I really wish I had the intelligence to use spellcheck. I apologize for everyone for my poor spelling.
Marc
I knew someone woudl bring that up. Yeah, ONE story turned out to be very exaggerated (The stories about lampshades from the WWII Nazi deathcamps also seem to be false- does that mean that those camps were like unto summer camp, and the Holocaust never happened? :rolleyes: ). But there are countless stories of tortures and abuses, so that having one debunked out of a thousand leaves still 999 to go. And, those few of our pilots that were captured in Gulf War II were also abused in the main, that one female pilot being beaten.
Besides- many of those who could tell the worst stories about Saddam were buried in those mass unmarked graves that we have found a couple of.
Saddam also supposedly made (or ordered to have made) videos of people being tortured so he could watch them later. :eek:
Yes, every world leader has their bad spots. Yes, every government does its share of nasty stuff. Yes, when people are in power they tend to reward their friends and punish their enemies. And yes, the US is guilty of some of the things we accuse Saddam of.
Does it make us hypocrites for deposing him? Possibly. But I think it would make us even bigger hypocrites for letting him come back to power.
Sounds like an argument for a real Ba’athist gov’t instead of a tribalist like Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. Of course, the US gov’t now probably believes its own propaganda that the Ba’ath Party were just Arab Nazis, & will let a bunch of Shi’a fanatics take over. (I would argue that they already have caused this to happen; it’s in process.)
It’s not really a question of how many stories one can provide, but of basic human nature. Human beings cope incredibly well. There is a sort of “normalizing” effect which cannot be discounted. To some extent, you can “learn” to live under extreme circumstances. When one has known nothing different, situations which to us would be unbearable are perfectly acceptable.
Just as an example, I cannot imagine how terrified I would be to live in Israel. The idea that I could be blown to bits at any moment while grocery shopping or sitting in a cafe is horrifying. Yet people in Israel manage to go about their daily lives. They do not cower in fear in their homes: they go out shopping, to work and to play “normally” even though they live under a shadow.
Think of all of the horrible things that could happen to you tomorrow. You could be hit by a bus, be diagnosed with cancer, be murdered, sexually assaulted, have a friend or loved one die, lose your job, have your house burn down, or suddenly keel over of an aneurysm. Hell, you could even be falsely accused of a crime, convicted and punished. There are a million horrible possibilities, and if you sat around and thought about them, you’d probably go nuts, and spend the rest of your days hiding in a closet. But we don’t think about them-- we try to get on with our daily lives.
I imagine that life in Iraq was much the same. I’d guess that, statistically speaking, a person in the US is more likely to have one of the above mentioned bad things happen to them than a person in Iraq would be to be killed by Saddam.
My point is that “living in fear” is not something which can be concretely quantified. I’d say a poll of Americans would show that we “live in fear” of crime, terrorism, disease and natural disaster. But we normalize, and get on with our lives the best we can.
Just … wow. This asinine beyond all imagining.
You’re hoping to get pitted, right?
What? Why? I’ve gone over that sentance again and again, and I don’t see what you find so asinine about it. It’s a simple fact of human nature. We adapt. People living under hellacious circumstances come to regard them as normal if they know nothing else.
Not particularly, but if you feel the need, be my guest. I’m only dissapointed that after five years on this board and all of the controversial statements that I have made that I would be pitted for the first time over something so trivial and easily defendable.
Well if people can cope with that, then by your thesis, they’ll get used to the new terrorism there now.
Yes, they will. It sucks, but they’ll deal with it as people always deal with such things. If they’re lucky, their lives will be like that of Isrealis. If they’re unlucky, they’re headed for civil war.
Either way, life will go on. Children will play in the burned-out rubble, women will forage the shattered markets for places to buy food, and the men will try to support their families. People will suffer as they always do in these situations, but the human spirit is remarkable. You accept what is around you, and try to make the best of things.