Say Anything Blog

Still stuck in the past...not very “progressive”, is it?
As has been repeated many times, there was a long list of reasons to free the Iraqi people from the murderous and megalomanic dictator Saddam Hussein, despite all the propaganda generated to deny this truth.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

Mike the one pony act…

You don’t have to be a moron to be a liberal Democrat but it sure helps.

Mike,

I’m sure Bush and Cheney just made those up so they could start a war for oil.  I mean these republicans are known for such shenanigans.  First, there was .... uh, then there was ....  ah hell, I can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter anyhow.  We all know, without any evidence or behavior to back up our claims, the motives for going to war were not in defense of liberty—ours or the Iraqi people’s. 

/sarcasm

Mike,

I used to expect more out of you than I did our <acronym title="eunichized, blackwater, woof, et al">tin foil hat section</acronym>…

But that’s OK, Ed Morrisey did the heavy lifting:

<strong>Senate committee highlights “untrue” statements later proved correct

The Senate Intelligence Committee has released a report accusing George Bush and Dick Cheney of knowingly using untrue statements to foster support for the war in Iraq. The chair of the committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) admitted that everyone operated from the same “flawed” intelligence, but accused the administration of outright deception. Oddly enough, at least one of the supposed deceptions have proven true, while another continues to get support from the intelligence agency that supplied it:

<blockquote>Among the reports conclusions:

<ul><li>Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership “were not substantiated by the intelligence.”</li>
<li>The president and vice president misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabiliies [sic].</li>
<li>Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq’s weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.</li>
<li>Cheney’s claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was not true.</li></ul>

The last claim comes from Czech intelligence, which they have repeatedly defended. The 9/11 Commission reported concluded that it was unlikely, given the pattern of use from Atta’s cell phone, but (a) no one can put Atta in the US outside of that data, and (b) it ignores the possibility that Atta loaned his phone to an associate while he traveled abroad. With the Czechs standing behind that intelligence before and during the war, it’s nothing more than a political cheap shot to call it a “deception”.

The first claim is even more laughable. Less than three months ago, the Pentagon released a report on the captured documents from the Saddam Hussein regime’s intelligence service, the IIS, which detailed support for two separate al-Qaeda terrorist partners. The Iraqis provided financial backing for the Army of Mohammed, a Bahraini terrorist organization that explicitly planned to target American assets in the region and around the world. The IIS and the Saddam regime in its own documents noted the necessity of keeping those arrangements quiet so as not to trigger another American invasion. The IIS also provided support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which incorporated itself into the AQ network when Osama bin Laden made its leader his right-hand man: Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Quite obviously, the Saddam regime saw opportunities to wage war against us and Israel by proxy using the network of radical Islamist terrorists for their own ends. The captured intelligence revealed this. How could the entire Senate Intelligence Committee miss those rather large data points?

If this is the kind of scholarship that went into this report, then we can guess how well the other conclusions of “deception” play out in it. Then again, it’s the kind of cheap shot one can expect from a man who says that military pilots know nothing of war and suffering.</blockquote>

Lie down with moonbats, get up with moonfleas…

Out Here
Rodney G. Graves

Ceterum censeo Parthia esse delendam
Latin: “Furthermore, Parthia (Persia aka modern day Iran) should be destroyed.”

And yet Atta’s interactions with Iraqi Military Intel during the mid and late ‘90s are documented. By the French and Germans. How you going to make all that go away?

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

B-but it’s just so much easier for the lefties to parrot the talking points George Soros gives them!
Don’t bother Mike with inconvenient facts, RG.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

39,998 more pages to translate.  It took 40 years to release the WW II Top Secret information about Pearl Harbor.  We have to wait another 20? years for the Kennedy investigation to be released.

Communism is evil

RG

With the Czechs standing behind that intelligence before and during the war, it’s nothing more than a political cheap shot to call it a “deception”.

I apologise if my comments cast aspersions on the Czech intelligence apparatus but the report says that the Prague meeting could not be confirmed by American intelligence. One can take the position that the Czech spooks are more competent and reliable than their American counterparts. One could also take the position that those predisposed to bringing down Saddam are likely to accept any evidence of malfeasance, even if their own intelligence can’t confirm it.

The first claim is even more laughable. Less than three months ago, the Pentagon released a report on the captured documents from the Saddam Hussein regime’s intelligence service, the IIS, which detailed support for two separate al-Qaeda terrorist partners.

Quite obviously, the Saddam regime saw opportunities to wage war against us and Israel by proxy using the network of radical Islamist terrorists for their own ends. The captured intelligence revealed this. How could the entire Senate Intelligence Committee miss those rather large data points?

The integrity of those captured documents is subject to debate. I don’t think anyone denies that Saddam did business with terrorists although the belief that Saddam enjoyed a working relationship with Al Qaeda only has credence in some small circles.

I appreciate you taking the time to offer specific evidence for your position. I would remind you that the Senate Report identifies areas where American intelligence did not support a variety of prewar justifications and claims. As I’ve indicated, there may well be other evidence, such as the Czech reports, which lend validity to those claims which couldn’t be confirmed by American intelligence efforts.

I would also offer the general affirmation that there was a variety of reasons, rationales and justifications offered for the invasion...both before and after. I guess what bugs me as a SA denizen for the past few years is the treatment of my skepticism towards many Administration claims in view of the continuing stream of evidence that many of those claims were much weaker than were advertised at the time. We can disagree about the Iraq war as a good or bad thing, we can argue over whether progress has been slower than expectations might warrant because it was/is doomed to fail from the beginning or because the war and occupation has been incompetently prosecuted...those can be honest differences of opinion. What can’t be honestly argued is that the Administration didn’t sell the war in the context of responding to the 911 attack, didn’t exaggerate the actual and material threat that Saddam posed to America and apparently that they didn’t rely on intelligence from the traditional security agencies but rather a bunch of Iranian ex-pats and Eastern European governments.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if it turns out that the Iranians used agents to spread disinformation through out the Administration in an effort to provoke an invasion of Iraq? I think it would.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

HG

I’m sure Bush and Cheney just made those up so they could start a war for oil.

I don’t think so. I suspect that they merely wanted evidence to support their predisposition towards warring on Iraq and settle for weak stuff. That’s why I consider their actions reckless.

2H9

And yet Atta’s interactions with Iraqi Military Intel during the mid and late ‘90s are documented. By the French and Germans. How you going to make all that go away?

I don’t make it go away, I question its relevance. America sold weapons to Iran in the eighties in order to fund the Contras. Does that mean that Americans or Republicans in particular are soft on Iran today?

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

Mike: You’re in long term denial of the role of the MSM here as the Propaganda Ministry of the Dem Party, so you can’t be expected to perceive the truth about this crap.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

America sold weapons to Iran in the eighties in order to fund the Contras.

You attempt a distraction with a moldy old chestnut from the Cold War era.  Pathetic.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

I don’t think so. I suspect that they merely wanted evidence to support their predisposition towards warring on Iraq and settle for weak stuff. That’s why I consider their actions reckless.

Mike, what is thier motive?  Why did they have a “predisposition” towards war with Iraq?  So far the ignorant claims of revenge and oil are pathetically vacant at best.

Here’s A Shock.

Liberals oppose America’s military efforts in Iraq because a republican president and his administration responded to a threat liberals to this day do not comprehend and refuse to understand. 

So now, after countless attempts to explain the evidence and motives, they ignorantly insist on the certainty of thier own presuppositions and subsequent conspiracy theories.

I don’t think anyone denies that Saddam did business with terrorists although the belief that Saddam enjoyed a working relationship with Al Qaeda only has credence in some small circles.

This is true:  Saddam did not have a close “working relationship” with al Qaeda. But this appears to be more related to Saddams interest in being the center of the Islamic Revolution rather than allowing Osama to take that role.

This explains the danger that Saddam represented as well as provides an important context for the absence of a “working relationship” between Saddam and al Qaeda.

Regarding the 9/11 attack:  It’s called the Global War on Terror, and al Qaeda is not the only brand of terrorism out there.  If you’re going to discuss things honestly you at least need to frame the debate in those terms, not the narrower “global war on al Qaeda” as you and your liberal heroes continue to attempt to do.

Mike, perhaps you would like to list for us all those weapons America sold Saddam? How many T72 tanks? How many MiG and Sukhoi and Yakovlev aircraft? How many 122mm howitzers? How many BTR60s? How many AKs, RPKs, RPDs, and NSVs? A rough estimate of how many of these America sold to Saddam will do.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

2H9...no I would not.

Carrick...your point is valid although the fact that I view the Iraqi operation as a response to 911 shows that I too drank the koolaid in a sense.

HG...I think that the lingering disappointment after not taking out Saddam after the first Gulf War has a lot to do with predispositions. I also think it’s fair to say that the Administration believed it was doing the right thing but that the evidence they used as justification was not as clear cut as it claimed. Saddam was a bad man and it’s not hard to come up with reasons to get rid of him. I don’t buy into the war for oil conspiracy chatter because it’s dumb.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

I also think it’s fair to say that the Administration believed it was doing the right thing but that the evidence they used as justification was not as clear cut as it claimed.

Mike,

Do you have any reference available that would indicate that “the evidence they used as justification” was actually claimed to have been “clear cut”?  As I recall, much of the argument made by the Bush administration was that given the evidence then available, there was a far greater risk in not acting.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

B1..."clear cut” are my words. If you go through the report you will find examples of weak and contradictory evidence. I should also emphasise that I’m addressing how the war was sold and not whether America was justified in its invasion. It’s a subtle difference but an important one if lessons are to be learned for the future. The important questions to be answered are whether the decision makers used the best evidence available and whether the evidence was augmented by a mindset predisposed to action in Iraq.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

But this appears to be more related to Saddams interest in being the center of the Islamic Revolution rather than allowing Osama to take that role.

Saddam pictured himself as the next Great Caliph who would return Islam to its glory days.  Hmmm, it seems that there is some leader in Iran that has the same ambition.

You don’t have to be a moron to be a liberal Democrat but it sure helps.

Mike, the day you admit that it’s called a global war on terror, and that the shift in US policy, lead by the president but driven by a shift in public sentiment, was in recognition to the danger that world terrorism (as an entity) represented to US and other interests, is the day you will abandon this foolish partisan argument that is frankly blind to the last 20 years of history.

As to 9/11 being a catalyst for a shift of paradigms, hum… wonder how that could have happened.  Must have been the date, not the 2000 lives and billions of dollars of economic damage associated with it.

Also the evidence may not have been clear cut (I personally was totally not sold on what was made publicly available), but that is different than trying to deny that this was the consensus view among US intelligence agency since roughly 1998 (see Clinton’s speech on Iraq).  The data weren’t clear cut and even were contradictory, but the consensus on Iraq’s possessing WMDs was solid, more so than it should have been, IMHO.

Anything else is just a denial of the history of events, and is obviously motivated by a desire to reshape the narrative into a more politically convenient version of events.

Carrick...let’s call it the GWOT then. I hold open the possibility that the Administration honestly believed that invading Iraq would advance the battle against terror. I don’t believe that the Administration’s view was correct and I think the evidence continues to prove my point...IMO of course.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

Mike,

When was the last large scale terrorist attack in the United States?  When was the last large scale terrorist attack in North America?

Documents we have captured from al Qaeda indicate that they now conclude that Iraq has indeed been a sticky and deadly trap for their jihadis, with nothing to show for it in return.

Taking the fight to the enemie’s turf makes it much harder for that enemy to intrude onto your own turf.

Out Here
Rodney G. Graves

Ceterum censeo Parthia esse delendam
Latin: “Furthermore, Parthia (Persia aka modern day Iran) should be destroyed.”

Here’s a question:

Are the solutions to the purported global warming dilemma currently being pushed with such determination and vigor by those on the Left based on any less contradictory evidence than the Bush administration’s case for taking out Saddam Hussein?

Is the threat of man-made global warming, and the solutions offered so stridently to combat it any more “clear cut” than was the case case against Saddam?

In other words, aren’t those on the Left who are so critical of the Bush administration’s mishandling of Iraq, making exactly those same “mistakes” in their pronouncements on global warming?

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Anything else is just a denial of the history of events, and is obviously motivated by a desire to reshape the narrative into a more politically convenient version of events.

Hear, Hear!

Carrick,

I too had some reservations and doubts about war with Iraq.  However, it wasn’t my decision nor was all the information necessary to make that decision at my disposal.  Hell, much of that information is still not available.  It was just doubts and not justification for demanding we lose, insisting on ulterior motives, abandoning the Iraqi people, and leaving the region in the hands of terrorists.  If, as liberals suppose, the motives and decision to war with Iraq was flawed and not sinister, then given the consequences of defeat in Iraq, you’d think liberals would have the decency to wage war with the administration over it after our mission has either succeeded or failed.  Not so.  Liberals put aside decency, they put aside patriotism and attempted to undermine the war effort without regard for the consequences of thier own actions.  It has been an appalling display to say the least.

The worst thing for liberals, given our success and immanent victory, is that all thier efforts will have proven to have accomplished little or nothing but to extend the time necessary to complete our mission, encourage our enemies, and in the pathetic process, cost more lives.

Bat: Have to disagree with you on this equivalence.  While there is no direct evidence of any sort of “global warming”, we have plenty of evidence of the threat to this country posed by international terrorism, including both attacks on the WTC. 
Here’s the logic to Iraq, btw: International terrorists attack WTC in ‘93, with no response from the President, except to treat it as street crime.  The more sucessful attack on the WTC in ‘01 was an escalation in international terrorism against the US; the locus of international terrorism against the US is located in the ME; Iraq is the center of the ME, so the logical place to take an active path against further international terrorism against the US is in the ME, preferably the center of the ME, thus giving us a position of power in the center of the enemy’s territory.  The present President of the US has done just that.  Seems to me he’s doing his job, where the previous guy didn’t.
It would take an appeaser like Obambi to permit another WTC(or worse) in the US.  Be forewarned!

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

r108

Still stuck in the past...not very “progressive”, is it?

well, i guess you have abondoned all the wild bullshit you used to post. now when your shoddy little house of cards implodes… you ask us to move on! what about tradition, right?

you are just a lying patsy who don’t think for himself. sure, your firey and fiesty… you go after the enemy (me, and many other of your fellow countrymen)… but its all lies and bullshit.

and you complain about the current state of politics. hee hee hee.

immanent victory

can we quote you on this in another 5 years? immanent compared to the begining of the universe? can you elucidate for all of us what a victory would entail? and i thought this ‘mission’ was ‘accomplished’?

can we quote you on this in another 5 years?

It’s clear we are making substantial progress in Iraq and al qaeda in Iraq is almost no more.  Should we stay the present course it is clear that victory is immanent. 

BTW, why the screen name?  Having trouble offending people with your comments lately?  Thought you’d go for the ‘shock factor’?

Mike: After all you pontifications about the war, you manage to leave out one little inconvenient truth that blows all the rest of your stuff out of the water.  Before we went into Iraq, Saddam was given one more chance to disarm, and he refused.  In part, it was due to the fact that several Euroweenie countries didn’t stand with us to get him to disarm and open up his country to inspection.  The reason for these defections, it turns out later, were because they were getting fat off of the “Oil for Food” UN scam graft program.  Had those Euroweenies stood with us, no war would have been possible, and Saddam would have crumbled.  All your bullshit can’t cover up that little fact of history.  The graft-happy Euroweenies emboldened Saddam, and the rest is history.  Can’t blame our President for that one, can you?
Of course, if we hadn’t deposed Saddam, AQ would be growing and training in Iraq, and Saddam would still be murdering and torturing his people, but what the hell?

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

robert108,

Of course, if we hadn’t deposed Saddam, AQ would be growing and training in Iraq, and Saddam would still be murdering and torturing his people, but what the hell?

Your ignorance makes me chuckle. How can somebody take your analysis of foreign policy seriously when you don’t even know that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East?

So, you have no counter-argument, only a bogus personal attack?  Israel is not part of the Islamic ME, which was the subject of my comment.  Iraq, due to our efforts, is the first democracy in the Islamic ME.  Get it?

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

robert108,

Personal? Just busting your balls a little bit. Calm down big boy.

Regarding the 9/11 attack: It’s called the Global War on Terror, and al Qaeda is not the only brand of terrorism out there.  If you’re going to discuss things honestly you at least need to frame the debate in those terms, not the narrower “global war on al Qaeda” as you and your liberal heroes continue to attempt to do.

Don’t fall for this crud Mike.

It WAS called the GWOT before they changed it to be a better fitting name, known as; The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.

Saddam wasn’t a violent extremist, he was a ruthless dictator.

The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE), a term devised in May 2005 by the Bush administration to replace G.W.O.T (Global War On Terror) as the acronym designating US military operations across the world against various governments and terrorist organizations.
The public reception was generally very negative, and the expression was soon dropped from use. In a press briefing on February 1 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld introduced “the Long War” as a new designation. The president used it in his 2006 State of The Union speech.

And of course that was before Bush decided to rename it to something else...again;

“‘We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.”

The acronym for this is SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW, (sheer genius) according to Washington Post writer Dana Milbank.

Hat tip to: Source Watch.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_struggle_against_violent_extremism

And of course, changing the name makes the war effort less credible.

Brilliant H, just brilliant.

Of course the obvious is overlooked in your zeal to find fault.  The fact that the WOT is global and against all terrorists, not just al Qaeda, is clear no matter what it’s named.

The fact that the WOT is global and against all terrorists, not just al Qaeda, is clear no matter what it’s named.

Well, don’t bother to read or anything HG.  I wouldn’t want you to actually learn something.

The fact of the matter is, you changed it back to WOT, when the administration purposefully changed the name to The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. And then to the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.

Saddam’s Iraq was a free society.  Saddam did not use terror as a weapon to shake the conscience of the free world.

You know this, don’t you.  Or are you are just making excuses for the Bush administration, and for yourself?

Saddam’s Iraq was a free society.  Saddam did not use terror as a weapon to shake the conscience of the free world.

Iraq was a far, far cry from a “free society”.  And yes, Saddam did you terror on his own people and sponsored terror abroad.  One way was to offer financial reward to the families of jihadists.

You know this, don’t you.  Or are you are just making excuses for the Bush administration, and for yourself?

I don’t think the name of the war excluded Saddam given his record of atrocities and lack of cooperation.  At least that was agreed to by those in authority in numerous nations.  You know, the one’s who actually have the information in front of them and the authority to act upon it.

Wow, sanni was really hitting to pipe last night.

sanni, to attempt to tell anyone that Saddam did not use terror against the people of Iraq is laughable, and to throw a link to something written by Dana Milbank is hilarious. Democrats have made several attempts to change the “name” of the war that is being fought terrorist around the world. You have vainly tried to tell people it is a failure, that it is only an imperialistic land grab, that it is only about stealing oil, blahblahblah. You have failed.

By all means, continue to support Islamic terrorists. Your obvious enjoyment of the ongoing murder of Muslim children and women by mental defectives such as yourself is the clearest indication of your complete moral degeneracy. And please! Keep posting long, disjointed comments about how America is evil. I won’t read them, but I’m sure someone will.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

I wouldn’t want you to actually learn something.

You don’t have to be a moron to be a liberal Democrat but it sure helps.

Mike, all those weapons Saddam bought? He did buy them. From Russia,Romania,Bulgaria, and China. And as for his chemweapons program, it was part and parcel of their agri chemical, pharmaceutical, and pesticide manufacturing programs. It is called “dual use”, you should familiarize yourself with the concept. And who was instrumental in Iraq’s developments in these fields? Germany, France, Italy, and America.

America did sell Iraq weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. TOW missiles and counter-battery radar directed artillery FDC systems. And America and England provided them with aerial and satellite photo-recon data.

In the words of that long dead American Sargent in Belgium, just before going overtop,"Free your mind, your ass will surely follow”.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

Do you really believe the insane inane stuff you post?

The words “mind-numbingly stupid, mind-numbingly dishonest or both” spring to mind!

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

2H9...thanks for the list. I only brought up the Iranian sales as an example of a past misdeed that should not be laid at the feet of current actors. Sorry if I didn’t make that point clearly enough.

Hann...I think we all know the the GWOT was so named after extensive focus group testing and marketing department discussions. OTOH, the notion that terrorism in general needs to be countered and not just those that perpetrated the 911 attack is a reasonable point of view...it may even have been one shared by members of the Administration.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

Since I started this thread I think I can hijack it a bit without feeling too guilty. I wouldn’t have enjoyed living in Iraq under Saddam but I think there were probably worse places to live. Attempting to put myself in the place of an average citizen, I really think that, if forced to choose between living in Iraq or living in Iran, I would choose Iraq because Saddam’s Iraq was certainly more “modern” and “more like the west” than fundamentalist Iran.

Feel free to throw in your two cents...feel free so long as you don’t accuse me of excusing Saddam’s behavior.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

Crazy logic.  Saddam was oppressing 80% of his population to keep the other 20% in power.  He did this through a constant program of capture, torture and murder.  If you were in the Sunni minority, life in Iraq might have been somewhat bearable, even with the bulk of the nation’s resources going to Saddam and his thirst for palaces and military power, leaving the infrastructure quite primitive by any modern standards.  The Shia families had govt “watchers” surveilling them all the time.  Between Saddam’s dictatorship and Iran’s dictatorship seems to have been more of a devil’s bargain than anything else, but your choice is revealing, Mike.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

Given a choice between Iran and Saddam-era Iraq, I would probably choose Iran.  At least they have the rule of law there, detention isn’t arbitrary (even if the laws governing detention may seem extreme by our standards). And unlike Saddam’s government, they actively spend money on infrastructural improvement.

In Saddam’s world, a network of informers, each watching each other, kept the government informed of anti-government sentiment.  Make the wrong statement to the wrong person and you could disappear.  Don’t inform on the “illegal comments” of your neighbor and you could get interned for failing to report them.  Hell, lose an olympic competition and you could tortured for that too.

I doubt you could find many countries (outside of Africa) that were as poorly run or with as many human rights abuses as the Saddam ear Iraq…

Personal? Just busting your balls a little bit. Calm down big boy.

Still no counter-argument.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

So you are simply another lying assed motherfucker spewing lies.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

And spare us your lying assed shit. Prove America is evil and killing innocent Muslim children and women. Prove Muslim terrorists are not killing innocent Muslim women and children, lying motherfucker. Do it now, lying motherfucker.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem