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Let’s be brutally honest here. The dirty little secret that nobody wants to talk about is that Saddam Hussein was far more effective at dealing with radical Muslims in Iraq than were the @ssholes in the U.S. government who invaded Iraq and toppled his government in 2003.

I do agree there, I think it was a mistake to take out Saddam Hussein and his sons (if Saddam did pass on while leader of Iraq between 2003 and now, most likely they be in charge) because they did keep a lid on the radicals. I would not want to live under them but it is a different world over there and it takes a strongman to keep a lid on things. Democracy over there means voting for the head thug who would organize other thugs to beat up on the people you do not like. I keep thinking of the old 1983 "Men At Work" song, "It's a Mistake." The worse mistake is withdrawing since we did go in, sure I think we need to leave at some point but we telegraphed our plans as when to leave and since we did "break" things over there and leave a vacuum, we should have stayed there to keep a lid on it. Still, again, to bring 1983 into the mess, the old line from "War Games" on Iraq, "the only winning move is not to play."

“I would not want to live under them but it is a different world over there and it takes a strongman to keep a lid on things.”

True. As long as it’s only Iraqis—men, women, children & babies—Saddam is killing & torturing to death, good enough. Of course, it wouldn’t be right if ***American*** women were being systematically raped & their children tortured to death. But it’s a different world over there. Genocide is okay as long as a “strongman” is in charge of it. Besides, Iraqis & Kurds aren’t really ‘human’ in the same way as Americans. They don’t mind much, if at all, when their babies are tortured or gassed to death. We couldn’t let that happen to *American* babies, needless to say, but Iraqi/Kurd babies...meh. Let them suffer; let them die. It’s a different world over there, after all.