# Would Iraq have been better off staying with Saddam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2015, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727 "2015-08-13T10:47:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/61 "2015-08-16T17:33:46Z")
> [@PatriotX](#): > > Wolfowitz is advising Jeb on foreign policy [Unbelievable but true.](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/jeb-bush-adviser-paul-wolfowitz) I guess that’s because Jeb is totally “his own man”! Let’s hope Jeb doesn’t also have Dick Cheney advising him on the best VP pick, because Dick has an unfortunate tendency to find the perfect candidate by looking in his magic mirror. Their campaign slogan could be, “Bush-Cheney: what could possibly go wrong?” 😃 > [@XT](#): > > … A random list about China would be: Tibet (full stop) … I don’t really want to get involved in this China vs. US thing as I have absolutely no love for China and the two nations are in such radically different stages of development that many comparisons are rather pointless, and Chinese transgressions against human rights, safety, and many other issues are well known. I have NO wish to defend China here. But I can’t help taking a bit of a devil’s advocate position here and pointing out that the issues are not as one-sided as you might wish they were – it’s far from a simple case of good guys vs. bad guys. For instance I’m tempted to ask these questions that are pertinent to the subject of this thread: since the formation of the PRC in 1949, which nation – China or the US – has bombed or invaded other countries halfway around the world with no ethical or moral justification? Which nation – China or the US – had an organization called the Project for the New American Century founded by one Dick Cheney, which included at least half a dozen principals that were to become key members of the Bush administration – an organization **whose primary purpose** was to advocate global hegemony in which the US was to assert its military power to secure its interests all over the world? And which nation – China or the US – has long had an official policy **condemning** this type of global hegemony? Which nation, in short, could fairly be characterized as the more inclined to gratuitous warmongering? On the subject of Tibet, China, as in the case of the Korean War, was responding to events on its own borders, and has had a long history with Tibet. And did it result in a Chinese version of Abu Graib or Guantanamo and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians dead? Actually it seemed to be more like this: Tibetan prisoners of war were generally well treated. After confiscating their weapons, the PLA soldiers gave the prisoners lectures on socialism and a small amount of money, before allowing them to return to their homes. According to Tenzin Gyatso, the current as well as the Dalai Lama of the time, the PLA did not attack civilians. > **[Battle of Chamdo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chamdo)** > > 180 killed or wounded~3,000 captured > The Battle of Chamdo (or Qamdo; Chinese: 昌都战役) occurred from 6 to 24 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to take the Chamdo Region from a de facto independent Tibetan state. The campaign resulted in the capture of Chamdo and the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. > Kham was a border region of Tibet. The eastern part of Kham had been under the direct control of China during the Qing dynasty. Its... ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/62 "2015-08-16T18:21:34Z")
[QUOTE=wolfpup] For instance I’m tempted to ask these questions that are pertinent to the subject of this thread: since the formation of the PRC in 1949, which nation – China or the US – has bombed or invaded other countries halfway around the world with no ethical or moral justification? [/QUOTE] A totally contrived and subjective question. Which of the two countries has invaded another nation state, subjugated it’s people, killed hundreds of thousands (at least) of it’s citizens and imprisoned many times more and has done everything in it’s power to stamp out it’s culture, it’s language and it’s government? If you guessed China wrt Tibet then you’d be right in winning this other totally contrived and subjective question. China (and by China I mean the CCP) hasn’t done the things you are so obviously contriving to highlight the US because it can’t do them. What it HAS done is pretty horrific, however, and not just externally but internally to it’s own people. > [@](#): > > On the subject of Tibet, China, as in the case of the Korean War, was responding to events on its own borders, and has had a long history with Tibet. And did it result in a Chinese version of Abu Graib or Guantanamo and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians dead? Actually it seemed to be more like this: Yeah, it’s worse. And those are Chinese excuses for it’s actions…long history with Tibet and ‘events on its own borders’ are the excuses it uses for it’s actions. And this isn’t a dead issue…unlike Abu Graib, which of course came out fully in the press and world wide, much of what China is STILL doing in Tibet is under wraps, with only fragments getting out…fragments that are generally washed away by massive Chinese propaganda that western media laps up and propagates. At any rate, as you say, THIS thread isn’t about any of this, and China really has nothing to do with it. I would love for someone to start a thread on China to discuss why they get so much of a pass on this board as well as in the west in general, why more folks aren’t outraged by it’s actions internal and external, why it’s not given the same levels of scrutiny and censure the US is for it’s actions and myriad other things, but for now I’ll let folks get back to the actual subject of the thread which is would Iraq have been better off staying with Saddam. I’ve already given my thoughts on that subject, and it seems to me to bread down to folks who think Iraq would have stayed stable and in control under Saddam and those who think that the pot was ready to boil over and it was just a matter of time, with or without the US. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/63 "2015-08-16T23:38:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Which analyses are you talking about? Well **Marin Hyde** ’s posts are the best examples of arguing against instability as a result of the Arab Spring, but he excludes the no fly zone without specifying why he doesn’t believe it to be a factor. It’s possible that I missed it but I do not believe I did. Other posts reflexively conclude a stable Iraq to today as though the Arab Spring had no pattern of successfully toppling dictators. I really just felt the need to reiterate my point with an example in that post because I was surprised at how unimportant many in this thread seem to think the Arab Spring was (coupled with a no fly zone in the case of Iraq). It’s as though many people believe the Arab Spring was not as monumental an event as it actually was. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2015, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/64 "2015-08-17T08:46:01Z")
It wss a big bag of nothing. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2015, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/65 "2015-08-17T09:00:05Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Saddam had survived popular uprisings before. Where exactly would the disarmed and disorganized Iraqis have gotten the resources to successfully fight against Saddam? Iran would’ve tried to smuggle arms in for the Shia militias, but there would be no Sunni uprising at all due to the Sunnis knowing Saddam was all that kept them paramount in Iraq. If you look at Iraq today and historically since the invasion, it’s primarily been the Sunni insurgents that have been the most violent and the most successful, and the Shia militias have always gotten some degree of armament from Iran, which wouldn’t change. All of the present serious insurgency in Iraq is Sunni based, and they would not be rebelling against Saddam. Without a Shia government in Baghdad there is virtually no impetus for the Islamic State to exist at all. More accurately without an avowedly secretarian government in Baghdad. The Shia/Sunni split did not occur until several years after the invasion, after the putting into place of powerful secretarian minded former exiles into influential positions, and backed up by the guns of the US Military. Without that, Shia-Sunni are quirks of belief rathern than mortal enemies;even today, [more than a third of marriages are across secretarian lines.](http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/iraq-mixed-families-fear-violence.html) > [@](#): > > Further, look to Egypt. While popular revolt pushed Mubarak out, the moment the government that replaced it was deemed too Islamist by the military, it was removed and the military was put back into control. There has been little serious threat to said military government in Egypt since. This is because Egypt has a very powerful military and doesn’t have citizens armed with large amounts of military hardware lead by former military officers. Iraq would be in a similar situation had Saddam never fallen, you’d have a big, long powerful (internally) military against unorganized rabble. Field Marshal Sisi was and is openly supported by the US and Saudi Arabia. Saddam would not have been. Chances are he would have croaked by now and we would have a succession crises. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2015, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/66 "2015-08-17T10:06:28Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Another massive truck bomb killing at least 60 in Sadr City, Islamic State claiming responsibility. About a third of the country in the hands of terrorists now. Sure, Saddam was an old brute but maybe it takes a brute to hold the peace and keep the country together. Do any Iraqis, even Shi’ites, look back and miss the guy? How ever many people he killed and tortured the IS is multiplying a hundredfold. Many Shi’ites naturally celebrated the downfall of Saddam. If they could have seen what was coming would they have thought twice. > > In the final analysis bringing down Saddam wasn’t an Iraqi decision. It was a Bush decision. In hindsight, was it a bad one? Yes, I think in hindsight (and even at the time) it was a bad idea. I certainly know Iraqis who have left who think things were better before. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2015, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727/67 "2015-08-17T10:15:38Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t really want to get involved in this China vs. US thing as I have absolutely no love for China and the two nations are in such radically different stages of development that many comparisons are rather pointless, and Chinese transgressions against human rights, safety, and many other issues are well known. I have NO wish to defend China here. But I can’t help taking a bit of a devil’s advocate position here and pointing out that the issues are not as one-sided as you might wish they were – it’s far from a simple case of good guys vs. bad guys. > > For instance I’m tempted to ask these questions that are pertinent to the subject of this thread: since the formation of the PRC in 1949, which nation – China or the US – has bombed or invaded other countries halfway around the world with no ethical or moral justification? Which nation – China or the US – had an organization called the Project for the New American Century founded by one Dick Cheney, which included at least half a dozen principals that were to become key members of the Bush administration – an organization **whose primary purpose** was to advocate global hegemony in which the US was to assert its military power to secure its interests all over the world? And which nation – China or the US – has long had an official policy **condemning** this type of global hegemony? Which nation, in short, could fairly be characterized as the more inclined to gratuitous warmongering? > > On the subject of Tibet, China, as in the case of the Korean War, was responding to events on its own borders, and has had a long history with Tibet. And did it result in a Chinese version of Abu Graib or Guantanamo and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians dead? Actually it seemed to be more like this: > > Tibetan prisoners of war were generally well treated. After confiscating their weapons, the PLA soldiers gave the prisoners lectures on socialism and a small amount of money, before allowing them to return to their homes. According to Tenzin Gyatso, the current as well as the Dalai Lama of the time, the PLA did not attack civilians. > [Battle of Chamdo - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chamdo) And turning to domestic politics, is there an ethnic group in China who’s members have a 33% expectation of imprisonment - what the hell would that say about any society? Or, indeed, mass surveillance of the entire population on a scale the STASI could only dream? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-iraq-have-been-better-off-staying-with-saddam/727727.md?page=3)