it's time to say "we'd be better off with Saddam in power" Why?

[maggrwaggr]

I posted this as a response to another thread but I think it deserves its own thread.

I think it's time to say "yes". We should have left Saddam in power.

Why?

a. Our military wouldn't be completely tied down in a foreign country that doesn't want us. Right now our military is helpless. Our national guard is AWOL in Iraq. We are completely vulnerable to attack right now and incapable of fighting another war.

b. Powell and Rice admitted before 9/11 that Iraq was no threat because sanctions were actually working.

c. Containment works. I.E. the Soviet Union. By the argument they used to attack Iraq, we should have attacked the Soviet Union during the cold war.

d. 300+ American soldiers would be alive today

e. 1000+ American soldiers would still have their arms/legs/eyes/skin

f. Thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children and old men would be alive instead of bombed to pieces.

g. Our federal budget deficit would be probably $200 billion smaller.

h. Saddam is still alive.

I could go on, but my fingers are getting tired. I'll let others add to the list. Keep the reasons rational and let's see how many we get.

[dreissig]

1. Bush Couldn't Stand It

It's a personal thing with Bush, the way Noriega was to his father. He regarded it as a challenge to punish heads of state who sass him. Bush wanted the aircraft carrier landing, and he wouldn't have gotten it by leaving Saddam in power.

[JackRiddler]

11. sorry,

I don't buy that for a minute. It may be what Bush thinks happened, but how naive would he have to be to actually think he makes the decisions. If it weren't his cabinet pushing him to it, it would have never happened. PNAC preceded the Bush Selection. And the ancient Kissinger plan to grab the oil, dating back to the 1970s crisis, certainly preceded PNAC. And the reality that the oil will run out one day soon (historically speaking) supercedes all other facts. The U.S. Empire is in crisis, the dollar is air, the oil is running out, and there are those who think the world has too many brown people. That is why this war was fought, and was in the cards for many years before Bush arrived. (Only a Democrat would have lacked the support to go ahead with it. One thing it required was a Republican administration.)

[knowledgeispower]

16. Agreed

The whole notion that we went to war because Bush hates Saddam is nothing more than a red herring designed to direct attention away from the true reasons for going to war. Class disinformation, as it were. Here are the REAL reasons for war, and in the order of importance (IMO):

1. Geo-political control (oil resources, presence in vital region, etc.)

2. Political reasons (tie the hands of the next administration, undermine UN)

3. War profiteering

Did I miss any?

[Stuckinthebush]

2. While it may not be socially acceptable to mention it...

I do think that the US would be in a better position today if this invasion had never happened.

There is a valid argument that insists that the only morally responsible thing to do for the Iraqis was to remove Saddam, but that argument can be easily addressed.

Be careful, there are those (not here on DU, but in the wider world) who will call you a Saddam lover, and a traitor for stating this simple logical premise.

[maggrwaggr]

5. that's why now's the time. It's time to make this socially acceptable

and it's vital that it's a 100% rational argument.

Saddam was obviously a horrible thug. But we are worse off, rather than better off, for invading his country.

That's the bottom line.

[KC21304]

12. I say it didn't have to be either or.

We could have put enough pressure on him through the UN or by supporting ( really supporting ) an uprising against him and we could have achieved better results. Maybe not as soon, what was the hurry ? Well, I guess we all know the answer to that question.

When these yahoos say, as Bob Walker did to Carville on Crossfire the other day, " Oh I guess you are one of those who wish Saddam was still there ", I wish someone would point out that there are many leaders of countries that would be better off without them, but are we really ready to spend 150 billion, lose over 300 AMericans, approximately 1500 wounded, and blow up thousands of innocent people in all these countries ?

I think we have to get our act together and start ridiculing these nuts when they say that.

This is off the topic, but I can't believe the nuts are getting away with the Bush bashing whine. When someone starts with that, I would remind them that they have been saying all along that Bush was " so popular, so likeable" what happened ? Poor babies.

[knowledgeispower]

18. I disagree

We could have put enough pressure on him through the UN or by supporting ( really supporting ) an uprising against him and we could have achieved better results. Maybe not as soon, what was the hurry ?

That is what the U.S. has been trying to do for the past decade, and while it did contain Saddam, we were nowhere near gettting the Iraqi people to do the dirty work for us.

See that is the problem for the left. We don't have an alternative. We should have left Saddam in power, some say. But what about the sanctions against Iraq? They were necessary to stop Saddam from causing further destruction, but they were also responsible for over one million civilian deaths. That could not have gone on forever.

At some point, Saddam had to be removed. I don't think we did it the right way, or even had the intention of doing it the right way, but I have yet to see anybody offer a way it could have been avoided entirely.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. They called me that long before we invaded.

And I don't give a rat's ass what they call me now.

Saddam may have been a particularly nasty piece of work, but he was far from the worst, and if getting him out of power had any justification, it should have been an international effort with some legal justification.

But, that was never the original cause for the invasion-- it just became a convenient excuse when everyone realized they were no threat to us or anyone else.

We're looking at being a half-trillion, or more, in the hole over these wars, every other country not laughing at us hates us, the country is becoming bitterly divided, we have not only not defused any terrorist threats but increased the possibilities, and all of our domestic problems are being ignored. And, after all this, where the hell is Osama bin Forgotten?

Absolutely no good has come of this so far, and none is likely to.

[July]

22. gulliver said it best:

"a $500 ice cream cone"

Read that here at DU, posted by gulliver, who was talking about this very issue. Tastes good . . . but was it worth the cost?

[Pillowbiter]

3. See my sig line

heh

[davhill]

4. continued

i. all dictatorships ultimately fail

j. The Kurds already had a de facto Kurdistan, now they have to fight off the Turks

k. Many more countries would be helping us find terrorists

l. We could have really done something in Afganistan

m. Al Qaida would not be on the resurgence.

[maggrwaggr]

7. excellent. I've realized the question is: "is America better off ....

"Is America better off for attacking Iraq?"

Here are the reasons why America is NOT better off.

[gulliver]

13. That's good!

That gets the point across well.

[sangh0]

6. Here's more

1) Under Saddam, the Iraqi nuclear facility at Tiawuatha (sp) was under gaurd and secure 24/7. Since the invasion, the facility has been left ungaurded, and natives have emptied barrels of uranium, dumping the contents on the floor. Terrorist can just go in there and load up on uranium for a dirty bomb (if they haven't already)

2) Under Saddam, munitions were kept under lock and key. Since the invasion, hundrends of munitions dumps are now ungaurded with the result that thousands of portable shoulder-mounted ground-to-air missiles are missing.

[maggrwaggr]

8. All the more reasons why "invading Iraq has damaged America"

This gets it away from "right" or "wrong" but shows the world that it was part of the current administration's incompetence and bad judgment.

[gulliver]

9. Depends on how you say it, I think.

It's a difficult line to pull off. The truth in that message can easily be outweighed by the emotion in it. So you have to find the right way to communicate it.

Let's try Rumsfeldian style, for example:

"Would we be better off with Saddam in power? I'm really starting to wonder whether Iraq or Saddam were much of a threat in the first place, actually. Yeah, OK, he's a very, very bad man. I've got that. But maybe we could have kept him bottled up and felt like wiser 'security shoppers.' I mean it looks like Bush has totally blown America's security budget on ... well ... not much of a threat."

[kentuck]

10. Remember Poppy Bush's argument ??

It would create a vacuum of power in the region. Saddam was a stabilizing influence, even though he was a snake in the grass. But I guess things changed since Poppy said that??

[bryant69]

14. The other issue

First of all what does this get us? Why do we need to say this? Why is it beneficial to us to make the case that we would better off had we not invaded?

Second, how do you answer those who say, well, there are also the Iraqi people to consider.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[maggrwaggr]

26. we need to be on the offensive rather than the defensive

about this.

That's what it gets us. It puts them on the defensive.

[sirshack]

15. I think you have to consider...

...what stances you compromise by saying this.

[youngred]

19. While it may have been bad for us

I am still happy to see Saddam gone, even if the rest of the war was bunk.

[July]

20. Depends on what you mean by "gone"

"Gone" for Bush means "forgotten," like OBL, the anthrax killer, the person(s) who outed Plame, etc.

[youngred]

23. I wouldn't disagree in terms of Bush

but he is out of power and very unlikely to return for which i am happy.

[Sideways]

27. You have a personal interest in Iraq? You have family there?

Why are you happy? Do you care about the 100s of other despotic dictators around the world and could you name them?

Your happiness makes the Right Wing smile.

Unfuckingreal.

Comin at you from the ME and I think you might need a history lesson or two.

[uh-oh Independent]

21. Perspective of a peace activist told "we don't want peace"

(Upon arriving in Iraq)"The first order of business was to attend Church. It was here where my morals were raked over the coals and I was first forced to examine them in the harsh light of reality.

Following a beautiful `Peace` to welcome the Peace Activists in which even the children participated we moved to the next room to have a simple meal.

Sitting next to me was an older man who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently feeling the freedom to talk in the midst of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned to me and said `There is something you should know.` `What` I asked surprised at the sudden comment.

`We didn’t want to be here tonight`. he continued. `When the Priest asked us to gather for a Peace Service we said we didn’t want to come`. He said.

`What do you mean` I inquired, confused. `We didn’t want to come because we don’t want peace` he replied.

`What in the world do you mean?` I asked. `How could you not want peace?` `We don’t want peace. We want the war to come` he continued.

What in the world are you talking about? I blurted back."


read the rest at (I know its a "conservative" source):
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Joseph20031012.shtml

I'm not claiming that this represented the thoughts of every Iraqi at the time, but its an amazing story, nonetheless, and it represents the conflicting emotions felt by some Iraqis themselves...

[sangh0]

24. Only a fool believes everything they read

and TownHall has a documented history of lying. They also ran a similar piece by a priest from a nearby church saying that the Iraqi people wanted the US to invade. When reporters called his church to interview him, the people there told them that there had never been a priest by that name from that church.

IOW, they lied. Now, they lie again, and you believe them.

[NNN0LHI]

25. I said basically the same thing about 5 months ago

Saddam was brutal but I would rather have him being brutal than Americans being brutal. Its one thing for a Muslim to kill Muslims in Iraq. For Americans to be killing Muslims in Iraq is bad business for everyone involved. Bush has really fornicated the canine with his big move in Iraq. Our great grandchildren will be paying for this mistake decades from now. The "Weekend At Bernies" fiasco with Husseins sons put me over the edge. Think about how that will play in the Muslim world over time.

Don