Should Saddam have been left to run Iraq?

[goldstone]

It was certainly a much safer and more stable country.

I think the answer is YES.

Particularly after the events of this week.

And a large number of American families and some British ones would still have their sons/husbands/brothers alive.

 

[dougdeep]

No.

 

[TSB]

Dunno.

Mass murderer so probably not.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

It was certainly a much safer and more stable country.

I think the answer is YES.

Particularly after the events of this week.

And a large number of American families and some British ones would still have their sons/husbands/brothers alive.

The illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq by Bush and B.Liar under the blatant 'Weapons Of Mass Destruction' lie was a criminal act. There's upwards of fifty innocent Iraqis being slaughtered every day as a direct result of their decision, years before the war kicked off, to bring about regime change in Iraq to safeguard America's oil supplies. They'll be hauled in front of a War Crimes tribunal yet if there's any justice.

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

Don't be a xxxx. Have you never seen the persecution of the Kurds? The gassing of the villages? The mass graves? The videos of the police beatings? How his sons and their acolytes selected people to rape, torture, and kill?

It could have been done a lot better, but no, would you rather have had Iraq head down the route that Iran is now taking?

 

[simonsimon]

The Americans and British coluded to let Saddam rule Iraq for decades.
Under Thatcher & Regan/Bush senior we even provided him with arms to supress the shia muslims and wage war with Iran.

Decades later the west takes the moral high ground and turns on its puppet Dictator to secure oil supplies, and ultimately western life styles.

Moral niceties do not enter the equation.

 

[London Irish]

It was certainly a much safer and more stable country.

I think the answer is YES.

Particularly after the events of this week.

And a large number of American families and some British ones would still have their sons/husbands/brothers alive.

Yes, he was a contained and broken threat and posed no danger to anyone outside his borders.

There is a very difficult moral issue in terms of the treatment of his own people, but what the Bush/Blair liars never tell you is that the massed graves were filled when he was still our ally (the gassing of the Kurds in 1988 which the West logistically helped) and in the immediate wake of the 1991 uprising against him. In the final ten or so years of his reign, what deaths and suffering there were were mainly down to the appalling effects of western sanctions and the denial of supplies of even basics like health products from abroad.

The death toll and horror that has taken place because of the Bush-Blair invasion and its appalling aftermath cannot be justified, we are talking the deaths of well over a hundred thousand people because of bloody battles and the collapse of basic emergency service infrastructure. Now the seeds have been laid for a bitter communal civil war that could claim many, many more lives on top of that, and the western invaders are powerless to prevent that.

Anyone who says all this was justified can apply no value whatsoever to Iraqi lives

There was another way to get rid of Saddam, it would have taken longer and required more patience, but empowering the opposition and waiting for his incapacitation and eventual death of this ageing dictator would have involved less suffering, less deaths and less havoc.

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

I think that how the war went on was wrong - it was under false pretences and was badly co-ordinated. However, had Blair and Bush said that they were going to war to oust Saddam Hussein then I would have been slightly more for it.

It's good that Saddam is out, however it is bad how the country is turning out at the moment.

 

[enigma]

I think that how the war went on was wrong - it was under false pretences and was badly co-ordinated. However, had Blair and Bush said that they were going to war to oust Saddam Hussein then I would have been slightly more for it.

It's good that Saddam is out, however it is bad how the country is turning out at the moment.

Agree 100%.

 

[KPTF]

Re: Re: Should Saddam have been left to run Iraq?

Yes, he was a contained and broken threat and posed no danger to anyone outside his borders.

Agreed. He was a soft target, the toppling of whom would make Bush look tough back home post September 11th, coupled with the massive oil and restructing benefits. There were/are far worse tyrants who could do with sorting out (Mugabe for starters) but the sceptics have no need to get involved there as there's little if any oil there.

The worlds 'selective' policeman turns a convenient blind eye there whilst having been instrumental in de-stabilising Iraq for the foreseeable future.

 

[DJ Leon]

Re: Re: Should Saddam have been left to run Iraq?

There was another way to get rid of Saddam, it would have taken longer and required more patience, but empowering the opposition and waiting for his incapacition and eventual death of this ageing dictator would have involved less suffering, less deaths and less havoc.

I reckon that's the crux of the issue. What was the lesser of 2 evils? Invading and removing Saddam? Or doing nothing.

I believe the lesser of 2 evils was probably an invasion, one handled completely differently than the one we got. Surely though, we'll never know, will we?

 

[Mr Burns]

It was certainly a much safer and more stable country.

I think the answer is YES.

Particularly after the events of this week.

And a large number of American families and some British ones would still have their sons/husbands/brothers alive.

Yes, he should totally have been left to run it. By that I mean we and America had no rights to invade Iraq, and should not be there now. If he was to be removed, it should have come from within Iraq.
Whatever Sadam got up to, it was not down to us to stop him, unless he possed us a threat, which of course he didn't, unless you listen to the pack of lies Blair and Bush peddle.

Mugabe (Zimbabwe) is just as much a tyrant to his own people as Sadam was, and poses as much threat to the West as him, i.e. None.
Korea and China pose much more threat to us as Sadam ever did, but we won't dare invade them because it'll lead to WWIII, and in all probabilty nuclear weapons would be used and we'll all lose.
Iraq is Bush's war, and unfortunately our lap dog of a piss poor excuse of a Prime Minister wanted to go down in the History books, and went along with it.

I'm still waiting for the day when the UN grows some balls, and have Bush and Blair up for war crimes. The invaision of Iraq was illegal under international law, yet the two main man behind it get of scott free!

And the saddest part of all, the people of the two countries involved re-elected both men!!!! To be honest, whatever the middle-east throws at us in the coming years, and I sure there's a fair bit to come, if you support Blair or Bush, you can't claim to be totally innocent.

I dislike all regions, as I think they pray on the weak and weak-minded, but I can understand the hatred towards us, the West by the Musliems and Iraq people.

Put yourself in their position, England is invaded Arab countries who bomb the shit out of you, killing tens or even hundreds thousands in the process. They claim to be looking for weapons you have or are trying to make, the same weapons they've had for years, but dont want you to have, and they dont find any. They remove your leader, whether you think he's a xxxx or not, they still remove him, bombing the shit out of London in the process, and take over your cities with their armies and tanks and tell you how you should live, like they do in the middle-east........ would you not be slightly pissed off?

 

[London Irish]

Re: Re: Re: Should Saddam have been left to run Iraq?

Surely though, we'll never know, will we?

No, but we can clearly see the appalling body count and carnage of what we did do.

Whether a "better" invasion could have been mounted I doubt, although there were appalling logistical blunders that might arguably been addressed better by spending even more of our taxpayers' money on a vastly bigger invasion force (and didn't we just have a thread about the lack of funding for the NHS? ), the political problems remain insurmountable, that there was no "clean" way to behead Saddam's regime without killing loads of Iraqis, and that has led directly to the unleashing of the bitterness of a patriotic anti-west insurgency and the seeds of the present communal conflict that are now unfolding.

 

[attila]

BAGHDAD SKA

Hooray Hooray for the USA!
Your soldiers took Saddam away
So we're all going out on the streets to play
And celebrate our liberation day
The hospitals overflow with dead
The looters have stolen all the bread
But I think my family are all OK
and you said this was the only way
You said this was the only way....


I saw an old friend the very next day
Armed to the teeth and up for the fray
He said 'I'll make those Yankees pay!'
- A B52 blew his wife away
I put my hand upon his head
I held him close and softly said
'I know it's an awful price to pay'.......
Then sadly I went on my way
Sadly I went on my way

CHORUS
This is Baghdad's scar
This is Baghdad ska
This is Baghdad's scar
This is Baghdad ska.......


Walked up to a Yankee yesterday
I asked how long they were going to stay
And how he'd reply to the folks who say
Our land was stolen by the USA
Then a shot rang out from across the road
I stood and watched his head explode
And all I could do was cringe and pray
As boots and fists took me away
Boots and fists took me away

CHORUS

They're gonna take me to Guantanamo Bay
As an enemy of the USA
They don't believe a word I say
They sneer that I'm in for a very long stay
I cry my own, my country's tears
How many dead, how many years?
And through my agony I say:
there could have been another way
there could have been another way
there could have been another way
there should have been another way

ATS 10/04/03

 

[Mr Burns]

I think that how the war went on was wrong - it was under false pretences and was badly co-ordinated. However, had Blair and Bush said that they were going to war to oust Saddam Hussein then I would have been slightly more for it.

It's good that Saddam is out, however it is bad how the country is turning out at the moment.

But what rights or reasons did we have to oust Sadam?

 

[enigma]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Should Saddam have been left to run Iraq?

the bitterness of a patriotic anti-west insurgency and the seeds of the present communal conflict that are now unfolding.

True, I dont think Bush and Blair thought about that. They have given the terrorists oxygen through this who probably wouldnt have emerged if Saddam was still there.

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

But what rights or reasons did we have to oust Sadam?

That's the point - we didnt - we just used the excuse of WMD, which weren't/arent there.

The real thing that i had a problem with Saddam was the incredible lack of human rights and oppression that Saddam actively caused. The persecution of the Sunnis inparticular. There is no argument against Hussein being a horrible dictator, and he is showing what a rotten scumbag he is in the trial that is going on (or trying to) at the moment. It's no coincidence that 2 of the prosecution lawyers have been murdered, and that we are currently seeing the 3rd judge in this case.

 

[perseus]

Should Iraq ever have been invented?

Put the Kurds in Kurdistan, the Sunni in Babylon and Shiites in the bogs or wherever.

 

[NMH]

Don't be a xxxx. Have you never seen the persecution of the Kurds? The gassing of the villages? The mass graves? The videos of the police beatings? How his sons and their acolytes selected people to rape, torture, and kill?

It could have been done a lot better, but no, would you rather have had Iraq head down the route that Iran is now taking?

Really, you mean the same as the capitolist US did to make sure that their political agendas were swayed in Vietnam?

Wow, I didn't know Saddam was THAT bad.

 

[NMH]

There are some big clues out there people - like WHY did the US depose Saddam with 911 as a reason, going to extreme length to find the bloke down a little underground hole - yet bin Laden sits around having a laugh, making threatening videos to keep himself amused?

The bin Laden family from Saudi Arabia, are allies of the US. They own lots of holdings in America, their country allowed the US to sit on their land during Desert Storm while attacking Saddam's troops.
One of that family is the leader and protaganist for Al Quaida.