Why didn't Saddam kill Margaret Hassan?

[Cocoa]

this belongs in the same category of questions as, "why did Saddam allow Jews to live in Iraq?" and "why did Saddam allow Christians in Iraq?"

And, why, since Saddam has been ousted and jailed, has Margaret Hassan been killed, and life impossible in Iraq for Jews and Christians?

Could it be that, despite the rhetoric, it's possible to be worse than Saddam, and that's where Iraq is right now?

(Of course, in case any Right Wing columnists are reading, this does not mean Saddam was in any way "good." What it means is that using his badness to justify your own catastrophic actions only gets you so far).

[tk2kewl]

1. Bottom line...

He was no good. This is much worse.

[Cocoa]

2. much worse than Saddam?

you mean, if you had your way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power? /kidding

[imenja]

3. Don't make excuses for Saddam

I don't think it's a good idea to start making excuses for Saddam. He was a butcher and Iraq is full of mass graves as a result. The American war in Iraq is unjustified, but not because Saddam was acceptable. US policy is not and has never been--except for a few cases during the Carter Administration--based on human rights. As you well know, Saddam was backed by the US when he was gasing the Kurds.
As Democrats, we need to take a moral stand on human rights. Excusing murderous dictators like Saddam only undermines our cause and principles.

As for Margaret Hassam, Saddam had no reason to kill her. She was a vocal critic of the UN sanctions. There were plenty of other people he did kill though.

[bahrbearian]

4. And the ones he missed , we're killing em now !

[Anakin Skywalker]

12. What a Sad Fate for Them.

Missed by Saddam only to be killed by Shrub & Co.!

[bahrbearian]

20. Shurb & CO were in on it with Sadam too.

[chookie]

5. Can I add a question to your list?

Why did Saddam Hussein not kill the sister of Ahmed Chalabi, who had a luxurious home in Baghdad? Gee, the sister of a exile who was actively seeking to overthrow his government by seeking the aid of countries like the US, Iran and Israel -- you'd think Saddam would have killed her to strike back at his enemy. But she lived in luxury and freedom in Baghdad, not stuck in a rape room. Hmmm.

[imenja]

7. your point?

Because he didn't exterminate the entire population that makes him okay?
Murder is wrong, regardless of who does it.
As I said, a critique of US policy in Iraq need not be based on an idyllic, and inaccurate, view of Saddam. There are countless other reasons that the war is wrong.

[DrWeird]

8. Seems the point to me is...

Iraq is worse off now then it was under Saddam. At least for the portions of his dictatorship where he wasn't a US puppet.

[imenja]

11. that may very well be

I don't like to conclude whether they are better off now or then, because I believe that is for Iraqis to say. However, the polls I've read about suggest the vast majority agree with you that they are worse off under the Americans.
I don't, however, think it's necessary to whitewash Saddam in order to make that point.

[DrWeird]

13. Looks to me like that's what they've been saying.

1200 dead. Untold thousands wounded.

[cali]

17. All your posts in this thread are excellent

thoughtful, and well reasoned. What a relief. The thread starter's post is, sadly, none of these things. And if you can't entertain two thoughts in your head at the same time, i.e., the invasion and occupation is wrong and Saddam was a brutal dictator, than you need more mental exercise.

[chookie]

10. Your point?

I did not say Saddam was a nice guy. I was aware of the atrocities he was involved in back when Reagan was arming him and Rumsfeld was shaking hands with him. Yeah, and I used to have people jump all over me for badmouthing him back then, because it was not politically correct and patriotic to do so. Yeah -- I used to get worked up about all those mass graves he was filling up back in those days. You know, the ones George W loves to talk about as one of the reasons he liberated Iraq. The adminstration at the time felt it was in their strategic interest to ignore it.

I am merely curious -- and I think understandably so -- why Saddam Hussein would not kill the sister of a guy who was actively trying to overthrow him.

There must be a reason she was spared. I would expect such a person would be an obvious target of repression and death. But she lived freely. Why was she spared? I want an answer to that question.

Sorry -- this is not the love letter to Saddam Hussein that you think it is. Hope that calms you down.

As for the future leader of Iraq: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss. We destroyed a repressive dictator bastard to replace him with another pressive dictator bastard. Life will continue to stink for Iraqis .

[imenja]

15. point taken

and accepted. I'm perfectly calm, just happened to disagree with what I saw, perhaps mistakenly, as the inference of your post.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. Did you read the disclaimer in the original post?

"(Of course, in case any Right Wing columnists are reading, this does not mean Saddam was in any way "good." What it means is that using his badness to justify your own catastrophic actions only gets you so far)"

I don't see an idyllic view of Saddam's reign here. Looks pretty realistic to me.

[Old and In the Way]

18. Can you provide us some facts for your sweeping generalizations?

The reality is, Hussein presided over 3 diverse and culturally antagonistic populations. While he ruled as a dictator, Iraq was, in the 80s, the most secular and progressive society in the Middle East.
He was our proxy against Iran in the 1980's, using chemical weapons we provided. If you want to indict Hussein for doing our dirty business in the ME...let's indict the GWHB's, the Dick Cheney's, and the Don Rumsfeld's that made it possible.

This war is about stealing their oil. Plain and simple.

[imenja]

21. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

Amnesty International has reported on human rights violations in Iraq under the US occupation and under Saddam. You can use this link to click back to reports from the Saddam period.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/iraq/reports.do

Human Rights watch does the same

http://hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=iraq&document_limit=200,20

That Iraq was secular under Saddam (though less so after the first Gulf War) does not mean he was not a dictator and flagrant violator of human rights.

I excuse murder and torture from no one: not George Bush, the State of Texas, Augusto Pinochet, nor Saddam Hussein. I believe this is central to progressive politics. For me, that is the true meaning of moral values.

[Old and In the Way]

22. I can't and won't defend Saddam.

Here's what I don't understand. If he was so evil (and I think most of this evil was pre-DS1, he was effectively nuetralized since that war), why not simply have assassinated the guy? We created him, why didn't we take him down? Yes, I know it's against US law...but that's an excuse, particularly with this administration. Instead, it's the Iraqi people and their country who again take it on the chin. We let the Republicans off way to easy by allowing them to claim the moral high ground when they created Saddam, armed him so he could kill all those people, declare war on him, killing more innocents (while he stays), embargo the shit out of the population, then invade and destroy the country again.

And he's still alive....we've lost 1200 Americans and 10s of thousands of casualties and we are pulverizing the Iraqi for fighting them for resisting our occupation.

Seems to me, the Iraqi people could have figured a way, with our help, to depose of Saddam a long time ago. Bush could have gone to the UN and demanded that we put a bounty on his head, for that matter...but that really wasn't the purpose of this invasion, was it?

We can't use what he did to justify what we are doing.

[imenja]

23. I don't justify the War

I opposed and protested the war for months before the US invaded Iraq. I justify nothing about US policy under this administration. There are countless reasons to oppose this war, not to mention the absolute incompetence with which Bush has executed it. I really don't see how imaging that Saddam was somehow OK, or presided over a progressive society, helps an anti-war argument. It is possible to reject torture and murder from the both the US and Saddam. If you go to the links by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, they document abuses under both.
We of course expect more from our government that from a tyrant like Saddam. The very idea that people feel a need to say Abu Ghraib wasn't as bad as Saddam's torture chambers means the US has already lost the ideological battle. This war is a disaster precisely because the Bush administration refuses to try to understand Iraqi society. I don't think denying Saddam's abuses helps the matter either.

[Old and In the Way]

24. Not denying his torture.

Just not accepting that we had a right to invade and cause more devastation on the Iraqi people. They are worse off now then they were before the invasion.

And we could use human rights violations as justification to invade a few dozen countries; North Korean for instance....do you propose that we do that? Sorry, as bad as Saddam was, he was the Iraqi's people's problem to deal with. We haven't made their lot better and since we really invaded to take their oil revenue, I think we've actually violated the human rights of the entire country.

[imenja]

25. I agree

completely

[Old and In the Way]

26. I like civil discussions that end in agreement!

:toast:

[Cocoa]

27. you like strawmen much?

of course, an idyllic view of Saddam is ridiculous. But if you think for half a second about the posts you're responding to, you'll see that this obviously is not what we're saying.

[Minimus]

6. ironically, christians are now fleeing iraq

I posted article in other thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2703104&mesg_id=2703104

[npincus]

9. excellent points

to go completely over the heads of the 52% brain-dead who let the media tell them what to think.

[saracat]

14. Is Hassan dead? I thought the victim was the Polish womn as she was

blonde and Hassan had dark hair?

[Minstrel Boy]

19. Different victim. Hassan is reported dead, too.

Stories in LBN.