Ted,
Re: Saddam casualties
In my 100s of thousands or millions I went by low end of the estimates and the high end of the estimates. If you take the low end of the estimates, you arrive at 100s of thousands, if you take the high end of the estimates, you arrive at the other. I don't know which one is correct, that's why I said OR. But both estimates indicate that Saddam is a dangerous man.
Is Saddam an asshole? Yes but no worse than his neighbors.
But the point is not that if you can prove that someone else is worse (some African dictators come to mind) that it is wrong to go after Saddam ahead of other bad guys.
I think the strategy is to take the avowed enemies of the US, rank them by the danger level / urgency, and deal with them in that order (if the threat they pose is real).
Which is really the logic of the "axis of evil", which I kind of didn't think about, until it hit me just now.
Saddam, Kim Jong-Il, the ayatollahs of Iran are bad guys, perhaps not the worst dictators in this world, but these 3 have capabilities, possibly intentions to threaten the US.
Joe |
