

Saddam was a brutal and ruthless person. But he was not a madman. He only killed those that hindered his plans. So, he had no remorse killing his own people when they revolted against him (the Kurds, the shiites in '91) or launching costly military adventures that cost the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqi people (Iran or Kuwait).

However, he was not prone to killing for its own sake, neither had he delusory plans for changing society á la Pol Pot. If you didn't oppose his regime, you could live under it without being much of a problem. Of course, you wouldn't have political freedom. But this is something that many people can live without.

There was many people in Iraq that supported Saddam (some still do). Many others, probably most of them, just didn't care much about him and just wanted to go on with their lives. Most of the times they could do it under Saddam's regime.

I also agree with brighid's views on the motives of Bush & co. for launching the attack. The welfare of the Iraqi people was obviously not between them, as it is being shown. If Saddam had been their SOB, as he once more or less was, they would have had no problem leaving him in power, even supporting him.


R.L.V.
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variable

great post. personally, what i love about this post is that it should make people examine more closely what exactly it means to be "bad" or "evil"... i mean really, we're talking about what we would like to define as being unlawful - that torturing, genocide, rape, slavery... all these things are "bad" and worthy of our attention because they go against a standardized set or global human morals - hopefully someday set as law. and that a globally understood set of laws should be this guiding light for all countries to find themselves accoutable to.

i suppose people are still going to want to define saddam as bad or evil based on high levels of anti-saddam propaganda. they look at saddam's well marketed track record and say, "i certainly won't miss him." but this is what an abused frame of reference does... it detracts from our knowledge of what is truly good and bad. a discussion of saddam's ethics will often ignore the similar actions of people all over the place (including our own). we say that torturing is bad when he does it, but it ignores the torturing that we allow to occur in other countries for our own benefit. we say that gassing people is bad until we try to figure out where the chemicals came from. we say that genocide is bad, but it goes on and on in africa without involvement from the west.

so when people get up and say he's a bad guy... sure... maybe he is. maybe the last several presidents have been bad guy's as well... but the only way to tell who's bad and who's good is to create some kind of standardized system of laws under which no one country / person is above. so until such time as we try to maintain a more broad sense of justice that covers not only saddam, but the direct and indirect actions of leaders / countries all over the planet, we're not in much of a position to criticize.