Saddam Captured?

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And how many Innocent lives were lost while Saddam was in power, and Klinton did nothing to stop the killing?

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M82A1, while you make a good case that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, who used horrific methods to punish people, this does not refute Rei's points at all.For your information, Saddam had been practicing these things back when Donald Rumsfeld was shaking hands with the man over deals for weapons to massacre his own people. Back then Hussein was no different than he was later under "Klinton", but was treated as royalty by "Raygun" (and "Rummy"), and even by "King Bush".The only thing which changed what our government said about him, was his invasion of another puppet dictatorship we had in our pocket. It is well known that we had essentially given the greenlight to do it too. A trap so we could replace him? Or just to grab more oil control?Clinton may have stuck to international law with regards to Iraq, but I don't see that as a valid criticism. One might note that even Bush Jr did not do anything with Saddam, until 9-11 and then his failure to get BinLaden and Mullah Omar gave him an excuse.And I am unsure what you are condemning in those tapes. These exact methods of torture are why we had been "rendering" people to Iraq and Saudi Arabia and other countries with horrible human rights records for revenge, under the veil of getting more information. If you are against this, why are you not criticizing both Bushes, and Reagan for allowing it to happen and continue happening?Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that this guy was great. If anything this is karma for him. But his evil was propped up by everyone right through Bush Sr. And Bush Jr has simply swapped one group of evil people for another.Rei can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe she was suggesting that we must move away from using evil men and evil methods in order to get evil men. Our war to get Saddam was a sham which has brought nothing but misery to the Iraqi people so far, and is not guaranteed to improve their lot in life. I guess I am a bit more hopeful than Rei in that I believe there is a chance for something good for the Iraqi people, but I agree with here that what the US is doing is not helping matter at all.You do know one of our puppet government leaders is a known criminal right? He has already bilked millions from poor people, you think he's not going to do so again?And do you really believe the torture rooms will be closed, especially if Shiite leaders get their way? And do you really think we'll stop them, if they offer us a place to "render" terrorists we don't want seeing the light of US courtrooms?I shed no tears for Saddam Hussein. But if your tears for the Iraqis and peace in the world are more than crocodile tears, let's hear your condemnation of Reagan, Rumsfeld, Bush Sr, and now Bush Jr.------------------
holmes

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Saddam killed well over 100,000 of his own people how many more would have died if we did nothing

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How long ago was this? Over what period of time? Was there a war or an "insurgency" against his regime going on? Was he still killing them in mass numbers at some incredible rate?Hmmmmmm.We have already killed over 6,000 completely innocent Iraqis, this is not to mention the 10's of thousands of innocent soldiers who died serving a regime they may not have been to keen on (but what else could they do, just as soldiers on our side against the war)? And this is in a period of little over a month!We continue to kill innocent Iraqis on a daily basis, but it is excused as necessary to fight the insurgency so that we can keep our puppet government in power.If Iran began attacking Iraq (as is what was going on during the height of Hussein's killings) how many would more would we be willing to kill?Is there really a difference between us and him, when we are willing to break all the same rules of international law, and kill innocents to get to our prize?A matter of degree maybe?

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what did we do that was not right.

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First we empowered him so that he would kill mass numbers of radical muslims, then we turned our backs as he did so, then we cared more about protecting oil than removing him from power (when we had the chance), then we made false accusations in order to start a war where none was required, then we broke international laws and set terrible precedents for the use of military power to take him out in a petty revenge scheme.Do you need more?This can be looked on as a temporary good thing for Iraqis, and an opportunity at a lasting good, but unless WE change the games WE play, it will just be another footnote of swapping bad men for other bad men.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 12-15-2003]

With all of this sympathy for the Iraqis and Kurds, and claiming what a wonderful job Bush did in "freeing" the people from Hussein's atrocities...Did either of you notice last week that Bush told the Taiwanese that they must not try and become independent of the military dictatorship holding them hostage. The Iraqi people weren't even crying en masse for our help, but the Taiwanese are.Yet Bush tells them to go blow.Oh, and the Chinese run torture rooms too.Hmmmmmmm. Was Iraq about freedom from a dictator, or about money and oil? Hmmmmmm.------------------
holmes