If Saddam was really as bad as they want us to believe...

[NNN0LHI]

...why didn't we get any Iraqis dancing in the streets or flowers thrown on our soldiers? And why are the Iraqis still killing our soldiers if they were so happy about us liberating them from such a bad man? Are they ungrateful? Or were the Saddam stories like the WMD stories? Another slam dunk for the Fox news watchers to swallow hook line and sinker?

Don

[xchrom]

1. after shock and awe -- you'ld be terrified too that

we were going to permanently liberate you.

[seaglass]

2. Saddam was bad but we are untrustworthy. They have had

a long history of imperial powers involved in their affairs and they don't like it. That would be my guess.

[leftchick]

3. you are being unpatriotic comrade

seriously I think bush is worse than saddam ever hoped to be. bush has killed tortured and maimed many many more than saddam.

[cali]

10. Apples and oranges n/t

[leftchick]

19. killers and killers

one through an open dictatorship, the other through a thinly disguised dictatorship.

[Vincardog]

4. When they had Saddam they did not have car bombs and air raids.

They did have electricity and water.Now they do not have either.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Right! Saddam was bad, but we are turning out to be worse.

[cynatnite]

5. Saddam was bad and some did actually like us for a few minutes...

but nothing lasts forever.

Iraq is under military occupation. They want the US out. Pretty simple concept, IMO.

[SlipperySlope]

7. Flowers?

[BlackHeart]

8. I would guess

it was because they weren't sure that we would leave them hanging like Gulf War I.

[cali]

9. er,

Saddam really was a nasty little dictator. I was horrified by Saddam's actions before we parted company with him. He led Iraq into a disasterous war with Iran in the eighties, with hundreds of thousands dead. The treatment of the Kurds was terrible. Peter Galbraith is a great source for more info on Saddam's oppression of the Kurds. He also oppressed the Shiites. There really isn't a lot of good that can be said in his favor.

Your question is naive. Being bombed and invaded by people you have no reason to trust- don't forget how instrumental the US was re sanctions- is hardly reason to dance in the streets and throw flowers, even if a brutal dictator was overthrown.

[NNN0LHI]

14. My question may very well be naive

But that does not ease my concern that the "Saddam was a bad man" stories may have come from the same sources that brought us the Winnebagos of Death.

Don

[cali]

21. I understand your misgivings about

the source, and I resent hearing it from these creeps too. Particularly as many of these people supported Saddam while he was oppressing and torturing Iraqis. Nevertheless, there is ample documentation of his misdeeds, from far more impartial sources. I mention Galbraith, but there's also tthe U.N., Amnesty International, historians, and many other sources.

[countryjake]

23. Don't forget those Kuwaiti "incubator babies"!

Another lie that took us into another fire storm.

[Terran1212]

11. Saddam and US both genocidal and murderous; At least Saddam was Iraqi

Both are bad and murderous, but at least Saddam had some sense of being Iraqi, not a foreign army coming for oil resources.

[cali]

13. I'm sorry, but this is just

too simplistic. First of all, at this point, most of the Iraqi deaths are the result of insurgent activity. Second, most Iraqis, according to polling, don't want Saddam back. Of course, we never should have invaded, and in a very real sense, the U.S. is responsible for all the deaths in Iraq, even if our forces aren't the ones setting off the bombs. The statement that Saddam had some sense of being Iraqi is meaningless- at least it was to the Kurds. Let's face it, the Iraqis don't want Saddam and they don't want the U.S.

[Terran1212]

17. Maybe you misunderstood

I agree with your central point but the Iraqis still felt a different kind of humiliation being brutalized by an Iraqi than being brutalized by a foreign army.

[cali]

18. Ah, forgive me,

I did misunderstand.

[sutz12]

12. To be honest, a lot of them did greet us, for a while.

We probably lost a lot of support when we did nothing to stop the looting and rioting right after the 'liberation.'

Plus, we pretty much propped Saddam up through the 80's, including selling him most of the WMD's he used against his own people (and in the war). Without our support, he probably would have lost to Iran in that one. They have every right not to trust either our motives or our commitments.

[EFerrari]

16. Torturing innocent people didn't win us friends either.

Abu Graib is about 20K from Fallujah.

They waited a whole year before they faught back.

More patient than I would be, in that situation.

[EFerrari]

15. If Saddam was bad, isn't that just a big black eye on us

for PUTTING HIM IN IN THE FIRST PLACE AND THEN SUPPORTING HIM?

Naw -- it's so much better PR when we pretend we've never met the guy.

:eyes:

[El Fuego]

20. Because bush & co only knows Hollywood warfare

Because none of them has actually served in the military.

In bush's world there's only the white hats and the evildoers, and when Dorothy's house lands on Sadam's palace all the munchkins will dance and sing.

[Ksec]

22. My 17 yr old son said something similar to that

He said his buddies at school were talking about it and lots of them believed that to be true.

I dont know but now that we see what "freedom" has brought it would be hard to dispute . Theres no doubt he was a real tyrant, but then look what we elected.