And why would he do that?
I’m not defending the man, but I have to point out that you are using a somewhat ignorant stereotype here: though a Muslim, Hussein has no love for religious fanatics. Iraq is a secular republic, with a separation between church and state, as well as rights for women. This is one of the reasons the Ayatollahs, Bin Laden, and their ilk have little time for him.
As a point of order, I’m pretty sure Iraq isn’t under Islamic law. The clerics have basically no power in Iraq. It seems really unlikely to me that Saddam would impose Islamic law anywhere.
Assuming we had the option of overthrowing him I would pick Hitler since with historical hindsight we know exactly just how evil he was and what tricks and tactics he used so it would be quite workable to set the people against him and kick his butt out.
This is as rather silly argument, in fact the whole comparison of Hitler and Saddam is only a dubious spinoff of modern propaganda (note that no such comparisons were made back in the 80’s when Saddam was in fact killing “his own people”.)
But just to make it slightly more accurate and to diffuse yet another stereotype: Saddam also has shown no particular inclination towards systematic genocide (only sporadic, which is not morally better, but certainly less dangerous) and generally “only” lashes out to maintain his power. Hitler certainly went much further than that.
By the way, it is also a dangerous argument to say that Saddam has “killed his own people” while Hitler didn’t! German Jews were/are in fact for all intents and purposes just as German as German non-Jews were/are, whereas it would be quite a stretch to say that Kurds are “Saddam’s own people.” Not that I think that killing anyone else’s people is better than killing one’s own! What a chilling argument that is to begin with!
Hitler gave motivational speeches. In front of thousands of people. Saddam has proven competent at hiding himself from the U.S. military. I imagine Adolph’s reign be measured in terms of 4000 ft/sec muzzle velocities.
My apologies. I was getting oppressive Middle Eastern dicators’ policies slightly confused. However, he is known for being somewhat more oppressive towards other Muslim sects besides his own (the whole rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites), so it’s not like he seems to be completely in favor of religious tolerance either. Was it that Saddam’s policy of Baathism is more like an Arab Communism then?