| Dottore |
12-30-2006 07:39 AM |
Quote:
Originally posted by fastpat
Since everyone else is denegrating a dead man, I'll post his positives.
First, most, virtually all in fact, of what American's "know" about Saddam Hussein was disinformation created by Amad Chalabi, a paid US government shill. Both Clinton and Bush paid him, something like $300,000 to $400,000 per month, allegedly in support of his "government" in exile the Iraqi National Congress. What that organization really was, and still is, was a capital appreciation fund for Amad Chalabi, an international swindler and wanted bank extortionist.
But, enough about that.
Hussein kept the lid on seething conflicts between Sunni, Shi'ia, and Kurdish ethnic groups; and among the various extended families in the artificial country of Iraq, as many know Iraq was created by the British who made sure the oil rich province of Kuwait was NOT made a part of greater Iraq for the profit of British Petroleum. For other wonderful results of British patronage see Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Arabia, Uganda, South Africa, Rhodesia, and much more.
Under Hussein; most people had advanced schooling (compared to what came before and including women), wore western dress, could worship freely including Christians and Jews, produced more food than they consumed, and via oil revenues could buy what wasn't manufactured in Iraq.
For negatives Hussein was probably about average in brutality in the region. Approximately 3500 people were put to death in Iraq every year for various reasons, including petty crimes, murder, and crimes against the state. Hussein invaded Iran at the behest of the Reagan/Bush I regime costing him the deaths of nearly one million Iraqi's, mostly conscripted soldiers. Did that bother the US government, no, it did not. Nor did Hussein's methods of keeping "law and order" in Iraq bother the US government. It was the timerity of Hussein's demand that the US government/British government protectorate of Kuwait stop stealing Iraqi oil that was the insult, and when Bush I gave Hussein the green light to punish Kuwait by invading it, an excuse for punishing Hussein was handed to the US government, and to others.
Ultimately, Hussein's biggest negative was that he really didn't have sufficient world view, and had no idea of the level of murderous treachery that the Bush family is capable of, and so both he and Iraq suffered for that.
Hussein isn't troubled by that any longer, but America still suffers on under the Bush family's tender mercies.
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That is a very balanced summary.
Saddam was a simple man who could easily have been played diplomatically with a combination of carrot and stick.
But the Bush administration wanted blood. The goof wanted to be a "war president".
No matter how you dress this up in patriotic niceties - every US life lost in Iraq was a wasted life. And every Iraqi life lost a crime.
That is how history will see this.
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