When can we state the obvious about Iraq and Saddam?

[MindMatter]

In the history of our Iraqi invasion and occupation, the Bush administration has jumped from one rationalization to the next. As all the planks of Bush's argument buckled under the emerging realities, we have been left with a single reason for this whole mess. And it is a reason that nobody yet dares touch.

That is the "Saddam was a brutal dictator who gassed his own people, and al Iraqis are better off with him gone" argument.

It is time we put down that last remaining reason. The simple facts are:

1) Saddam was brutal. And he did gas a bunch of Kurds -- 25 years ago when he was an ally of the USA.

2) Saddam maintained strict law and order, and used extreme force to do so.

3) We can now see that is probably the only way that law and order can be maintained in this place.

4) Saddam's regime may have killed 250,000 over 25 years -- maybe more by some accounts.

5) Under the US occupation, Iraqis are dying at far greater rates then they ever did under Saddam.

6) The deaths under Bush are every bit as violent and gruesome as they were under Saddam. But under Bush there are far more of them.

7) Most importantly, there was practically no random killing under the Saddam regime. Saddam murdered specific people in order to maintain his regime. Under Bush, the mayhem is random and doesn't lead to any security for anybody.

8) The average Iraqi is far less safe under Bush than he was under Saddam.

What have we accomplished?

Found the WMDs? No
Liberated Iraq from their dictator? Thanks, but no thanks.
Bestowed the blessings of liberty on Iraq? Yeah, right.

We haven't even accomplished the theft of their oil very well. We're pumping less oil now than Saddam pumped under UN sanctions.

And one of these days, we might be able to manage to have the electricity on more than 4 hours a day.

[pauldp]

1. kick it..nt

[CJCRANE]

2. Bushco is quite happy to do business with other dictators too..nt

[lyonn]

3. Mahr made this comment last night

I remember seeing film of Iraqis before we came to liberate them and give them democracy and there were people sitting on the sidewalks drinking coffee, playing checkers (?) and going to dinner. Saddam was a problem and it seems the average Iraqi gave him and his boys a wide berth. At least they knew the rules and where they stood. It appears they no longer get even the opportunity to just "hang out" and eat, smoke and play.

The Iraqis now must learn to live with the ballot and majority rule. My way or your Mosque type government. Iraqi police and army are sitting ducks, targets.

What the hell are we doing over there?

Edit: Great post

[MindMatter]

8. Mixed emotions

"I remember seeing film of Iraqis before we came to liberate them and give them democracy and there were people sitting on the sidewalks drinking coffee, playing checkers (?) and going to dinner. Saddam was a problem and it seems the average Iraqi gave him and his boys a wide berth."

There is no doubt that if you crossed Saddam's regime, the consequences were likely to be really brutal. Life under a dictator is definitely something we would recommend, and we certainly wouldn't want to live that way.

But that is the big point, isn't it? Just how %%%%ed up has Bush made this situation to where it was undeniably better to be living under one of the most brutal dictators in all of history?

[madrchsod]

4. we gave them freedom from saddam

but we refused to take responsiblity for providing security the day we arrived in baghdad when we disbanded the police and what was left of the army. we did not provide jobs for the iraqi`s to rebuild their country the day we arived in baghdad. we let loose the very dogs of the iraqi society that the ordinary citizen in iraq feared the most. the citizens of iraq do not hate americans they hate our government and are outraged that we have not given them the security that they thought was our responsibilty.
the situation on the ground now is that every neighborhood in most cities are taking responsiblity for their own safety by putting up road blocks ,phone tags,and other measures against the black army and other death squads...it`s bad and getting worse. tomorrow jill will probaly die and her death will lead to more violence..today the funeral of atwar bahjat came under fire and car bombing...
the us forces are not seen anywhere in iraq right now,we have officially stopped all operations. when the americans come out of their bases i`m afraid that they will reap the whirlwind of the haterd of the iraqi people

[eridani]

11. They would have been just as free from Saddam--

--had he gone into exile, as his immediate neighbors were trying to arrange. Then the Sociopath in Chief announced that the invasion was on even if Saddam left.

[MindMatter]

13. Holy &^$%$%#^. I forgot all about that.

You are right. That one completely slipped into the memory hole. We need to get that back into view.

Imagine how that could have gone. Without the invasion, there would have been no organized insurgency. By buying into the exile plan, we still could have had a big influence by sending in peace keeping troops. In the end, we would have had far more influence than we do now.

The big problem with that scenario is the entrenched Baathists. But with Saddam gone, there would have been an opportunity to clean up some of this from teh inside.

[eridani]

23. Since the Baathists represent Sunnis--

--we would have to deal with them in any event. And don't forget, lots of Baathists thought that Saddam had ruined their party and reversed many of their education and infrastructural achievements. Peacekeeping troops would not have served the function of planting an permanent imperial military boot in the face of Iraqis, so that's why the neocons didn't want to do it that way.

[MindMatter]

25. I guess the $64,000 question is ...

If Saddam went into exile, would the Baathists accept a new order of things where power was shared in a more democratic way?

We have seen that many in the Baath party were not Saddam loyalists. They were party members because they had to be in order to carry on their occupation. No doubt there would have been hundreds of Saddam underlings who would fight like crazy to retain power. But dealing with that would surely be better than what we are doing now, which is basically sitting on the sidelines watching the civil war.

[niallmac]

5. Thanks for this post. This is the bottom line summary of our misadventure.

I have ruminated about each of your points randomly but have never heard or seen them all together as powerfully as this.
IMHO you have posted the only Iraq War talking points the Dems need to utter from now until election day.

[Mnemosyne]

6. Saddam kept the country from erupting into civil war.

* invasion has managed to bring about in 3 years what Saddam kept at bay for 27 years.

Heckuva job georgie.



APS - the real Saddam has a scar on his forehead. You know who you are!

[MindMatter]

9. You're doin' a heckuva job, Georgie

LOL.

If I though the average American had even a slight sense of irony, I'd say this should be the rallying cry for the 2006 and 2008 elections.

[Mnemosyne]

10. Great idea MindMatter! And

Welcome to the DU! :hi:

:toast: :smoke: for the idea!

In hope of peace,
V

[Tommy_J]

7. Kicking

[MindMatter]

12. One additional item for the list

I guess I should have included this one in the original list.

9) There may be a debate about whether or not we have a full-scale civil war underway, but there is no question about this: Bush took a stable situation where there was a secural government in place and has transformed it into a situation where the very best case is that eventually it will be a semi-stable Islamic fundamentalist regime, probably every bit as brutal as the Saddam regime, but driven by the same radical Islamic principles that drive Osama bin Laden.

Yer doin' a heckuva job, Georgie.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

14. kick

:kick:

[leesa]

15. Actually, fact #1 is disputed. The gas was Iranian gas. Both sides used

gas during the war but survivors said it smelled of almonds and the condition of the bodies pointed to cyanide which was Iranian. The US had sold Saddam a different kind of gas.

Also, the mass graves occurred when Bush I bailed out on the anti-Saddam forces who tried to overthrow Saddam after Gulf War I. We promised we would support them and we reneged on our promise and they got creamed.

[MindMatter]

16. Good point

It was the west that forced these artifical boundaires of the various states in the region. Kurds have no natural, cultural, or political affinity with the rest of the peoples insides the lines called Iraq. The Bush slogan "Saddam gassed his own people" is disingenuous at best. They were only "Saddam's own people" because that is the way the west decided it would be.

Another thing here, the neocons like to talk about pre-occupation Iraq as if Saddam personally attended to every detail. We are quick to say that he personally gassed the Kurds, but we don't give any credit to Saddam for the schools and hospitals that were built while he was in power, and the fact that his regime was able to keep power and water running most of the time. In some respects, Saddam's Iraq was one of the most progressive, western-like countries in the Middle East. It was certainly more progressive than the fundamentalist era that is in store for Bush's Iraq.

[Boojatta]

17. Re strict law and order

2) Saddam maintained strict law and order, and used extreme force to do so.

Under Saddam, if you were grocery shopping and you got caught eating a grape in the fruit section of the grocery store, how many years would you spend in prison?

3) We can now see that is probably the only way that law and order can be maintained in this place.

If the government of Iraq tried to reduce the penalty for stealing one grape to a week in prison, then would there be riots throughout Iraq?

[MindMatter]

18. I doubt your premise

But even if that hypothetical were true, what is the point?

Are you saying Iraqis are better off today where there is random violence throughout the country?

At least in Saddam's regime, the violence was not random. If you stayed in line, you could carry on a normal life without any concerns about your safety.

I'm not saying it is a great deal living under a dictator. But clearly that was a much better life for most Iraqis than the world of shit Bush has created for them.

[Boojatta]

20. My questions were somewhat in jest, but there was a serious point to them.

You wrote:

2) Saddam maintained strict law and order, and used extreme force to do so.

Could you identify some laws that were being enforced using extreme force under Saddam, but that are no longer being enforced with sufficient force?

Could you identify some laws have been changed since Saddam and that you think should be changed back?

3) We can now see that is probably the only way that law and order can be maintained in this place.

Does the existence of a strong judicial branch of government tend to promote or impede the maintainance of law and order?

Do you think that Iraq needs an executive branch whose power is not balanced by the power of a strong judicial branch?

[MindMatter]

22. I think

We have made a complete mess of things and that all these theoretical questions of yours cannot change that stark fact.

Yes, of course, we believe that democracy is a good thing, especially when elections aren't hijacked by the most powerful interests in the society. And of course we think that a balance of power is good as an abstract concept. But considering what we have done to our own "democracy" we have no business exporting our "democracy" to Iraq.

As far as Saddam's rule, I don't think the issue was laws. Dictators don't need laws. But by most accounts he did some good things for the people of Iraq. His brutality only came into play when people challenged his rule.

I'm not saying that was a great situation, but it was far better for the average Iraqi than what the Bush doctrine has given them.

Just imagine how bleak the place would be if we hadn't dumped $400,000,000,000 of US taxpayer money into that country. Considering that America is in no mood to keep spending big in Iraq when we can't even take care of New Orleans, the plight of ordinary Iraqis is going to get worse before it gets any better.

[Boojatta]

27. This is a bit confusing.

As far as Saddam's rule, I don't think the issue was laws. Dictators don't need laws.

You raised the issue of laws when you wrote this:

2) Saddam maintained strict law and order, and used extreme force to do so.

[MindMatter]

28. Oh, come now

You know what I meant by "Law and order". I meant he maintained control. The use of that term has nothing to do with "laws" in the legislative sense. It is like "martial law". There is no law behind "martial law". Saddam was the law.

[dasmarian]

19. A history lesson, and what is to come

Many people who don't look into the history of things don't realize that Iraq has only been one nation for less tht 100 years. After the failed British occupation of this territory, the three separate ethnic/religious zones were combined falsely by the British into one. These three groups (Kurds, Shias, Sunnis) have never liked one another.

The poster is correct in stating that Saddam and other dictators of this territory had to be brutal to keep it together. The fear of reprisal is all that kept this civil war at bay. There had to be a show of force from time to time. Now, the US can't manage to handle even the "insurgents." So how in the name of God do you manage everyone? Can't be done, and the people that want civil war realize this. There is no way *Co or any nation can stop this without a complete and overwhelming military occupation, which will not happen unless the UN does it, but it is likely almost too late for that now. They needed to be there a year ago.

This is what will happen -- the occupation will fail and we will withdrawl. Eventually, likely after many horrible years of civil war, the warring groups will squabble out bloody boundaries and return the country once again to three separate lands divided by ethnicity/religion, probably based loosely on the pre-Iraq boundaries. Only the people will be destitute, their culture will be in shambles, and the land of Iraq will resemble one huge Palestine. Talk about terrorist breeding ground -- we haven't seen anything yet.

[president4aday]

21. Bush is making Saddam look pretty good. Did'nt it think is was possible.

[Disturbed]

24. The Bush Regime has succeeded in many ways.

"The terrorists want to control the oil. Our way of life will be at risk". George W. Bush (Nov. 2005)



Bush Regime Iraq Successes (Phase 1)

1. Saddam will no longer sell Iraqi oil via the Euro.

2, A military foothold in the ME. Other than Saudi Arabia.

3, No countries will be able to buy Iraqi oil that the U.S. disapproves of.

4. The Multi-Intl. Oil Corps are reaping great profits.

5.The Military Industrial Complex is a booming Industry.

US Forces and Mercs will remain in Iraq for years even if a Dem Admin. is elected in '08. The oil will not be abandonded.

[MindMatter]

26. The big picture

You make a good case.

This is surely only 5% of what the neocons really believed they would accomplish. But it is the "most important 5%" if you will.

As Iraq descends into civil war, is it possible for the US to cling to those points you listed?

#4 will keep happening for sure. This is a "heads, I win. Tails, you lose." thing. If we get booted out of Iraq, that will only send the price per bbl higher and that will only lead to greater oil co profits.

#5 Only a fool would bet against the Military-Industrial-MEDIA-Complex.

But I wonder about #1, #2, and #3.