# Should George Bush Sr. have killed Saddam Hussein? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 12, 2000, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-george-bush-sr-have-killed-saddam-hussein/36668 "2000-10-12T14:34:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ivar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ivar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivar)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2000, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-george-bush-sr-have-killed-saddam-hussein/36668/21 "2000-10-12T22:12:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wildest Bill \* > \*\*Hey Jeff, > > I have had this conversation before and I heard that his son(Sodamninsane) is crazier than his dad is. So if they were going to wack Sudam, they should have also whacked his son. \*\* IIRC, his name is Oded, and there was a story about him on 60 Minutes last year. I’ve also read other news articles making claims that Oded Hussein is in fact a sadistic and self-centered bastard who will punish people around for the smallest of transgressions. A true megalomaniac on the rise. And if we had taken out Saddam, would we be dealing with the son now? Lesser of two evils, maybe? We can only guess. ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2000, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-george-bush-sr-have-killed-saddam-hussein/36668/22 "2000-10-13T02:00:24Z")
**Spiritus Mundi** Since responding to your post will take a little time, I’m going to throw this one in here first. **Sofa King** > [@](#): > > Whether or not we should have, since the 1970’s there has been an executive order on the books that swears off the practice of assassinating foreign leaders. A couple of points here… 1. It would take two seconds for any president to write a new order to get either invalidate, or circumvent this one. 2. Since when has the government been unable to “deny” knowledge and make a “mistake.” ex: Do you really think we bombed the Chinese embassy by “Mistake”? 1. I do not know how old you are, (and I’m not taking a cheap shot here), but I remember discussions about killing Saddam on CNN during the war. The bottom line was that since he was also a military general, he was a valid target. I think they left him there because it was the lesser evil. ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2000, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-george-bush-sr-have-killed-saddam-hussein/36668/23 "2000-10-13T02:29:13Z")
**Spiritus Mundi** Both of these guys would commit our troops more than I am comfortable with. For example, I do not support our involvement in Kosovo or Bosnia. My point was that Gore seemed willing to use our troops MORE than Bush. I thought this question was a little obscure: > [@](#): > > LEHRER: Well, let’s keep–let’s stay on the subject for a moment. New question, related to this. There have been–I figured this out–in the last 20 years, there have been eight major actions involving the introduction of U.S. ground, air or naval forces. Let me name them: Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo. If you had been president, are any of those interventions–would any of those interventions not have happened? I’m a political junkie and I almost choked at the question. When I saw Gore and Bush’s faces, I wanted to laugh. Who could possibly remember all the small details that might influence the decision on whether or not to get involved. Having said that, I think they both bluffed the question well. These would be the parts I’m talking about: The following are Bush quotes. They are edited for brevity, but I promise that I am not trying to take anything out of context. These are just the parts that influenced **ME**. > [@](#): > > snip… > > And so I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. > > snip… > I don’t think so. I think–I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not. > > Our military’s meant to fight and win war. That’s what it’s meant to do. And when it gets over extended, morale drops. > > snip… > …I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country, say, “We do it this way, so should you.” Now, I think we can help, and I know we got to encourage democracy and the marketplaces. > > snip… > > …But maybe I misunderstand where you’re coming from, Mr. Vice President, but I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course. And these were the parts from Gore that made me think he would commit our military more than Bush. > [@](#): > > But, look, Jim, the world is changing so rapidly. The way I see it, the world’s getting much closer together. Like it or not, we are now the–the United States is now the natural leader of the world. All these other countries are looking to us. > > Now, just because we cannot be involved everywhere, and shouldn’t be, doesn’t mean that we should shy away from going in anywhere. > > snip… > And what did we do in the late '40s and '50s and '60s? We were nation-building. And it was economic, but it was also military. And the confidence that those countries recovering from the wounds of war had by having troops there–we had civil administrators come in to set up their ways of building their towns back. > > snip… > > And as for this idea of nation-building. The phrase sounds grandiose. And, you know, we can’t be– **we can’t allow ourselves to get overextended. I certainly agree with that. And that’s why I’ve supported building–building up our capacity.** I’ve devoted in the budget I’ve proposed, as I said last week, more than twice as much as the governor has proposed. (above emphasis mine) I admit that I pretty much despise Gore. However, I am not a cheerleader for W. I pretty much support keeping our troops at home as much as possible. Having said that, Gore scored some points with me when he talked about how we helped prevent a WWIII by staying involved in Europe after the war. I am a little less moved by that arguement now that I have had a little more time to think about it, but it did give me pause. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-george-bush-sr-have-killed-saddam-hussein/36668.md?page=1)