I, personally, think it's funny as hell that Saddam is pretty much saying 'F*ck off' to this whole b

[insidersav.livejournal.com]

Anyway, Saddam is a bastard and thats funny.

Comments

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, self-loathing Americans often throw this statement around, but rarely have the slightest bit of evidence to back it up.

Where's yours?

[biflspud.livejournal.com]

"Self loathing Americans"? Right-wing zealots often throw this statement around, but rarely do they actually know that people actually hate themselves.

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Of course they're self-loathing. They're Americans and they hate America.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aburish.html is a good start. And http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html (with sources and quotes)

In '59, when he was 22, Saddam tried to assassinate the Iraqi leader. In '63 a "CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power... Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and [became] head of Iraq's secret service." (second URL above)

OK, the CIA didn't explicitly anoint him the new ruler, but according to those sources they did put the small party (850 members) into power, of which he was a high ranking member.

[psych0squirrel.livejournal.com]

People also change, he probably hid some of his intentions from them. How can you judge someone's actions in 1959 with their despot reign in the 1990's? It takes a while for people to wise up to these types of things.

It is pretty obvious that the CIA used bad judgement, perhaps they should reconsider the policy of aiding military coup's to overthrow reigns they don't like.

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Ummm...well, the CIA followed orders from the Executive Branch. And Congress pretty put and end to that kind of stuff in the 1970s...

[psych0squirrel.livejournal.com]

OK. I don't know all the details, but you are refering to the presidential loophole right? (As in it's not an act of war unless congress approves, but otherwise it's the presidents choice?)

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

doesn't america have a long history of backing pro-soviet stalin-admiring dictators ??

but actually the early iraqi ba'ath party was anti-communist, so it makes sense that the cia would provided assistance in fighting the pro-commie, oil-field nationalizing government headed by qassim ..

in retrospect that probably was a mistake ..

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Eh. I'd say that there was probably some inevitability in having some asshole or another taking over Iraq.

[stupiddumbpanda.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much inevitable that some asshole is in charge of every country on the face of the earth. You don't get to the top by being a pushover.

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but in Iraq, everyone who doesn't win dies.

[stupiddumbpanda.livejournal.com]

Well, now that's just silly. Everyone who disagrees dies. Saddam couldn't very well go killing everyone, because then he wouldn't be in control of anyone. And something tells me he wouldn't like that very much.

Saddam was just doing what he had to do to stay on top. Much like America is doing what it has to do to stay on top. It's just politics as usual.

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Let me clarify...

Everyone who doesn't win a bid for leadership dies.

[psych0squirrel.livejournal.com]

There is quite a difference actaully, we have controversy. Just think how much of a fuss we would make if the president decided to take a gun and shoot people who supported Democrats. We have more expectations of justice then people had come to expect in Iraq, controversy is a way that people protect themselves, when things are not shocking that says something about the environment people live in.

In that the Iraqis are upset, they are showing long term health- if they did not care at all we wouldn't hear about it. They are now getting annoyed enough to go vote! Good! Hopefully we can draw down the public presence sooner rather then later. It will take awhile before they can completely protect themselves, but we definately need to give them a bigger role because we're really pissing everyone off at this time. Creating infastructure is really quite complicated and then you need to convince everyone to use it! This is going a lot better then it would in somewhere they did not have a desire for self-rule. It's unfortunate that there are so many fanatics interfering and confusing the issue. There seem to be a lot of people who are willing to try the political process- all we ever here are snatches, we hear about the violence but not enough about any other type of changes.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

well true, muslim-majority countries and ruthless asshole leaders go hand in hand ..

[psych0squirrel.livejournal.com]

It probably has more to do with dictatorships there is nothing inherently wrong with the religeoun although sometimes perhaps the culture, muslim-americans join the girl scouts instead of practicing suicide terrorism. There is quite a lot of muslims who would prefer to live in a Democracy, they just aren't the ones in power. Don't confuse a lack of education for inherent evil, they have different social classes and educational groupings as well.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

there is nothing inherently wrong with the religeoun although sometimes perhaps the culture

how do you explain the universal lack of rational governments in four dozen muslim countries across differing cultures ??

[psych0squirrel.livejournal.com]

Well. First of all. I am assuming you mean the Middle East, North Africa, Asia a bit, and perhaps some muslim majority countries- in Eastern Europe?

These are not regions of the world with good governments. When I judge muslims I base my experiances on normal people, not just the people who are stuck uneducated in dictatorships. They might be a reliegeon with a bit of culture change happening, but its harder for individuals to make a difference over established elites, and harder still for us to hear about it this far away. All such things take time. For that matter. I could say the same thing about our religeous right (except luckily they don't have as much power yet as they'd like) or even the extreme left, you know the people who thinks Bush made a pact with Hitler's ghost or something. It's really not all that hard to find stupid people, the jihadist don't actually have to strap a bomb to themselves, all they need to do is find one idiot- or someone whose desparate and promise to feed his family after he dies. It's a nasty cycle.