saddam

[bustr]

Don't call me a dope! Dope!

yeah, yeah but YOUR "official story" is better...?

I think I clarified that in our discussion over at dragonslist.

[jubaji]

Oh, your agenda was pretty transparent from the start.

[Garland]

I don't disagree. I think that bush, cheney and rumsfeld should also be charged since they armed him.

Uh...people...I think this guy has a pertinent point.

[gregimotis]

I don't disagree. I think that bush, cheney and rumsfeld should also be charged since they armed him.

So, you'd also like to charge Clinton and Carter I presume, since the U.S. sold weapons during thier administrations as well, yes?



Anyhow, my point is that Saddam Hussein had it coming (period). Hussein ate human beings by the score.

Got differences with our government? Great, you wouldn't be doing your job as a citizen if you didn't; but lets not confuse 'crappy president' with 'butchering monster'.

[Blue Wave Gym]

Ilove the revisionist histoery on here here are just some of saddams evil deeds

killed at leat 300,000 iraqis
gassed kurds
drained marshes in shia area and killed thousand of shia
built super gun to hit israel
launched scud into israel killing people
had a nucler reactor
lit oil wells on fire
dumped oil into gulf causing environmenttal disaster so that years later people in the gulf can't eat fish becuse it has oil in it
went on campaign of plunder, rape and murder of kuwaites and guest workers from other countries during invasion I could tell you horror stories
made his sons into monsters by making them watch executions when they were little
played a role in the almost assaination of his son
had his son-in-laws killed and heads brought to him on a silver platter
gave money to suicide bombers in gaza and west bank
oh yea in 1987 an iraqi fighter jet launched missile that hit the USS Stark killing U.S. Sailors
There's more but I don't have enought time int the day to list all his evilness
he was hung with the noose on the side he died instantly unlike any of his victims who suffered immensly
And you peole have an ounce of smypathy for him how sad

[bustr]

So, you'd also like to charge Clinton and Carter I presume, since the U.S. sold weapons during thier administrations as well, yes?

YES! If they had anything to do with brokering arms deals with Iraq.

I would imagine that the Iraqis see bush as a butchering monster.

[jubaji]

You would "imagine"

[DickHardman]

we arent winning hearts and minds. we have done the exact opposite. muslims around the globe are flocking to iraq in hopes of stopping the american war machine before it reaches their own countries. they perceive it in this manner so much so that they are prepared to leave their homes to fight tanks and planes with only rifles. we are really off-track in terms of foreign policy, as well as getting iraq back on its feet.

[Garland]

we arent winning hearts and minds. we have done the exact opposite. muslims around the globe are flocking to iraq in hopes of stopping the american war machine before it reaches their own countries. they perceive it in this manner so much so that they are prepared to leave their homes to fight tanks and planes with only rifles. we are really off-track in terms of foreign policy, as well as getting iraq back on its feet.

yup. very true.

[GonzoStyles]

in a perfect world wars would look like this............

[Tom Yum]

they perceive it in this manner so much so that they are prepared to leave their homes to fight tanks and planes with only rifles. .

They use more than rifles; they use IEDs as well.

we are really off-track in terms of foreign policy, as well as getting iraq back on its feet.

Dick, the only thing you can do about this is either support a politician who proposes a viable platform for the war, sign up and see things from the ground up or both.

[gregimotis]

I would imagine that the Iraqis see bush as a butchering monster.

And just what does what you think the Iraqi's think about Bush have to do with Hussein's (ex)habit of mailing pieces of his political prisoners to their families?

[bustr]

And just what does what you think the Iraqi's think about Bush have to do with Hussein's (ex)habit of mailing pieces of his political prisoners to their families?

Just what does what you think about what I think about hussein's habit of mailing pieces of his political prisoners to their families have to do with anything?

[DickHardman]

in a perfect world wars would look like this............

lol even matt blake does better photoshop pics than that.

[DickHardman]

If the point to which you're referring is that people can be tried and convicted and then punished for faithfully carrying out the legally established and voter approved duties of their office, then I fail to see how it's pertinent. People say things like "we sold Saddam weapons" all the time hoping it will create outrage. But what those same people fail to mention is the context in which that occurred. We sold Saddam those weapons during his war with Iran, and at a time when Iran had just kidnapped US citizens, attacked our Embassy, declared war on us, and held our people illegally for over a year. The soviets had brought us to the very edge (14 minutes away, to be exact) of nuclear holocaust by using peripheral battlefields in Cuba, and they were supporting Iran in order to make the Middle East that very same kind of peripheral battlefield. We were facing not only the Soviet menace with all its nukes and intent to do us harm, but also a radical Islamist movement in Iran that was the very root of the modern day Islamist terrorist movement that we're still fighting. When we sold weapons to Saddam, it was during a time when defeating Iran took precedence (rightfully, I should add) over nearly all other foreign issues save the USSR. We supported him because if we hadn't, we'd have had a whole new superpower to deal with, and that was deemed a far less attractive option.

If you're going to slam policies and decision makers, at least do us the service of keeping things in context. You guys want to get people heated over the sale of arms to Saddam, but you carefully leave out any context that could shed some light on why those decisions were made. If you want to pretend and cherry pick your information, at least have the balls to say that what you're posting isn't the whole story. Offer up a suggestion or two about how Iran could have been dealt with without selling weapons to Saddam. Consider the effects of allowing Iran to take Iraq's oilfields and infrastructure at a time when they thought it was okay to kidnap and kill Americans in their own embassy.

I'm not saying that we're not in a real stinkhole of a situation right now, and I'm not saying we chose an option that was palatable at the time, either. I'm saying we had a real stinkhole of a situation on our hands then, and we went with the guy who hadn't (yet) murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, gassed his own people, or perhaps most relevant to the discussion, kidnapped an Embassy full of Americans and held them against their will for over 440 days. That we didn't foresee the future of what Saddam was to become is regrettable, but none of us can tell the future, and policy at the time dictated that we take real measures in order to contain Iran.

iraq was the one that invaded iran. iran didnt even have a government or military at the time due to the revolution, and saddam attacked iran thinking they wouldnt be able to put up any resistance since the country was in disarray. iran didnt invade any other country, iraq was clearly wrong in invading iran. some fundamentalists took our embassy over and took some people hostage in iran, but that doesn't even come close to saddams regime. we sold saddam wmds knowing he would use them against civilians as well as military targets and even turned a blind eye to it when it was going on. even after saddam began using chemicals on the battlefield to massacre iranian soldiers and civilians, iran refused to respond with illegal chemical weapons. saddam used the same usa/european supplied chemical weapons on his own people as well as kurds, so it wasnt limited to be used only against iran.