Posted on 07/08/2016 12:30:34 PM PDT by MaxistheBest
Occasionally Donald Trump says something that is politically incorrect but which also happens to be true.
On Tuesday at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump defended the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's record on terrorism, saying, "He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so well. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism."
Defending the brutal Iraqi dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people isn't exactly fashionable. But if you consider the 13 years of war that have wracked the country -- in which a quarter of a million have died -- and add that Saddam brutally repressed all dissent, including groups such as al Qaeda, and also add to this that ISIS is itself a fruit of the Iraq War, it's a far more defensible position.
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Trump is likely not a student of the English political philosopher Hobbes, who wrote his masterwork "Leviathan" in the shadow of the English Civil War. But he seems to have grasped Hobbes' main point: that an absolute "sovereign" (i.e. dictator) was preferable to "the war of all against all" that characterized the civil war in mid-17th century England as well as much of the civil war that continues to wrack early-21st century Iraq.
And Trump's claim that following the fall of Saddam, Iraq has emerged as the "Harvard" of terrorism is correct because Zarqawi in 2004 merged his terrorist group with al Qaeda to create "Al Qaeda in Iraq," which is the parent organization of today's ISIS.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
From his perspective they were terrorists.
An armed militia trying to forcefully take away a portion of the country wouldn’t be allowed anywhere.
That would be like ... Black Lives Matter arming up and trying to make Washington State a separate country. Never gonna happen.
And to me .. dead is dead, the method is not important. I feel no different that they were killed by gas than I would of if they had been killed by a bullet or a bomb.
An armed militia trying to forcefully take away a portion of the country wouldn’t be allowed anywhere.
Yup. Every single one. The women, the children...all murdered indiscriminately.
Forgive me if I'm not too quick to defend Saddam.
yep women children and all, just like when we nuked Japan twice.
THAT’s what is required to WIN a war.
Which was the whole original point of this article, Saddam was willing to do what MUST be done to stop the terrorists.
As long as we are not... they wont stop.
Saddamm did not have clean hands when it came to terrorism. IIRC Zarqawi was trained at a Saddam sponsored Madrassa.
Yup. He was a wonderful guy. Just like Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao, Lenin...all of them. Just takin' care of terrorists.
lol
I didn’t say he was a wonderful guy, I was agree with the original article that as bad as he was he at least kept the terrorists under control.
People and this author seem to dance around the root.
Saddam took out anyone who he deemed a threat to his authority, terrorist or his own people.
God gives us abilities, wisdom, talents etc.
God lets us choose if we want to use them with the control of God as our guide, or use them by our own control and cause problems. (IE: the difference in USofA using force and abilities trying to irradicate evil but allow people right to speak and demonstrate VS saddam using for his force and abilities for own purposes.)
The part you miss is that Saddam, himself, was a terrorist, and one of the worst. Have you forgotten that he invaded Kuwait?
Trump loyalty continues to pickle minds....
No I haven’t forgotten that or any of the other bad things he did.
But sometimes you have to make a bad guy an ally to keep even badder guys from coming to power.
Saddam, Mubarak, Assad, Gaddafi and the Shah of Iran Pahlavi all had one thing in common....they put down the radical Islamic terrorists in their country. History tells us every time we eliminate on of these strong arm dictators, we open the door to more radicals.
the Y thing that Biden ever got right was to split up Iraq into 3 countries.
The ONLY thing Biden.........oops.
“But sometimes you have to make a bad guy an ally to keep even badder guys from coming to power.”
I agree with you. We should have learned the lesson of Carter and Iran. The Shah was pro US and kept the radicals in his country to a minimum until Carter kneecapped him to bring the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini into power. Carter is almost single handedly responsible for the rise of radical Islamic terrorists.
Invading Kuwait, of course, had nothing at all to do with any normal definition of terrorism, and our overthrowing the Iraqi government had nothing to do with stopping terrorism. It was about Utopian nation building, spreading democracy, trying to bring extra unnecessary closure to an earlier war we had already won, etc. If we were itching for an extra war with radical Muslims, there were far better choices than non-theocratic Iraq, but of course that was never the point.
All that war accomplished was to distract from attacking actual terrorists in Afgahnistan and elsewhere, to strengthen the real radical Islamic state of Iran (by eliminating their only strong enemy in the region), and to open up a clear and easy path for terrorists to step into power in Iraq—not to mention all the deaths, injuries, and wasted billions. History shows us that a strong government/dictator is the best means of keeping radical Muslims in check in the Middle East. Look at the craziness that erupted after the Arab Spring alone. Dictators want total control; the terrorists want a theocracy based on the Koran and Sharia. These are very antagonistic goals. We could hardly have divised a better way of aiding the spread of terrorism in the region than what we did.
Fortunately, the average American is waking up to how the globalist, no borders, neo-con elites of both parties keep taking advantage of them, including in their unnecessary wars and foreign meddling that have little or nothing to do with the interests of regular Americans (and actually often work directly against those interests). Just because a Republican president was responsible for that particular war doesn’t mean we have to keep blinders on to reality.
But sometimes you have to make a bad guy an ally to keep even badder guys from coming to power.
Uncle Joe Saddam!
Had he not been removed, he would had the bomb by now. The mistake was for the big o to give Iraq to his Junior Varsity.
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