Lie after Lie (Mother Jones - The Bush War Timeline)

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Probably the average Iraqi is marginally better off now than he was under Hussein

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How do you figure?Even the big cities only have a couple of hours of electricity a day, and dozens, sometimes hundreds of bodies are brought to the morgue just in Bagdhad every single day. There are many bombed-out neighborhoods and most businesses cannot operate. Many people cannot get food or drinking water or medical attention.The country is in civil war! How can you say that the "average Iraqi" is better off, even marginally?Anybody who had/has enough money to get out of the country is living in places like Jordan becasue it isn't safe to live in Iraq anymore.Oh, and I was never a supporter of the Iraq preemptive strike, and I outlined exactly why right here at EvC just a few days after the invasion:Posted by me, 03-27-2003 here: Apparently, I'm a foreign policy genious.

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There were also thousands of people dying under Hussein.

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Saddam's government was the only one in the Persian Gulf that wasn't based upon Sharia. Women were freer in Iraq than anywhere else in the region, and there was a western-style legal system instead of Islamic courts.I'm not saying that he was a nice guy or anything. Far from it.But the danger to the "average Iraqi" from Hussein was small. He was ruthless, but was not random or indiscriminate in his attacks on people. He went after his enemies but courted everybody else.The danger to the "average Iraqi" from the warring religious militias is great today. Everybody is in grave danger; if the Sunnis move into your neighborhood and you aren't Sunni, you're dead. If you ARE Sunni, then you're dead if you try to leave.

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It seems to me that at least now there is hope for a better future that didn't exist before.

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You think there's hope for a better future?I think the most likely outcome is that there will be an Iranian- or Taliban-style oppressive, Sharia-based conservative Islamic dictatorship in Iraq.Anybody with half a brain coutl have predicted this very probable outcome if Saddam was removed, since his was the only secular, modern Arab government in the region.Is this the better future you envision?If not, what do you think is going to happen?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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Who knows. There is no doubt that a lot of my thoughts on this are based on nothing more than hope as I am aware that things are pretty bleak.

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Yes, they are terribly bleak. By our doing.

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One thing to be considered is that at some point Hussein and his sons were going to be gone one way or another. (Probably assainated) At that point there would be total anarchy without any stabilizing foreign influence.

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There were plenty of people in Hussein's secular government who could have continued the dictatorship, especially if there were incentives.

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At least now there is someone there bringing a certain amount of order to things.

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Wait, are you saying that the same chaos, mass destruction and loss of life on the scale of the US invasion and following occupation would have occurred in Iraq one Hussein was gone?How on earth do you figure that?

Juggs, have you ever heard the capitalist economic phrase, "what the market will bear."?It's a reference to the notion that when a company sets it's price for a given product in a given market, it will try to set it as high as it can in order to maximize profits, but not so high that they make it impossible for consumers to purchase it.What Exxon-Mobil and all the other huge American oil companies are experts at doing is setting prices at the pump at "what the market will bear".There is no reason whatsoever that those companies, once they get consumers trained to tolerate a certain pricepoint at the pump, will lower prices unless they absolutely have to in response to public outrage or big businesses that ship a lot of stuff, or congressional pressure or whatever.They are doing a great job, obviously. They've convinced you that they must be struggling because otherwise, why would prices at the pump be so high for you and me, right?Well, obviously, they AREN'T struggling, because they keep reporting entirely obscene profits every quarter.It is basic corporate behavior, juggs. If you sell gasoline, you have the whole country by the nuts. They're going to squeeze 'em hard and we'll cough up.They do it becasue they can, and the president and the formerly Republican Congress never said "boo" to any of them.Why do you think that is?

It is too bad that NJ dropped this thread and is also gone from the country.I wonder how he would have explained Halliburton's move to Dubai?