"We are all Iraqis now"

[Must_B_Free]

That is the end lesson.

I read some things and wondered how the Iraqis must feel...

...

Lets talk about an industrial nation with a mad dictator as a leader.

The dictator is hell bent of glorifying and enriching himself and his friends, while he lets his country go to hell, ignoring the many needy.

He is brutal. He represses any dissenters.

He laughs at the thought of others being put to death.

He posesses Weapons of Mass Destruction and he uses them to demonstrate his power against any would think of challenging.

He lies. He is deceitful.

He thumbs his nose at world opinion and chooses not to listen to the United Nations.

...

Pretend, for a moment, that you live in this nation, under this dictator...

Now your nation is attacked by a foreign agressor claiming that they are "liberating you" from your dictator.

What do you do? Who do you side with? What can you do to best return things back to your life as you knew it. Who can you trust/?

Yes, we are all Iraqis now.

[salinen]

1. Very thoughtful MBF

George W Hussein.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. I prefer

"Saddam W. Bush."

"George W. Hussein" sounds too much like a real person, but since we have customarily referred to the two lilttle dictators as "Saddam" and "Bush" respectively, SWB just seems to flow better.

Wish he would just flow up the river, if you get my (puns all intended) drift.

[frylock]

3. ich bin ein bahgdaders

[EV1Ltimm]

24. you're a jelly falafel?

[Imajika]

4. Are you trying to compare Bush to Saddam?

The comparison is simply ridiculous.

"Lets talk about an industrial nation with a mad dictator as a leader."

Bush is not a dictator and he and his party do have to subject themselves to elections. With the results of 2002 and 2003 in mind, it seems to me that Bush's party is kicking the oppositions ass lately. Saddam and his Baathist never had to stand for election and if they had, Saddam could not have achieved anything more than perhaps being a Representative of Tikrit (even that is debatable) - and they knew that full well.

"The dictator is hell bent of glorifying and enriching himself and his friends, while he lets his country go to hell, ignoring the many needy."

Yet just over half the country supports Bush whether we like it or not. Majority rules. Saddam did not even have the support of 25% of his country.

"He is brutal. He represses any dissenters."

Dissenters are not "repressed" in America. I see, hear and read about protests against Bush weekly. Huge anti-war protests are not uncommon throught the US. People on DU are practicing dissent right here and now reading this forum. In Iraq, any opposition to Saddam would most surely result in imprisonment, torture and/or death.

"He laughs at the thought of others being put to death."

And? Your rights are not infringed by anyone laughing about capital punishment. It is a tacky and disgusting thing to do, but in no way criminal.

"He posesses Weapons of Mass Destruction and he uses them to demonstrate his power against any would think of challenging."

Saddam has used them. When did Bush use WMD's? No conspiracy theories please.

"He thumbs his nose at world opinion and chooses not to listen to the United Nations."

Along with lots and lots of nations. Was the war in Kosovo sancationed by the UN? Nope. Even good American leaders thumb their nose at the UN. Bush just happens to be one of the US's worst Presidents, but he is nothing even remotely like Saddam Hussein.

"Yes, we are all Iraqis now."

Your analogy is just plain goofy. Comparing Bush to Hilter and Saddam make the left look like a bunch of fringe nutcases.

Imajika

[thebigidea]

5. I'm sure Bush appreciates your staunch advocacy

why don't you go the whole 9 yards and prattle about "moral equivalency being absurd" and so forth.

Saddam is the minor leagues compared to Bush.

[alwynsw]

9. Minor leagues???

Care to explain that one?

I'm not in favor of Bush's policies on the whole, but let's be realistic.

I say "on the whole" because I did favor his proposed - and passed - cut in the capital gains tax. Of course, he used (almost verbatim) JFK's speech to persuade Congress to lower the tax. I guess his speech writers figured that if JFK gave the speech and got cap gains taxes lowered, shrub could, too.

edited for punctuation the grammar flaws stand

[thebigidea]

12. Saddam presided over a decimated, shithole country

Bush ostensibly commands the most powerful empire in the history of well, history.

I'd say Hussein is pretty minor compared to that.

[Must_B_Free]

16. Really?

I saw the live cams of Bhagdad during the war. It looked pretty industrial to me. Lots of modern concrete construction, paved roads, cars zooming around. Obviously, they had Municipal services even in the other cities like Tikrit.

The citizens I saw with short western haircuts and modern day athletic clothing, just like you see in NYC. Saddam himself listened to Sinatra, wore Armani suits and took Viagra... Sounds pretty western to me.

I think you are thinking of Afghanistan.

And besides, Iraq having the worlds second largest oil reserves - this made him a player that was far from minor.

[thebigidea]

29. sigh

so all that bombing, the sanctions, the lack of medicine, the ravaged military..

all of this didn't happen?

"The citizens I saw with short western haircuts and modern day athletic clothing, just like you see in NYC."

I don't understand what short hair has to do with Gulf War 1&2.

"I think you are thinking of Afghanistan."

Um, no. My argument is not one of those "oh these poor backwards people" things.

My argument is that Hussein was small fry in the dictator class.

Not only that, but I agree with your initial post any way!

[Must_B_Free]

31. point well taken

"My argument is that Hussein was small fry in the dictator class."

True there may be other, more militarily powerful dictators. But consider Oil as a weapon. Controlling the 2nd largest oil reserve was his true WMD, and we could not afford to have him cut a deal that would leave the US in a weak position. Now our Oil companies control the entire reserve.

My point about the western haircuts and clothing is that - these Iraqis were not brainwashed stoneaged muslims in caves - these were people who admired and aspired to the west.

[alwynsw]

26. Thanks for the clarification

It appeared that you might have been referring to human rights abuses.

[thebigidea]

27. you might want to ask a certain Canadian/Syrian about that

[alwynsw]

6. Well said

Like it or not, there's so little comparison between the two that I must disagree whith the thread. Therefore, I agree with you, Imajika.

Exaggerated rants such as this in a public forum do little more than portray Dems as unreasoning zealots. Reasoned opinions are valid currency. Outlandish and inaccurate comparisons only hurt the speaker's cause.

(Yes, DU is essentially a public forum. No membership is required to read the boards. Do we really think Rush joined to read our posts on the air?)

[thebigidea]

8. look, I can ALMOST get the argument for not comparing Bush to Hitler...

but are we really going to extend that to a penny ante slug like Saddam Freakin' Hussein? He and Bush are cut from the same cutrate cloth, miserable mafia-style families bent on enriching themselves.

[DrWeird]

7. Don't forget...

they both massacred thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians.

[iverglas]

10. sorta agreeing, for somewhat different reasons

The problem I see with the analogy is not the comparison between Bush and Saddam ("Saddam" is equivalent to a surname, btw), but the comparison between USAmericans and Iraqis.

USAmericans, and no one else, are responsible for Bush. USAmericans' governments also bear considerable responsibility for Saddam. No one came along from somewhere else and imposed Bush on USAmericans, but outside interference did a lot toward imposing Saddam on Iraqis.

USAmericans are simply not oppressed or terrorized by Bush to the extent that Iraqis were oppressed and terrorized by Saddam.

I point this out not to apologize for Bush or for his aggression against the people of Iraq.

I point it out in the hope, once again, of poking a small hole in the ethnocentric cocoon that too many USAmericans live in, and inviting them to look around them.

A lot of people in the world are genuinely oppressed and terrorized to the point that the worst of what you have in the US looks like nirvana to them. And one of the primary causes for the oppression and terror they live under is interference by the governments elected by USAmericans.

The world just is not ready to look at you folks and see what poor victims you are, I'm afraid. And comparing your pain to their pain just isn't going to win you any sympathy, or many friends.

Comparing your pain to their pain looks like navel-gazing; it sounds like someone who responds to a friend's report of having been hospitalized with life-threatening injuries by describing his/her recent hangnail woes.

And, in response to the post I am replying to, focusing on the lesser evil that Bush has done at home in order to discount analogies between him and other evil power-wielders in the world won't much impress some of the non-USAmericans listeners either. When considering Saddam's evil deeds, we don't generally ignore his use of chemical weapons against the population of another nation, for instance. It would be disingenuous to ignore the harm that Bush has done to others simply because they are not USAmericans.

.

[fob]

11. Allow me to re-bush* YOUR ridiculous statements

The comparison is simply ridiculous.

"Lets talk about an industrial nation with a mad dictator as a leader."

Bush is not a dictator and he and his party do have to subject themselves to elections. With the results of 2002 and 2003 in mind, it seems to me that Bush's party is kicking the oppositions ass lately. Saddam and his Baathist never had to stand for election and if they had, Saddam could not have achieved anything more than perhaps being a Representative of Tikrit (even that is debatable) - and they knew that full well.

bush* may not be officially a dictator(yet) but he has control of all arms of government including a clearly sympathetic Supreme Court and has come upon that power at the very least by questionable methods and more realistically through outright fraud. A coup is a popular way for dictators to come into power. Your opinion regarding Saddams popularity is irrelavent.

"The dictator is hell bent of glorifying and enriching himself and his friends, while he lets his country go to hell, ignoring the many needy."

Yet just over half the country supports Bush whether we like it or not. Majority rules. Saddam did not even have the support of 25% of his country.

Where do you get those numbers? He received 540,000 FEWER votes in the "election" yet took power anyway. Majority rules equals Pesident Gore. Again your OPINION of Saddams support is irrelevant. SH got for all intents and purposes 100% of the vote in his last election. This proves that dictators do what's necessary to stay in power, vote rigging through violence or through diebold cheating, the tactics may differ but the intent is the same.

"He is brutal. He represses any dissenters."

Dissenters are not "repressed" in America. I see, hear and read about protests against Bush weekly. Huge anti-war protests are not uncommon throught the US. People on DU are practicing dissent right here and now reading this forum. In Iraq, any opposition to Saddam would most surely result in imprisonment, torture and/or death.

Have you seen any pictures from the protests in Oakland CA where police shot "dissenters" with wooden dowels? How about Maimi with the clubbings? What say you about the "First Amendment Zones" that keep "dissenters" far away from the target of their dissent? How about Jose Padilla, an AMERICAN citizen stripped of his rights, labeled an "enemy combatant" and unable to see counsel and being held without charges, IN THE USA!


"He laughs at the thought of others being put to death."

And? Your rights are not infringed by anyone laughing about capital punishment. It is a tacky and disgusting thing to do, but in no way criminal.

You defend someone who campaigned to restore honor and dignity to the WH, campaigned on "compassionate conservatism" and is anything but honorable, dignified, compassionate or conservative? It is indeed criminal in the way he has changed what it means to be an American


"He posesses Weapons of Mass Destruction and he uses them to demonstrate his power against any would think of challenging."

Saddam has used them. When did Bush use WMD's? No conspiracy theories please.

Have you ever heard of "shock and awe"? How about a MOAB(Mother Of All Bombs)? What, exactly do you think bush* ordered lobbed into Afghanistan and Iraq? Cream Pies? How about the yellow bombs that look suspiciously close to the yellow food packs? And surely you heard of the Afghan kids that were confused by the similarity and blew their own limbs off. And you must have heared of bush* pulling out of the ABM treaty, because he wants to start testing nuclear bombs and in fact develop the suitcase-sized nuclear weapons.

"He thumbs his nose at world opinion and chooses not to listen to the United Nations."

Along with lots and lots of nations. Was the war in Kosovo sancationed by the UN? Nope. Even good American leaders thumb their nose at the UN. Bush just happens to be one of the US's worst Presidents, but he is nothing even remotely like Saddam Hussein.

You got one partially right. However you lost a chance at full credit when you attempt to equate a well-thought out, well-planned operation that had NATO and a true coalition of forces that intended to end atrocities against humanity without lying about the reason for doing so with a half-assed, rushed invasion of a country that was predicated on lies for the reason


"Yes, we are all Iraqis now."

Your analogy is just plain goofy. Comparing Bush to Hilter and Saddam make the left look like a bunch of fringe nutcases.

Unfortunately, his analogy is all too REAL. It is so real some refuse to believe it and will make weak arguments so as not to face the awful reality.

Imajika

fob

[Must_B_Free]

14. Thanks FOB

I was afraid I was going to have to rebutte all that myself!

[INTELBYTES]

17. Call me when shrub starts using a plastic shredder to kill people.

Let me know when you find shrubs mass graves. Let me know when you find his kids raping the women.

Then let me know when you called rush to inform him that you found a rant like the one you posted so you can hear yourself on the air.

Shrub and his policies suck. We all agree on that. That's what we need the public to see.

Thanks for contributing to his campaign.:wtf:

[Must_B_Free]

22. Response

Let me know when you find shrubs mass graves. Let me know when you find his kids raping the women.

Where are the bodies of the tens of thousands Iraqis dead at US hands so far in Operation Iraqi Lieberation?

Guess what we did with the bodies in Desert Storm I? Yep, bulldozed them into pits, then cut off the limbs that were poking out of the earth with a grader. I'd call that "mass graves", too


Then let me know when you called rush to inform him that you found a rant like the one you posted so you can hear yourself on the air.

I would be happy if Rush read this on the air. It obviously hits home when freepers read it. Look at how defensive they get.

This whole "speculation is hurting us" meme is a freeper construction to defend themselves from the fact that the Bush administration is the most corrupt most sercetive administration in history, and, as Jessica Lynch taught us, skeptical speculation is well warranted.


Shrub and his policies suck. We all agree on that. That's what we need the public to see.

So did Saddam's, in a similar way.


Thanks for contributing to his campaign.:wtf:

You are the one doing that, by trying to convince everyone to look the other way and ignore the elephant in the living room.

[INTELBYTES]

25. Let me break ya out a tinfoil hat.

How ever many people were killed in Iraq, was because of a war. Gee, there is a little difference between a war, and having people executed just because they disagree with you. Whatever your feelings are about the legitimacy of the war, it by it's nature kills a lot of people. We did take every possible precaution to keep from killing civilians as we could. Even if you don't think shrub cared about the civilians the soldiers did.

I like how you try turning this away from yourself as being the one trying to make the dems look bad. I doubt you will ever see or hear one of my post read by the fundies, but if you get your jollies helping the other side, be my guest.

In the mean time, here's your tinfoil hat!
:tinfoilhat:

[Imajika]

20. Foe

I am sorry, but your attempts to justify a comparison of Bush to Saddam just fall flat.

My original points stand.

"bush* may not be officially a dictator(yet) but he has control of all arms of government including a clearly sympathetic Supreme Court and has come upon that power at the very least by questionable methods and more realistically through outright fraud. A coup is a popular way for dictators to come into power. Your opinion regarding Saddams popularity is irrelavent."

That is a lot of blather and you still don't make a real point. Bush is not a dictator and Saddam Hussein was. Because Democrats are pissed off about the way the Supreme Court decided a razor thin election just doesn't make Bush a dictator or anything even resembling one. His party actually made gains in the off year elections, presumably a time where a furious public would have punished the "dictator's" party.

"Where do you get those numbers? He received 540,000 FEWER votes in the "election" yet took power anyway. Majority rules equals Pesident Gore. Again your OPINION of Saddams support is irrelevant. SH got for all intents and purposes 100% of the vote in his last election. This proves that dictators do what's necessary to stay in power, vote rigging through violence or through diebold cheating, the tactics may differ but the intent is the same."

My numbers are consistant polling that shows his job approval rating in the 50+ percentile range. It is also telling that the opposition party is not winning in the off years, but instead losing.

Yes, I know Saddam got 100% in his last "election", but no one in the entire world takes this "election" seriously. There was no democracy in Iraq of any kind. The USA is a democracy and has been pretty darn successful at it for quite awhle now.

"Have you seen any pictures from the protests in Oakland CA where police shot 'dissenters' with wooden dowels? How about Maimi with the clubbings? What say you about the "First Amendment Zones" that keep 'dissenters' far away from the target of their dissent? How about Jose Padilla, an AMERICAN citizen stripped of his rights, labeled an "enemy combatant" and unable to see counsel and being held without charges, IN THE USA!"

Give me a break. How do the protests in Oakland and Miami have anything to do with Bush. Those are local police forces directed by locally elected politicians. Police reacting violently to protesters is nothing new in the United States. Bush has exactly zero to do with it. Jose Padilla is not a dissenter, he is an alleged terrorist. Should an American citizen be stripped of his rights? No. The legality of his incarceration will be determined by the courts.

I will repeat it again, dissenters in America are not repressed. Are you being repressed right now? DU is a board of dissenters and it operates freely everyday. Something like this forum opposing the Baathist and Saddam Hussein in Iraq would NEVER have been legal.

"You defend someone who campaigned to restore honor and dignity to the WH, campaigned on 'compassionate conservatism' and is anything but honorable, dignified, compassionate or conservative? It is indeed criminal in the way he has changed what it means to be an American"

Nonsense. I voted against Bush and will do so again. Infact, I've never voted for even 1 Republican ever. It is indeed NOT in anyway criminal because we don't like the influence Bush has had on America. That is called politics and the results of elections.

"Have you ever heard of 'shock and awe'? How about a MOAB(Mother Of All Bombs)? What, exactly do you think bush* ordered lobbed into Afghanistan and Iraq? Cream Pies? How about the yellow bombs that look suspiciously close to the yellow food packs? And surely you heard of the Afghan kids that were confused by the similarity and blew their own limbs off. And you must have heared of bush* pulling out of the ABM treaty, because he wants to start testing nuclear bombs and in fact develop the suitcase-sized nuclear weapons."

Here you have yammered on and failed to address my point. Saddam DID use Weapons of Mass Destruction, Bush has not. Show me a real instance where Bush used a WMD? You can't because he hasn't. "Shock and Awe" has nothing whatever to do with WMD's. If you do not know that than you are completely ignorant of what the term means. A MOAB is not a WMD, it is a big conventional bomb. Is there some particular size of conventional explosive that you have determined becomes a WMD? You don't get to call whatever you like a WMD. Pulling out of the ABM treaty is not equal to using WMD's. Dropping cluster bombs is not using WMD's. You just can't toss the term around like that. WMD means a specific class of warfare generally understood to mean Chemical, Biological and Nuclear weapons. Cluster bombs, missile defense, MOAB's, etc are NOT WMD's.

"You got one partially right. However you lost a chance at full credit when you attempt to equate a well-thought out, well-planned operation that had NATO and a true coalition of forces that intended to end atrocities against humanity without lying about the reason for doing so with a half-assed, rushed invasion of a country that was predicated on lies for the reason"

My point stands then. It is not only dictators that snub the UN. That was my point.

"Unfortunately, his analogy is all too REAL. It is so real some refuse to believe it and will make weak arguments so as not to face the awful reality."

No, the analogy is ridiculous. The minority on the left who run around trying to compare Bush to Saddam (and Hitler) only succeed in tarring the rest of us as loons.

Imajika

[INTELBYTES]

15. Damn I'm glad we have rational people like you around!

Who will be touting this thread tomorrow? Rush? Hannity? WSJ?
Sometimes I wonder about the integrity of people that make these threads. Are they intentionally trying to make us look like whack jobs to turn the masses against us? What insanity this post had. I'm glad you put it into perspective. We need serious discussions and not rants that are fodder for the fundie new orginization.

[Must_B_Free]

18. Yeah? well your "Rational" hero was WEAK

Weak points. Easily rebutted. You yourself offer nothing but a cheer.

Where is the "insanity" you mention? Would you care to offer anything other than unsupported judgement?

[INTELBYTES]

21. hmmm....rebuttal of ramblings...

not really worth my time but if you got any specifics I'll be glad to answer them. I'm not going to write a thesis on why that was a load of crap. We can disagree with all of shrubs policies without trying to make him larger than life. He is an idiot with bad policies that are damaging to our Country. But he is not a mass killer, nor a dictator. How much more do you want me to say?

[Deja Q]

13. Split emotion here

The nations of the UN liberating us has a nice ring to it...

Plenty of the pseudo-patriots (the ones with the "American Pride" flags) would fight the invaders, not realizing the irony. After all, the GLBT folks came up with "pride" long before the mindless Americans, and when the mindless AMericans copied the idea, they never thought how they treated the GLBT folk.

I'd welcome the invaders, they seem to be more civilized and genuine.

The world knows Bush* and repukes are nothing but two-faced liars, out only for themselves.

[wyldwolf]

19. I never thought I'd say this, but poop!

The original post is the sort of crap that the rightwing uses as an example to describe all democrats - and if often sticks.

Pardon me, but I don't want to be associated with such garbage as this. And I don't think others do here either. But I could be wrong.

[INTELBYTES]

23. I'll pour you a beer for that one!

:beer:

I'm sure Skinner loves having to weed through the freepers after this crap gets aired.

[Tansy_Gold]

28. Have I wandered into the wrong room?

I thought it was a great comparison. Not literally accurate, but the sentiment was sincere and had some relevance.

No, * hasn't gassed thousands of "his own people," but many of his right-wing neo-con policies have seriously injured the lives and lifestyles of many Americans. And he not only has used WMDs, in the form of missiles and bombs, but he has prevented the implementation of many programs in other countries that could have saved hundreds, thousands, and even millions of lives -- specifically, the funding of HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Africa, all because his fundie funders are so vigorously opposed to contraception. "Can't have them Affercans havin' sex now, y'know. If'n they do, well, then they better suffer them conserquinces an' like, die."

The U.S. is no longer an industrial power; only 15% of our non-farm jobs are in the manufacturing sector. Our steel industry, which would be essential to a massive war effort like that of the 1940s, has been decimated. Our manufacturing plants are idle and in disrepair. Most of our clothing is made elsewhere, our televisions, our washing machines. Ours is a retail/service economy, not an industrial one. and if our currency can't compete internationally, we will be unable to continue to buy even the cheap wal-mart crap that's imported by the shipload.

I do not think * has any more respect for human life than Saddam Hussein. The glee he has repeatedly demonstrated when imposing the death penalty and the lack of emotional response to the deaths of both civilians and military personnel in Iraq shows me that he is very near to a psychopath. His religion/philosophy seems to be the religion/philosophy of a tribal leader, not of a multicultural civilized nation-state. He appears both uncomfortable around and often unaware of cultural differences; I for one suspect he would be quite happy to see the world rid of people of color, people of non-christian faith, people of non-heterosexual preference, and so on.

That * has not yet taken his philosophy to the level Saddam Hussein was able to take his does not mean we aren't dealing with the same kind of evil. Ours is simply still in a potential stage.

When John Kennedy said "Ich bien ein Berliner," he meant that we all had to side with the people of Berlin and understand that, as Martin Luther King Jr. would later say, until all are free, none are free.

I do not think it is American arrogance to say that we, too, have a dictator and in some ways he resembles Saddam Hussein. I think rather it is a mark of our awareness that we are not immune, that we are not inviolably protected by our vaunted constitution and governmental institutions. Freedom isn't free, nor should it be taken for granted. And not even an American (p)resident should be considered sacrosanct when it comes to examining his actions for signs of abuse of power.

It was *, after all, who said it would be easier being a dictator.

Tansy Gold, who really doesn't give a damn what Rush Limbaugh and his stupid dittoheads think, as if they really do think anyway

[Must_B_Free]

30. I'll give you poop

Lets talk about an industrial nation with a mad dictator as a leader.
Need I defend this? from Mr. "This sure would be easier if I were a dictator"? Mr. "Controls all three branches of Government + the media"

"The dictator is hell bent of glorifying and enriching himself and his friends, while he lets his country go to hell, ignoring the many needy."
Halliburton no bid contracts. Halliburton price gouging. Privatization of Military functions. Splitting of Medicare risk pool. Dismantling of social services. Letting industry leaders create policy.

He is brutal. He represses any dissenters.
Freedom of speech zones. Attacking protestors. (I personally was introduced to Free Speech zones in 92, when Poppy came to PSU and all the protestors were penned up off camera and drowned out for the TV cameras by fake applause over the PA system). Funny, I didn't notice this happening under Clinton...

He laughs at the thought of others being put to death.
Karla Faye Tucker.

He posesses Weapons of Mass Destruction and he uses them to demonstrate his power against any would think of challenging.
Daisy cutters, Mother of All Bombs,

He lies. He is deceitful.
Noone even bothered to try to rebutte this one. ;)

He thumbs his nose at world opinion and chooses not to listen to the United Nations.
The pope told him God was not with him. UN didn't support or even aid the invasion. The evidence presented to UN on several occasions by Powell was fabricated. The US tried to demonize nations such as France, who wouldn't support an illegal invasion. Saddam, on the otherhand, got permission from the US before he invaded Kuwait to stop the slant drilling into his nation's oil reserves.

So tell me again, what was factually incorrect about my post and why it was, therefore, helping Rush and the Freepers?

Or perhaps the truth is something you'd rather not confront?