I think it’s very dangerous to assume even someone like KJ Il is a “nutcase”. If he were, he’d probably be more of a puppet of someone else, and I don’t know of any evidence that that is the case.
I really must object to the use of the iran/iraq war and the Kuwait adventure as evidence of SH’s “insanity”
WE endorsed the first war, and it is clear that the April Glasspie meeting prior to the Kuwait invasion was intended as an attempt by SH to get our agreement to the second. Whether he was inappropriately extrapolating from his discussions with her to a broader “ok” is up for grabs, but he at least gave some thought to the issue.
Furthermore, he was demonstrably “deterrable” vis-a-vis the use of wmd against our troops (he didn’t use them…)
Not quite the screamingravingloonie, don’t ya think?
Oh, it’s definitely an opinion. Mostly formed subliminally, I suppose. I think we can agree to disagree on this; I doubt I could put together a rigorous argument on it.
Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? I can’t tell. Just to be clear, I am not arguing that he’s crazy, and I’m not arguing that the US government (either Bush or Clinton before him or Bush before him) tried to make him out as being crazy. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Wow. I’m not sure what you’re looking for here. Are you saying that Iraqis are worse off now than they were under Hussein? Are you saying that the US hasn’t done that much rebuilding? Or are you just curious what’s being done?
My answer is complicated by the fact that the rebuilding has come through a number of agencies, including the CPA, USAID, and the Iraqis themselves.
But as to whether or not Iraqis have constant electrical access, this is what USAID has to say:
So things are better than they were pre-war, but still not as good as in the suburbs of Chicago.
(Note – the link also includes specifics and goals, if that’s what you’re looking for. And it’s got details on their programs for dealing with agriculture, airports, bridges & roads, business skills training, civil society, community action program, Constitution, economic governance, education, elections, electricity, food security, health, local governance, marshlands, national governance, private sector development, seaport, telecommunications, transition initiatives, water & sanitation, and women. And it’s got a 38 page .pdf document from Nov. 2005 giving the highlights from their work in Iraq. And this is just one agency.)
Regarding the on-the-ground situation in Iraq, any sensible person should be ready to take the word of actual Iraqis over that of a U.S. government agency like USAID.
accurate to say that he was a threat to the M.E. region (if he had the means to carry out that threat). He had, afterall, attacked two countries already and lobbed misslies at Isreal during the 1st Gulf War
your confusion appropriately mirrored mine…I was conflating (inappropriately…) your citation of the “middle east threat” with the idea that Saddam was a loose cannon; Hence, my reference to what seem to me to be aspects of his regional militarism that were ostensibly undertaken with our approval, or (in the Glasspie case) what he might reasonably(?) have mistaken for our approval.
I wasn’t meaning to adduce these points as a rebuttal to your analysis so much as a corollary–(you might well be forgiven for construing the post as a rebuttal considering my inapposite use of the verb “object”–query to whom was I objecting…?)
to further clarify (or obfuscate, take your pick) I wasn’t sure when you said that one could"say he was a threat to the ME" whether you were intending that to be an endorsement of administration claims, which, of course, habitually cite the wmd use in the iran-iraq war as evidence of his malign intent–that was a gloss which I put onto your post without any real foundation. So the “objection” I guess, was directed at some invisible adminsitration spokesman who had not been heard on the subject. not a particularly useful formulation…
Ahh, yes. Good ol’ Democracy Now. Nothing quite like an independent source, eh? For example, check out this “unbiased” question by Democracy Now’s reporter (emphasis added):
Of course, even the reporter’s subject goes on to contradict what the reporter said. As well he/she should because the reporter’s assertion is demonstrably false.
Anyone wondering if the reporter is biased need only take a gander at her interview on Hardball, which is transcripted neatly on her own site:
Right back at’cha with the :dubious:
And here I was thinking that any reasonable person wouldn’t be wasting his/her time listening to Democracy Now.
And why, pray tell, is this alleged “actual Iraqi” more credible than USAID? Is it because USAID isn’t actually in Iraq (which they are) or because the Iraqi knows more about the reconstruction work being done (which he does not) or because the Iraqi has no axe to grind (which he admits to having) or because his statements are inherently more reasonable than the government’s (puh-lease)? In fact, the only reason to believe the alleged Iraqi’s statements is that he says unbelievably bad things about the reconstruction effort.
Well, at least she asked, and was open to being corrected. That’s just the difference. Bill O’Reilly would have lost his temper and cut his interviewee’s mike.
If you want to discredit Amy Goodman, pick a better example. In that particular instance she happens to be right. The neocons will not be satisfied with an outcome in the Middle East that resembles contemporary Europe, where all the countries are functioning democracies, and sometimes make democratic decisions to oppose U.S. policy. They want a Middle East of pro-U.S. states that lack that freedom of action. Which is for all practical purposes indistinguishable from conquest. You needn’t take Goodman’s word for any of that, just visit the PNAC website and read between lines; and you won’t have to peer very close, either.
In any case, you cannot discredit Goodman by pointing out she is “biased.” Goodman, unlike the lying liars at Fox News, makes no pretense of political neutrality. On that understanding, she has at least as much credibility as Tom Brokaw or Wolf Blitzer.
:rolleyes: USAID is not credible WRT to anything it says about Iraq for the same reason Paul Bremer and General Abizaid are not credible WRT to anything they say about Iraq. That should be painfully obvious to all the world by this year of the occupation.
Saddam is disliked by his own people. I don’t think they are going to start taking orders from the guy who plunged the country into endless wars and spent billions on palaces while the nation starved. I would assume alot of Iraqis know Saddam is a narcissist who could care less about the Iraqi people and who only wants to glorify himself.
Besides, history is written by the victors. Saddam didn’t win. De Gaulle, Henry & Churchill all won their wars.
I don’t think they will. The average Iraqi may not like Americans but I’m sure he knows Saddam is saying what he is saying solely for his own benefit and will react accordingly.
I think that if Saddam were to be televised, he might have a chance to turn his position around, and perhaps go free. I am glad that he is showing some guts. I had read somewhere that at the Nuremburg trials, Goering said something to the effect that “we should tell them all to kiss off.” As events turned out for him, at least, it couldn’t have hurt!
Irrespective of what Saddam did or didn’t do, I think that there is something inherently wrong about a country invading another country, defeating it, and then ‘trying’ the vanquished leaders. Execute them, maybe, imprison them, maybe, but this ‘trial’ junk is just fluff to validate a nation’s violation of another nation’s sovereignty.
hh