Calm2Chaos said:
Can't we have a section just called "STUPID" that you can ship this to... Not to metion the starter didn't even present a side to his thoughts, just a thread
I believe the point of this thread is to debate whether or not Saddam was a good person. If he was a good person then that would warrant that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but if he was a bad person then it would be another reason to invade.
Sadly I posted this reply on a different thread, but it would be suffice to post it here, because I think it applies in the same way.
You know it’s hard to defend a mass murder, like Saddam. So, arguing against this is kind of like saying I like genocide, or I believe in racism! However, my point is not that I support genocide, or whatever Saddam did or didn't do. The point is that if Saddam deserves the death sentence then many world leaders also deserve the death sentence. The book, Hegemony or Survival America's Quest for Global Dominance, points out that Turkey also did a mass genocide against Kurds, however the death toll is more like 3,000 which isn't that bad compared to Saddam.
I don't want to blame the victim when I say that the Kurds should have saw it coming. I mean Kurdistan controls a large portion of Iraq's oil, which means that the Kurds were in a strategic geopolitical area. The Kurds received funds from Iran for guerilla warfare,
according to the book, Essential Histories: The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988. When you think about it the Kurds were against Saddam and caused terrorist acts. What is America’s policy on terrorist? Oh yeah you go to a little torture camp in Guantanamo Bay. Wait, did I just say torture camps? Saddam had torture camps…America has torture camps… Anyway, if you don’t believe my internet blog, then you should read the book Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar. So, your right when you say, “Bush did not run mass-torture chambers inside police stations.” Bush didn’t run torture chambers inside police stations, but at Guantanamo. Now getting back to the genocide against the Kurds, it’s not right in the way Saddam committed the act. Chemical warfare against innocent citizens is completely wrong, and Saddam shouldn’t have done it. But, when you have a hostile terrorist ethnic group that control a significant supply of oil I can understand the actions, I don’t agree with the genocide. How else do you deal with terrorist in your own country???
The more pressing question is how did Iraq get the chemical weapons to use against the Kurds? I’ll tell you if you didn’t know America supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and America gave them chemical and biological weapons to use against the Kurds. Americans say that Iraq has no democracy and how it’s a travesty, but I ask the question to who put him in power? American CIA supported and put Saddam Hussein in power, but until he decided to go against US interest by cutting off oil rights and trying to diversify his country Iraq was considered an ally. Saddam’s purpose and his mandate of being in power for US was to destroy the Iraqi Democratic Revolution, which he did. Saddam Hussein destroyed other political parties and rivals to maintain power. He destroyed the Iraqi communist party, he destroyed the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic party, the reformist party, he destroyed the left wing of his own Ba’ath party, and he did it equip with, trained, advised, and paid for by the US government. I hate to point out that genocides are common and rarely acted upon in the international community. Take Turkey for example with the mass killing of the Kurds, and look at how in the early 1990’s how Boris Yeltsin killed 3,000 political hard line communist that supported the Supreme Court. Never mind the inhumanity at Kazakhstan considered by the U.N. and Washington Post, the single worst country dealing with human rights. Forget Sudan and their countless genocide you hear about daily. For the past 50 years Sudan has been in a skirmish. I say skirmish, because I did a research paper on Sudan and I said Sudan’s war that has claim a million lives, in class, and someone else just happened also to do some research on Sudan. They corrected me by saying Sudan isn’t in a constant state of war, but they have 50 guys fight in the bushes against another 50 guys. In a way he is right Sudan’s genocides have claimed rough estimates by the U.N. around a million lives in the past 50 years, so yes genocides are common and rarely acted on. In fact in Sudan International aid/support was pulled by Russia, US, and a few other countries because they don’t support what’s going on Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced from their homes and will die/ have died, but yet the international aid that wasn’t even able to support the displaced people to begin with is now cut. So, yes genocide sucks, but I wanted to point out that genocide happens a lot and they don’t always warrant an invasion. Or do genocides warrant invasion? I think they do, but that would be taking on the world, because countless countries have caused genocide, we couldn’t possible go to war with all the countries that have caused genocides. America has even caused genocide. Genocide is defined as follows: Genocide is a term defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." America killed millions of Native Americans with intent to destroy them. Everyone remembers the blankets that were disease ridden. According to the Sociology book by, James M. Henslin used in college courses claims that 10 million Native Americans in North America existed prior to colonies. To quote from the book “…about 95 percent of Native Americans died” so, to put it gently it would be better to try to prevent genocides from happening instead of invading countries. This could be done through the U.N., yeah we sometimes forget about the U.N. mainly because they never do anything...
Saddam is not a nice man, but in context of the Middle East he’s not that bad. He was a tyrant, but he was Iraq’s tyrant. The tiny country of Iraq, if you want to free the people of “oppression” helps Kazakhstan, or Sudan. I look around Iraq and I don’t see any countries that are much better. Kuwait, a tiny country that is ruled by a select group of families by no means is it better than Iraq. The book, SADDAM HUSSEIN : A Political Biography, talks about the Kuwait invasion by Iraq, and it was comical. A press official asked Saddam why he invaded Iraq, and Saddam’s response was something like Western media doesn’t care why I invaded Kuwait they just want to make me look bad. Saddam goes on to talk about how Kuwait was stealing Iraq’s oil, political blackmailing, supported and funded terrorist acts against the state of Iraq, and refused Iraq the right to flyover or transport any goods over Kuwait.
Lets get back to Saddam deserving the death sentence now. Do Saddam’s deeds give premise for a hanging? Take a look at what he has done for his country first. Saddam gave free education to all social classes and to women. Saddam made a free universe health care system, subsidies for farmers, and promoted numerous other industries. Saddam brought electricity to nearly every city and outer laying areas, he modernized his country. For the Middle East this is unprecedented. Saddam gave some rights to women, he even won an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Saddam was inherently good for his country. I’ll let you decide whether he should be hanged or not. I’m not trying to say that Saddam’s actions were all good, or defend this dictator, but it would look that he has done some good things and some of his choices that look bad are really not that bad. So Saddam: torture camps, genocide, and oppression, … America torture camps, genocide, but no oppression we supported oppression in Iraq though.
P.S. I know this probably doesn’t change your mind, but at least think about. I also find Saddam’s hanging to be funny, because it sounds so old school. Who hangs people anymore? Anyway sorry that it was so long, I sincerely thank you if you read it completely.
