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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (94745)	1/25/2005 6:52:12 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

We put Saddam in power? Can you please provide some evidence of how WE did that. Now it is WE who demonize Saddam? Demonize: To represent as evil or diabolic: wartime propaganda that demonizes the enemy. I suggest that it is YOU who are demonizing America's righteous conduct in unseating this despotic and brutal tyrannist. A little history lesson for you, Saddam's rise to power... On July 16, 1979, President Bakr resigned, officially due to health problems, but in reality a victim of Hussein's political in-fighting. Moving quickly to consolidate his power, he called a major Baathist meeting on July 22, 1979. During the meeting, various family members and other Hussein devotees urged that the party be "cleansed". Hussein then read a list of names and asked that they step outside. Once there, they are taken into custody. A high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Command, the head of the labor unions, the leading Shiite member of the Command, and twenty (20) others are then systematically and personally killed by Hussein and his top party officials. During the next few days, reports indicate that as many as 450 other military officers, deputy prime ministers, and "non-party faithful" were rounded up and killed. This purge insured Hussein's consolidation of power in Iraq. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran and conducted an eight year war against one of his nearest neighbors and the home of Shiite fundamentalist Muslims. Again, because it appeared that the Shiites could be a threat to his continued dictatorship, the Kurds (Iraqi minority) were sprayed with poison gas for participating with the Iranians in an attempted overthrow of his country. The war continued for eight years of brutality and even repression of Hussein's own countrymen (especially the Kurds). In 1988, after millions being killed, Iraq and Iran conduct a cease-fire and ended the bloodshed. By 1984, as many as 1.5 million Iraqis were supporters of Hussein and the Baathists. He continued to enlarge his security apparatus and army. In insidious ways, the party apparatus formed numerous government agencies to control and manipulate the citizens of Iraq. A statistical analysis of the population indicated that as many as fifty per cent of the Iraqis or a member of their family were employed by the government or military. The party and the people have become one. Hussein's domination of the country is complete. emergency.com

To: Grainne who wrote (94745)	1/25/2005 7:02:59 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

let me guess ... you think it was his benevolent generosity ... the tortures, beheadings, mass genocides, etc. You know that he used to torture children in front of their parents to get command over the parent's loyalty, right? sheeesh woman

To: Grainne who wrote (94745)	1/25/2005 11:43:45 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

How do you squeeze baseless assertions, factual errors and misconceptions into one little post? Hussein always was a dictator, but we put him in power, in I believe 1964. Wrong. Saddam was a law student in Cairo 1962-1963 and returned to Iraq that year after the Baath Party came to power. That gov't fell in Nov. 1963. Saddam was jailed in Iraq in 1964 for participation in a Baathist coup attempt and escaped in 1966. A relative of his, Gen. Ahmad Hassan al Bakr, siezed power in 1968 and Saddam was appointed to the ruling Revolutionary Command Council in 1969. He became Vice President in 1972 and President in 1979, after "encouraging" Bakr to resign "for health reasons." He then proceeded to slaughter his opponents in the Baath Party, accusing them of plotting a coup, to consolidate his power. Sorry to contradict, but he's a wholly home-grown despot. "Him governing Iraq served our national security interests for quite a long time, until he invaded Kuwait in fact." He invaded Iran in 1980, not awfully long after we finally got our embassy workers back, but the US didn't take sides until Iran was on the verge of taking Basra in 1982 and potentially destabilizing friendly states in the region like Kuwait, Saudi and others. At that point, we took sides. Enemy of our enemy stuff. His was a purely secular government in any case and clearly opposed the kind of theocratic state Iran had become and we were worried about at the time. We had valid reasons for working with him at the time, but that is irrelevant now. Situations change. "As I understand it we were fully aware of his little not-nice traits like gassing the Kurds (I read somewhere that we supplied the chemicals for that). Certainly we helped in any way we could..." "Fully aware" meaning implicit approval? That's what your statement implies. I think you'd better find some evidence to back up a nasty accusation like that. What I've read indicates that the US gov't found out about the Iraqi attacks on the Kurds, who were allied with Iran, after they happened toward the end of the war in 1988. Congress considered sanctions, but they went nowhere. Saddam was still viewed as the lessor evil in the region at the time, but again, situations change.