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I never thought I’d ever find myself rooting for Bashir Assad of Syria and Sovietist Vladimir Putin.

Strange world, ain't it? I'm in the same boat as you. As bad as these dictators like Assad, Saddam Hussein, Kadaffy, etc., were, at least religious minorities were fairly protected under them although I admit the exception was with the Kurds under Saddam. Still, these dictators were cut from a different cloth than the mooselimb brotherhood rebels, they were more secular, basically 1950's era Pan-Arab socialists. Assad is the lesser evil here.

Saddam's war against the Kurds was not a religious one as the Kurds were/are majority Sunni just as was the ruling elite in Iraq. But Kurds are Indo-Europeans, an Irani people. And they are spread over Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

Saddam just didn't like anyone who could oppose him. If you shut up and let him rule, he left you alone -- a common gangster

But the jihadis don't leave you alone, they'll kill you

We should supply weapons to assad to kill off the Saudi and Qatari sponsored alQaeda terrorist/jihadis...

>>>>Strange world, ain’t it? I’m in the same boat as you. As bad as these dictators like Assad, Saddam Hussein, Kadaffy, etc., were, at least religious minorities were fairly protected under them although I admit the exception was with the Kurds under Saddam. Still, these dictators were cut from a different cloth than the mooselimb brotherhood rebels, they were more secular, basically 1950’s era Pan-Arab socialists. Assad is the lesser evil here.<<<<

To be honest, Kurds weren’t that docile. They are dominated by communists (Kurd worker’s party) who widely used terror to reach their goal of carving pieces of Iraqi and Turkish territory into their separatist state. Turkey was as brutal to contain them as Saddam, and it still defend itself in a brutal way but none of it is reported by the press.

IMHO, alleged Saddam’s brutality against the Kurds is in class of half-truths used to justify ‘humanitarian’ NATO bombing of Serbia.