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Author Topic:   Iraq needed Saddam?
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 1 of 133 (386956)
02-24-2007 11:13 PM


The following message was originally here at the "Lie after Lie (Mother Jones - The Bush War Timeline" topic. It was a reply to a Percy message just upthread. I'll also quote the two there replies to the message.
Minnemooseus writes:
Percy writes:
...Saddam Hussein *was* a ruthless dictator and a destabilizing force in the Middle East,
While Saddam definitely was excessive and criminal in his actions, wasn't he actually a stabilizing force in the Middle East?
I personally suspect that a more moderate, but perhaps still rather ruthless version of Saddam is what Iraq needed and needs. What is going to be put into place, that will work better? I have no idea.
And, of course, there is always the ugly question of to what degree the United States were significant contributers to Saddam's excesses? Remember that photo of buddy-buddy Saddam and Donald Rumsfeld.
Moose
The replies:
Percy, in message 28 writes:
Minnemooseus writes:
While Saddam definitely was excessive and criminal in his actions, wasn't he actually a stabilizing force in the Middle East?
That's a good point post-Kuwait, leaving even less justification for the Bush war. What a waste. It is so sad.
--Percy
Archer Opterix, in message 29 writes:
While Saddam definitely was excessive and criminal in his actions, wasn't he actually a stabilizing force in the Middle East?
Of course. Just look at all those bodies they pull out of his mass graves.
Page Not Found | U.S. Agency for International Development
It's a very stabilized condition.
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Minnemooseus, posted 02-24-2007 11:20 PM Minnemooseus has not replied
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 Message 6 by AnswersInGenitals, posted 02-25-2007 2:12 AM Minnemooseus has not replied
 Message 10 by RAZD, posted 02-25-2007 10:18 AM Minnemooseus has not replied
 Message 39 by macaroniandcheese, posted 02-27-2007 11:31 AM Minnemooseus has not replied
 Message 53 by Phat, posted 01-08-2020 3:53 PM Minnemooseus has replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 2 of 133 (386957)
02-24-2007 11:20 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Minnemooseus
02-24-2007 11:13 PM


I was actually thinking about starting a new topic with some approximation of my message 1 content. Then that other topic came to life, and I put the material in there instead.
Part of my first message that wasn't quoted by the others:
Minnemooseus writes:
I personally suspect that a more moderate, but perhaps still rather ruthless version of Saddam is what Iraq needed and needs. What is going to be put into place, that will work better? I have no idea.
I'm not denying that Saddam was a very bad person. The question is, does Iraq need a "bad" (but not "very bad") person in order to function? Is Iraq now looking at decades of civil war, perhaps until a neo-Saddam finally takes charge?
Moose

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Minnemooseus, posted 02-24-2007 11:13 PM Minnemooseus has not replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 42 by Buzsaw, posted 03-15-2008 4:21 PM Minnemooseus has not replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 40 of 133 (460313)
03-14-2008 1:07 AM


Bump
I thought this topic deserved a revival and a re-read. Much has been said upthread, and I have little to add.
I will ask the question "What if Saddam had voluntarily abdicated and gone into exile"?
I think there would have been a civil war, much like what the U.S. is currently trying to contain.
Moose
Added by edit (bare Washington Post link not directly related to topic (or is it?)):
A Crude Case For War? (Iraq war is for oil?)
Edited by Minnemooseus, : See above.

Replies to this message:
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Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 43 of 133 (728114)
05-23-2014 10:36 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Quetzal
02-25-2007 10:55 AM


Bump (again) and a Quetzal Ukraine related quote
Well, 7 years have passed since I started this topic, and Iraq seems to still be a mess.
But really what caused the bump is my recollection of Quetzal having commented on the Ukraine in this topic.
Quetzal writes:
I would say that all that is required to show the fallacious nature of this premise is to discover whether there are any countries which, having thrown off a tradition of strongman-type central authority have managed, somehow, to “make it” in its absence. In that vein, I’d like to present one example: Ukraine.
Ukraine is an interesting case. Since around 988 (Vladimir I, King of Kiev and the Rus), it has been variously under one monarch, dictator, or foreign domination or the other. More recently it was one of the main republics under the Soviet Union. Unlike many other East European countries, it did not have the Soviet system imposed on it. It was, rather, one of the countries that invented it. For the last five hundred years or so, it had no tradition of nationhood as such (parts of modern Ukraine belonged variously to Poland, Russia, Romania, etc). It would seem, under the circumstances, to be an unlikely candidate for democracy. And yet, after a somewhat rocky start, democracy has taken hold there. In spite of serious ethnic/cultural differences (the western half of the country - much of it formerly Polish and speaking Ukrainian - wishes to become westernized, whereas the eastern half of the country - much of it formerly Russian and speaking Russian - wishes to rejoin the Russian Federation). One of the first post-independence presidents, Leonid Kuchma, made the mistake of thinking his countrymen would tolerate a new dictator, and attempted to emulate Vladimir Putin of Russia (or possibly, in his heart of hearts, Alexander Lukashenko, the absolute dictator of Belarus). The people, with absolutely NO tradition of democracy, rose up against him in the Orange Revolution. He and his corrupt cronies were ousted - peacefully, no less - and democracy restored. Whether it will last is another story.
Now the obvious counter to this is that the nation had no tradition of violence and thus an analogy to the Middle East is invalid. This is untrue. Ukraine was one of the hearts of the anti-Bolshevik counter revolution (used to be known as White Russia). The Kosacki constantly fought either against or for the central authorities. Stalin, because of widespread anti-Soviet sentiment, conducted a virtual campaign of genocide against ethnic Ukrainians in an effort to retain control. Even today, the amount of distrust and even occasional naked hatred between western Ukrainians and eastern Ukrainians is palpable. And yet .
Quetzal does not have his reply notification turned on, so he'll probably never see this.
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Quetzal, posted 02-25-2007 10:55 AM Quetzal has not replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 46 of 133 (730114)
06-23-2014 8:56 PM


Glenn Beck: Liberals were right about Iraq
I got to this page, but the story is at a lot of other pages also.
quote:
On his radio show on Tuesday, conservative sky-is-falling paranoid Glenn Beck admitted that liberals were right about it being a bad idea to invade Iraq.
Beck’s comments came on the heels of the news that Iraq is falling apart at the seams while Al-Qaeda-backed insurgents take over major cities in the north, and march on Baghadad. And while liberals are reticent about getting back into the same costly war we just got out of, Republicans like Dick Cheney are just itching to jump back in.
quote:
Glenn Beck writes:
Maybe we could come together now on this nightmare in Iraq. From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasn’t much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.
There were also atrocities that were happening in Iraq torture chambers, mass graves. At the time, the unanimous belief — even with Hillary Clinton and everybody else — was that he had weapon of mass destruction. There was also the element — and this is really what spoke to me — of bringing freedom to the people of Iraq for the first time in their long history. I don’t want to control Iraq, but I have a soft spot for people who are being tortured and just want freedom because I really, truly believe Democrats and Republicans are the same. Israelis and Palestinians are the same. Once you get the politicians to leave the room, once you can deprogram people from what the politicians and leaders have said, everyone is pretty much the same. It’s like, ‘I just want to be left alone.’ ‘I just want to raise my family, have fun.’ ‘I want a decent life.’ Then politicians get involved and program us to hate each other. You have to be carefully taught who to hate.
Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn’t get involved. We shouldn’t nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn’t force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have.
But I agree with you: You cannot force democracy on the Iraqis or anybody else. It doesn’t work. They don’t understand it or even really want it. They may be too immersed in their own belief of Sharia Law to embrace liberty or at least at this time. If people vote for Sharia Law, they vote for Sharia Law. We tried. What can we do? We have lost thousands of American lives. We have lost thousands of lives on the Iraqi side and tens of thousands have been wounded. We have spent $2 trillion — say that again — $2 trillion, and upwards of 200,000 Iraqi citizens, aid workers, insurgents have been killed. That’s the conservative number. Liberals will tell you it’s almost 1 million people. I don’t know what the number is, but after all of that, hundreds of thousands of lives, $2 trillion, the best minds in the world trying to do it, it’s about to fall apart.

Above bolding as at source.
When Glenn Beck is the voice of sanity of the conservative movement...
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by Faith, posted 06-23-2014 11:53 PM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied
 Message 48 by Minnemooseus, posted 06-24-2014 12:36 AM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 48 of 133 (730129)
06-24-2014 12:36 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Minnemooseus
06-23-2014 8:56 PM


The evcforum Iraq micro-poll in January 2003
I should have mentioned this in my previous message:
Poll: Should U.S. etc. go to war against Iraq
It only went 14 messages.
Percy said at message 3:
Percy writes:
As far as I'm concerned, when we march into Iraq it had better damn well be because the weapons inspections have turned up incontrovertible evidence of significant caches of weapons of mass destruction. Keeping a military force in the Gulf is very expensive, but that doesn't justify this apparent rush to war. I couldn't bring myself to vote for either presidential candidate in the last election, but if Bush starts this war with insufficient provocation then I'll have to give his opponent serious consideration in the next election.
The big danger we face is enlarging the population is displaced Moslems with a grudge against the US. As wrong as the 9/11 terrorists were, the lesson for us is to work at become less hated around the world. That doesn't mean not hunting down Al Queda, but it definitely means not doing what Bush seems to be doing now.
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Minnemooseus, posted 06-23-2014 8:56 PM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by nwr, posted 06-24-2014 1:23 AM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 55 of 133 (869944)
01-09-2020 1:16 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Phat
01-08-2020 3:53 PM


Re: A Timely Old Topic 13 Years Hence
That guy that Trump killed--Soleimani and that other Iraqi guy...were they the authority in Iraq? If so, we seem to have shot ourselves in the foot--again.
They were Iranians, but the killings were done in Iraq.
Moose

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Phat, posted 01-08-2020 3:53 PM Phat has not replied

  
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