Is not the entire world better off with Saddam's regime gone

Well sure the world is better off without Hussein in power but I wholly disagree with how he was removed from power. The lives of all those people shouldn't have been taken away. I cannot get past that part of it.

I think the world is worse off now, with the shrub and without maddass, than it was with madass but without the shrub.

If we can get rid of the shrub, then the world will definitely be better off.

The answer is (and we need an poll option for) we don't know yet.

Dramatic changes seldom bring immediate results, particularly in the Middle East, and Iraq, despite all of intelligence efforts, remains a social and political mystery. No one yet knows if this country containing Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'a can exist peacefully without autocratic rule.

I continue to believe that the war in Iraq was ill-timed and ill-advised, that it had little or nothing to do with the War on Terror (for which we have to come up with a better name.), that we have wasted incredible amounts of resources, dollars and international goodwill removing a petty tyrant with a bad haircut. It was the result of the USA's present leaders being affected by a strange combination of myopia and obsession. Obsession with their own Middle East scenario and a myopic view of the world. Better leaders will take the long view on terrorism finding ways not only to find terrorist before they strike but also to know the world's politics and peoples better before deciding on an action.

Joe

I wholeheartedly agree with you Centroles and it always makes me happy to see somebody put their partisan loyalties aside and see this for what it is; A good thing. Saddam was a monster who at his normal rate would have killed more people than the collateral damage of this war... in the same time frame. My resounding yes stands next to yours. Great post.

Jury is still out on Iraq. Meanwhile, USA is getting the reputation of Occupier of Ruined Lands.

If you'd asked if Iraq was better off-sure. But the rest of the world? Saddam didn't have any effect on the rest of the world.

Wilso..
Let me say this: You might be too inexperienced to have noticed that Saddam had serious effects on the rest of the world.

I agree with Joe and SealPoet that the jury is still out.

And while I agree that Saddam was a scumbagh who deserves whatever comes his way...

...there is a possibility (I almost wrote "probability") that the Iraqi people will NOT be better off without him -- and that the Middle East will NOT be better off without him.

We'll see.

This is a play with lots more acts to come.

I think its funny that people who don't like Bush claim that unemployment rates are a very high 5%, but that's exactly what it was in 1996, when Clinton was in office... when the the media happily told it was very low.

It pays to check the facts

Wake up!

If you want to compare the economy now with the economy when the moron took over the office from Bill Clinton, I am sure there are many here who will be delighted to have a long talk with you.

Sure Saddam was a tyrant straight out of the Middle Ages, and in possession of the world's most important resource going. Getting rid of all the Saddam's of the world is an imperative that has to be achieved, or the world will in fact suffer mightily.

However, using barbaric methods to achieve this sets the world back, not forward. Dealing in blood is barbaric period, no matter how noble the goal. Stemcell research comes to mind here. The cry is the same for the war in Iraq. The killing involved doesn't justify the benefits that will result.

As of right now, Iraq is far messier than it was. As of right now, the Iraqi have the potential to be better off, but that potential hasn't been realized thanks to faulty assumptions, overwheening pride and overreliance upon technology - the same three things that whammied us in Vietnam.

The potential for chaos to spread over there is much greater than it was before, and it could severely impact oil sales, which will not make the world a better place.

OK, war is the quickest way, and it's necessary sometimes still, even in the modern world. But you don't play war on the cheap, and you don't skimp on the soldiers, or the materials, or find ways to make fantastic profits while you are saving the world. War is hell, and victory comes swiftly, or not at all. Johnson would never escalate the war in Vietnam besides incrementally, because he feared the wrath of the American electorate. Bush is doing the same thing in Iraq. We should have warned the Iraqis to get the hell out of Baghdad, and then leveled it utterly. We ignore the miles and miles of tunnels underneath Iraq and wonder where all the WMDs are. We put NG in there instead of real marines and army, and wonder why we can't put down the terrorists. We have a huge backlog of equipment and protections for the Iraqi police who are supposed to take over like the South Vietnamese were supposed to take over. Saigon fell. Baghdad is going to fall as well. Businessmen have no business waging wars. Warfare is not business.

So OK, for now the idea of removing tyrants from power can only be a boon to the world. That is obvious. However, the ones we have bringing this about are totally not up to the task. So send fools in to do the work of God, and chaos results, which of course, kicks in the blame game, and the world ends up not being a better place than it was. I'm all for making the world a better place, but for the love of Christ, we are using dodo birds who don't understand they are about to become extinct for being so unable to understand how to survive.

This is not saying the democrats could have done a better job here, either. We need to seriously update our educational curriculums, because the current batch of degrees out there removing tyrants have not a clue about how to go about it. A year later and bombs still going off should be proving that to us, but we sit here and hope that we will get the upperhand somehow, and the buggers screwing everything up are not even allowing us to see the full extent of their butchery.

I know I am gonna get a lot of flak for this, but it does help to understand the history behind Saddam before we denounce the man as a cruel dictator.

1. US created Saddam to help fight the fundamental elements in Iran, even to the extent of arming him heavily during the crippling Iran Iraq war. During Saddam's reign, Iraq was the most tolerant society in every respect, a model middle east country if you may.

2. Saddam invaded Kuwait, because they stole from Iraq and then refused to pay the money which was demanded by Saddam. Saddam informed the US ammbasador before this invasion - I thing the transcript of that conversation was posted on one of the Iraq, US and UN thread.

3. What people have to realize that the "poor living conditions" in Iraq which everyone keeps touting were not as a result of his misrule, but as a direct result of UN sanctions, where the country could not even import toilet paper without UN approval.

4. Yes, he was cruel - but then which dictator isn't ? Pick any country in Africa and you will find that people live in far more appaling conditions that the iraqi people. I just dont understand the concept of "liberation" of Iraqi people. Also, I take the tales of his atrocities with a pinch of salt - after all the only people from whom we have heard abt it are the same people who invaded him right ?

5. And what right does US have to impose democarcy on the world ?

The whole situation reeks of "shoot your pet dog when he turns rabid", unfortunately, people are not dogs - except in the eyes of Bush and Blair.

Nope. PM me your email and I'll send you the audio file referred to in my signature line. :wink:

You gotta be kidding me. Show me the figures from a credible source to back that one up.

Click here and then click "Timeline" and add up all the deaths he's responsible for and divide by his tenure. I didn't make it up.

Then click here and learn specifically who Saddam and his Son's were and then come back and tell me this wasn't a good thing.

A Simplistic Bogus Poll
Joe Nation explained it best.

The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal acts of a rouge nation for the purpose of dominating countries on behalf of Multi-National Capitalist expansion.

The American public have been duped with simplistic notions by it's Govt.which is not a Democracy but an Oligarchy. Predator Capitalists are in control of the Govt., The Executive, Legislislative and Judical. the Military and CIA are the enforcers of Imperialism. Freedom and Democracy are fairy tales for the simple minded masses.

I'm of the I'm not convinced yet voter bloc. I'd like to be convinced, but I'm not.

Bill: no one is arguing that Saddam was a good guy, he was a bad guy, what I, and a number of others around the world are asking is, was he the baddest? Does he, and his demise, have anything to do with making me feel safer here in beautiful downtown New York City? The answer clearly on both questions is no. He wasn't, isn't, the baddest. That honor(?) goes to the megalomaniac in charge of North Korea who has starved to death more than 4 million of his people and whose nuclear weapons including a medium range missile are OPERATIONAL. Secondly, we need to focus on the efforts of Al Queda to kill us and our allies. Iraq, does this need to be said again, has nothing to do with the war on terror. NO thing.
I'm sure Dick Cheney thinks otherwise but George Tenet did try to talk him out of his obsession, to no apparent avail, still there is no connection between what tried to kill us on 9-11 and Iraq. The conquest of Iraq may make some Americans feel superior in some way, but it in no way makes us safer or makes the world a less dangerous place.

We face more dangers from the wackos in Pakistan who secretly wish for a Islamic victory over the infidel West than we ever did from Saddam, but the present administration chooses to ignore the clearly visible differences between our two countries.

Try to conceive what the world would be like without the recent land war in Iraq and with the total world community working together to root out agents of Al queda where ever they appeared.

I know I would be sleeping a lot better.

Joe