Saddam Hussein - Let's be honest, would Iraq have been better off if he had stayed?

[quinnox]

I recently had an argument with my friend about Saddam. I claimed that some regions and cultures may need a brutal strong man like a Saddam to keep things together and stable, as he ruled with an iron fist. And when that Alpha Male dominant figure disappears, then chaos results, along with unfettered and lasting violence. My friend made it out like I was defending Saddam or loving a tyrant or something. I said no, that I was just pointing out harsh truths. Do you think, as I do, that Iraq would have be a more stable and peaceful region today if Saddam had remained in power? Remember, suicide bombers and terror attacks are the norm today in Iraq, and have been ever since Saddam was removed, to one degree or another.

8 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, Iraq would have been a more peaceful and stable country if Saddam had stayed in power
	8 (100%)
	No, Iraq would have been a violent and chaos filled country like today even if Saddam had remained
	0 (0%)
	Get the hell out of here you un-American bastard. How dare you ask this!
	0 (0%)
	I don't know/ or find it too uncomfortable to answer
	0 (0%)
	Something else (explain)
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[MrSlayer]

1. Of course.

It's ridiculous to say otherwise. Utterly ridiculous.

[reformist2]

2. 200,000 dead souls who can't vote on this question probably think so.

[dkf]

3. If he still ruled with an iron fist less general violence more oppression.

Less overall Iraqi deaths.

Unless they did a Syria. Then who knows.

[Downtown Hound]

5. There was way less violence in Iraq during the final years of his rule than there is now

So I'd have to say yes, they were better off before than now.

[Demo_Chris]

6. Apparently a good number of people do not understand how evil this fucker was. nt

[truebluegreen]

7. It would also be religiously tolerant,

and a counterbalance to Iran.

And "how evil this fucker was" was all well and fine when we needed him, wasn't it? He might have been a son of a bitch, but he was our son of a bitch, is how the situation was described, I believe.

[frylock]

10. feel free to explain to us just how truly evil he was

[Demo_Chris]

12. Okay, but rather than listing who he was and what he did...

You can take a few minutes to look that stuff up for yourself if you actually want to understand. Instead I will simply invite you to consider and understand this one simple fact. Forget all the propoganda and Bush hate and everything else, because this is ALL you really need to know to understand just how sick and evil Hussein really was:

During the Iraq war we obliterated a beautiful and developed first world nation. We literally blew it to hell, killing perhaps a million or more civilians in the process and mutilating god knows how many others. We dropped JDAMs into residential neighborhoods by the hundreds, turning innocent people's homes and bodies into swiss cheese...

And the Iraqi people don't hate us, they don't want to attack us, they are not swearing eternal vengeance for their slaughtered families.

THAT's how evil Hussein was.

Now we can argue that it was wrong to invade, but that's another topic. I was opposed to the war then (amazingly there were damn sure few of us at that time) and remain opposed to it today. But suggesting that Iraq was better off under Hussein is freaking nuts.

[LWolf]

9. I don't know what it would take

to achieve lasting peace in the middle east, which is what Iraq and every other nation in the region would be "better off" with. Here's an interesting read concerning his regime:

http://usiraq.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000887

[JoePhilly]

11. Would the Iraqis have been better off if Iraq was never created?

I mean, since we're using the time machine ... why not go back a little farther.

Saddam was a whack job who should not have been allowed to run anything larger than a shoe shine stand.

The invasion of Iraq to over throw him was one of the greatest screw ups in American history.

After Bush's screw up, Biden suggested that Iraq be divided into 3 parts. Was that the right answer?

Are the bombings there now WORSE than what Saddam was doing to those who disagreed with him?

Who knows.

It was a mess. And it is still a mess.

And I'm glad President Obama has pulled us out.

[Smarmie Doofus]

13. Of course.

1.3 million dead.

How many orphaned, wounded, displaced,impoverished etc etc etc.?

It's unspeakable.

And it just keeps going on an on.

And the oil just keeps on flowing.

[Lurks Often]

14. Guess it depends on who you ask

me, I'm thinking that the Kurds and the Shi'a are thrilled Saddam is dead and gone.

[sarisataka]

15. It would depend on what Iraqi you speak of

How Many People Has Saddam Hussein Killed?

(January 27, 2003)

By JOHN F. BURNS
www.nytimes.com

In the unlit blackness of an October night, it took a flashlight to pick them out: rust-colored butchers' hooks, 20 or more, each four or five feet long, aligned in rows along the ceiling of a large hangar-like building. In the grimmest fortress in Iraq's gulag, on the desert floor 20 miles west of Baghdad, this appeared to be the grimmest corner of all, the place of mass hangings that have been a documented part of life under Saddam Hussein.

At one end of the building at Abu Ghraib prison, a whipping wind gusted through open doors. At the far end, the flashlight picked out a windowed space that appeared to function as a control room. Baggy trousers of the kind worn by many Iraqi men were scattered at the edges of the concrete floor. Some were soiled, as if worn in the last, humiliating moments of a condemned man's life.

The United States is facing a new turning point in its plans to go to war to topple Mr. Hussein, with additional American troops heading for the Persian Gulf, while France and Germany lead the international opposition. But the pressure President Bush has applied already has created chances to peer into the darkest recesses of Iraqi life.

In the past two months, United Nations weapons inspections, mandated by American insistence that Mr. Hussein's pursuit of banned weapons be halted, have ranged widely across the country. But before this became the international community's only goal, Mr. Bush was also attacking Mr. Hussein as a murdering tyrant. It was this accusation that led the Iraqi leader to virtually empty his prisons on Oct. 20, giving Western reporters, admitted that day to Abu Ghraib, a first-hand glimpse of the slaughterhouse the country has become.

http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2003/ajan/27_saddam.html

[rrneck]

16. I know we'd be better off. nt

[Tom Ripley]

17. The fact that the USA would certainly be better off is my only concern

[eridani]

18. Saddam was living in isolation, writing a novel, and gradually losing touch with reality

His spoiled brat sons would have had power given to them, and they had no relevant experience in playing off the various tribal groups against each other that could have maintained stability. So the answer is that Saddam's power was evaporating and leading to chaos. However, the US invasion made the inevitable chaos several orders of magnitude worse, IMO.