“Can”? Try “Is”…
I love ‘fuckity.’ Good word.
Why are you talking about 1978? That was only when Saddam decisively came out of the shadows and assumed the trappings of power. He’d actually been running the country for nearly a decade at that point. What the statistics actually show is a large leap while Saddam was running the country without war, a big drop after the Iran-Iraq War and a big drop after the 1991 Gulf War and resultant sanctions.
On preview, I can’t get the chart to display properly, but take a look at Table 1 onthis link.
The conclusion to draw from this is that Saddam actually cared about the economy - perhaps not for humanistic reasons, but more because it gave him more power etc. It was the wars and sanctions that screwed up the economy, not the intentional / negligent actions of Saddam against the economy per se, so I don’t think you can make a case that for his “crush[ing] a country’s collective wealth”. He would have loved to keep the economy going - more power and cash skimmed off for him.
Saddam was in favour of wealth, certainly in favour of secularism, in favour of women’s rights (at least as far as the region goes), ditto education, health etc. Can’t say there was “rule of law” or property rights either before or after Saddam.
Why do we have to bend or ignore facts to argue that Saddam was a monster in all ways? Why aren’t his corruption, his construction of a brutal police state and his murder of his own people sufficient?
Almost. What we need to do is cut taxes for the rich and the upper middle class (many of whom are arguably pretty damned wealthy anyway) while dropping minimum wage and social programs. See, that way we get to protect our corporate contributors, give them a pool of what is essentially slave labour (where else are they going to work anyway) while cutting all those nasty programs that smack of socialism. We can then use the money we save on those to fund the war! Brilliant.
Furthermore, if any of those people starve or die of easily curable illnesses, all the better. They were only a drain on the country after all.
Good point.
Because saying “he was an asshole leader” isn’t usually considered sufficient grounds for an invasion by a foreign superpower?
Especially when you act like an asshole once you take over.
“He was an asshole leader who buggered the economy” is no better in that regard.
You know… that’s a bit of a disingenuous arguement you’re making, I reckon. I paraphrase… “He might not have been a great guy… but he loved being loved by his people… and if it hadn’t been for those two unfortunate wars with Iran and Kuwait, and all those dreadful unfair sanctions… Saddam would have still been sitting on a great economy and he’d be famous for being a truly great leader…”
I disagree entirely. As the old saying goes, most of our problems in life are of our own making. In that context, Saddam Hussein was a world class nasty fucker. He went out of his way to cause warmongering, and death, and chemical attacks and all sort of nasty shit on both his neighbours, and his own peoples. He was a thug and an opportunist and apparently has never travelled outside Iraq in his entire life. Almost every consensus I’ve ever read asserts that such was the seemingly limitless profits brought about through oil exports in the 1970’s that the decade of prosperity enjoyed by Iraq PRIOR to 1980 took place in spite of Saddam Hussein, not because of him. Sure, he would have loved Iraq to regain her former wealth so he could have stayed in the gig for another 20 years - but the bottom line is that by 1992, regaining Iraq’s wealth and staying in the gig were mututally exclusive concepts - regardless of the sanctions. Saddam had fucked his country over good and proper by that stage… good and proper. And the worst was yet to come.
No, it was just a bad idea. It was hard to use PR to cover that.
It’s always a bad idea for a foreign power (particularly one so culturally alien to the locals) to step in to “help”. It essentially always turns into a complete mess. The locals suddenly discover that much as they hate their leader, they hate their Alien Overlords even worse. And whether they are overlords or just trying help is not the point.
The US was, at best, inserting the knife to cut out the cancer. Even leaving the question of whether that was the right choice to one side, right now the cancer is gone, the knife is still in there and twisting and until it goes away, the patient will scream.
Thinking that the US needs to stay the course till the bombs stop going off is like saying the surgeon needs to keep wriggling the knife round till the bleeding stops.
Fuck you for misrepresenting me. Is that the only way you can win an argument? I’m digging up cites about the economy over here to prove a historical point about an evil dictator, explicitly stating that he was an evil and brutal man, I don’t support him in any way and my arguments in no way detract from his moral culpability. You’re putting words into my mouth, saying “you love Saddam and want to have, like, ten million of his babies”. Pathetic.
Prolly because calling you a “Saddamite” has just been totally done to death.
-Joe
Of course it is. But you’re misunderstanding what he’s doing: staying the course until total victory in the argument. To admit he was wrong now would undermine the work of all the words he posted, and those words need to know that they weren’t posted in vain.
Oh puh-lease. Spare me the “poor victim” shit. I’ve engaged you in a courteous manner regarding the content of your posts. There is no “winning the arguement” here. That you feel that there is such a thing is indicative of a mindset which is just plain wrong. In an earlier post you provided a link which establishes certain economic timelines in Iraq’s recent history. I paraphrased your post to illustrate that Iraq enjoyed a period of prosperity 1970-1980 in SPITE of Saddam Hussein. There was nothing personal in it all. I discussed the content of your posts and nothing more.
Now, you see Atticus? THAT is good debating. Princhester and I agree on most things but sometimes we don’t. It’s nothing personal when that happens, and more over, just like with World Eater’s earlier posts, I’m more than happy to stand corrected if someone makes an insightful and valid point. As I noted a few days ago regarding World Eater’s prediction of civil war, I sometimes have to concede that other people have made points which are “fair calls” as they say. I feel like I’m walking on egg shells debating with you however Atticus.
Real accurate paraphrasing there!
Brutal, corrupt, murdering, monster = a truly great leader? 