Name one good thing it has done for us to have him gone -- and I mean for US, not for freedom or democracy or the Iraqi people or any of that BS. Iraq won't be free or a democracy anyway, what it needs is a new dictator and a return to the stability of earlier.
We have more Iraqis getting killed in the streets per day than we ever did under Hussein -- in fact, if this keeps up, we'll soon be able to start using an absolute-numbers comparison. The Iraqis have the USA to thank for that.
The region is now unstable in a way it never was with Hussein, and we're the only thing holding it together.
These folks who now argue that anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor, they're the ones who got us in this f-ed up mess to begin with. It's a little ironic, and painful, to watch them run at the mouth like this.
Okay, now that's stupid. All you're doing is repeating DU talking points.
Post 155, great post.
If you think the region was stable under Hussein, you are quite mistaken. After engaging a long, savage war with Iran, with the help of the USA and others, he turned on us by invading Kuwait and threatend the poorly armed Gulf states. After signing a treaty, he spent the next 9 years violating that treaty, and by 1998 he more or less had. Which is why the Clinton administration called for his overthrow. Meanwhile, by acting as the Saudis gendarme, we had intensified Islamists feeling by basing troops in Sauadia Arabia. Saddam was one of the main mischief makers in Palestinem as he noit only condoned by rewarded those who blew themselves up and made peace inpossible.
One good thing? We were able to close our bases in Saudi Arabia that we used to enforce the No-Fly Zone from. Osama used those bases as propaganda to show Muslims how we were "occupying" the Sacred Lands (Saudi Arabia).
Counting the Iran-Iraq war, which he started, Sadam killed close to 3 million people before he was disposed. He was dictator for 25 years. That averages out to 10,000 a month, or 333 per day. We got a very long way to go before we even come close to that number. And the vast majority of those dying today come from Muslim killing Muslim. So stop with the hissy melodrama and WAY overblown facts, it sounds unbecoming of a FReeper.
Hussein was responsible for killing a whole bunch of people, including Americans. And now he is going to do the rope dance. One would think you would agree that that is a good thing.
"Name one good thing it has done for us to have him (saddam) gone -- and I mean for US, not for freedom or democracy or the Iraqi people or any of that BS."
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If Bush had attacked Afghanistan in July, 2001 and eliminated Osama, destroyed Al Qaeda, and in the process prevented the WTC attacks (knowingly or unknowingly), you could have arm-chair quarterbacked that same question!!
Anyone in the business of terrorism must be destroyed.
...easy there, partner......
We have more Iraqis getting killed in the streets per day than we ever did under Hussein
I doubt that highly; I'm sure that there are plenty more mass graves waiting to be discovered.
The region is now unstable in a way it never was with Hussein, and we're the only thing holding it together.
This region has been unstable for a long, long time.
"Name one good thing it has done for us to have him gone -- and I mean for US, not for freedom or democracy or the Iraqi people or any of that BS."
I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone. But his being gone really hasn't made America safer. It's still nice that he is going to hang.
But the people who have responded to this haven't really answered, they just attacked you.
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Sure.
Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, which provided all that incredible amount of additional stability in the region.
Yup.
Of course what will happen, purple fingers waving in the air aside, is one of a few scenarios. Either the US will set up another strongman to rule with an iron thumb (defeating the whole purpose of the purple finger) or democracy will eventually bring about another theocracy. Of course the realists who were explaining this for several years weren't listened to but hopefully with Baker having a say again and the new Sec Def coming in some reality may leak back into the situation. Maybe there can be another solution. We can only hope. But all the talk of Iran and Syria needs to be tabled immediately.
1) Saddam is no longer sending large checks to suicide bombers' families.
2) Salman Pak has been shut down
3) He's no longer harboring Zarqawi
4) He won't be able to reconstitute his nuke or chem/bio weapons programs and pass them on to a terrorist who could use them against us.
5) He's no longer undermining our efforts to inspect his country by making deals under the table with other countries on the security council
Cindie
--Name one good thing it has done for us to have him gone--
Among many other things, it prevented Iraq from tying its oil sales to the Euro rather than to the petrodollar (which, with other oil producers following suit, would have had a devastating effect on the US economy).
It also exposed the UN oil-for-food scam. It exposed the reality that UN resolutions are crap, and future conflicts will be resolbved only with appropriate coalitions.
It ended the sanctions (BTW, prior to 2003, many anti-war types were claiming that the sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi chldren).
It sent Uday and Qusay to their 144 virgins. It brought Chemical Ali and other henchmen to justice. It ended the Scud threat to Israel. It ended the blood money paid to Palestinian suicide bombers.
Finally, it appears that much evidence is being recovered that points to Saddam providing not only money, but also TRAINING to said suicide bombers. To date there are zillions of untranslated documents waiting to be revealed.
"We have more Iraqis getting killed in the streets per day than we ever did under Hussein --"
You need to go back and learn the lessons of Saddam in power again.
Yes, Iraqis are getting killed in the streets in large number, but, first of all, those getting killed in the streets are still far below what Saddam did. Second, it is terrorists like Al Quaeda in Iraq and Saddam's people that are doing the killing.
He hasn't gotten the nukes he was clearly working toward. Nukes he would have found a way to deliver. He is not helping to pay the bills of Palestinian suicide bombers and is no longer able to recruit them to attack us here at home.
We've also sucked in an killed large numbers of "foreign" Jihadies who would otherwise be coming here to kill us and our children.
Given the hundreds of thousands found in mass graves I doubt that. But numbers aside there is another difference. Today two sides are fighting and killing each other. Before neither side was fighting. One was executing and the other was being executed. You're free to see the latter as the more noble condition if you want to.
One contention: "Name one good thing it has done for us to have him gone -- and I mean for US"
He can't command a cohesive national military hostile to the US. That includes all the NBC programs and conventional weapons (terrorism) at his disposal.
INDEED! Blackbird.
Well, our toppling and capture of Saddam did inspire Khadaffi to turn over all his WMD. Which inturn showed us just how close he was to having a nuke. Investigations into where he got the technolgy lead to the discovery of A Q Khans nuclear network.
The dismantling of muslim nuke programs is probably beneficial to us.
Thanks for your post. Some people refuse to look at different angles of the current situation right now in Iraq, and then use ad hominem attacks against those that see things differently. Have you noticed the word "quaqmire" hasn't been used to describe Iraq? It's because everyone now recognizes the fact that the war is a quaqmire. Now we're (meaning our government) talking about sucking up to Iran and Syria to help us with Iraq, reaching out to the mouths that repeatedly bite at us?
So things where wonderful under Hussein?? Never mind the mass graves,the mass killings and the money he gave to the terrorist... Things where wonderful...