“It is an irony, though, that when Sadaam Hussein used to put those types down firmly, as rebels holding arms against the state, he was seen as a tyrant, and a ‘no fly zone’ was established in northern Iraq. That was when they got their first foothold.”
I’ve given that a lot of thought, and it seems like we were either ignorant of that, or misinformed.
We all knew Saddam had terrible prisons and was killing something like 150,000 of his own people a year. What we didn’t know, or didn’t appreciate, is that they were most likely the very same element of Radical Islam that would otherwise have caused all kinds of havoc in Iraq.
I think we’re seeing the same thing with Assad in Syria, where the so-called “rebels” are really Al Qaeda sympathizers, and his “crackdown” (hate that word - sounds cheap) is what it takes to keep them from causing greater problems in the country.
Not saying either dictator was good, but maybe we finally realize what they were up against. I happen to agree with Cruz and believe the nuclear option should be on the table. I don’t see any other way to eradicate the problem, and it will only spread and get more virulent if we don’t.
Not exactly. Saddam wanted to be the Caliph. Or rather, he wanted to be Saladin.
Its useful to remember something that went down the memory hole long ago. When Zawahiri recruited Osama into his organization, he was head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was on Saddam’s payroll. Zawahiri and his crew then became Osama’s inner circle as they formed “Al Qaeda”. One of the things they were doing was recruit jihadists to go to Algeria where they slaughtered something like 200,000 people and tried to overthrow the government there.
So Osama’s Saddam connection was Zawahiri himself and has always hidden right out in plain sight. When you trace the first World Trade Center bombing, they trace back to Iraq. And the perp of 911 was related to the perp of the first World Trade Center bombing. Saddam had to go.
Another thing to consider: one of Saddam’s biggest internal wars was against the Kurds, of whom he slaughtered a couple hundred thousand. They are the biggest bulwark today against ISIS in the region.