US not right to invade say Iraqis Re: [extropy-chat] letterconcerning presidential growth

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 17, 2005, at 4:35 AM, Herb Martin wrote:

>> From: Jeff Davis
>> --- Joseph Bloch <transhumanist at goldenfuture.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The irony here is, they would not be able to decide
>>> that, if we had not
>>> overthrown Saddam Hussein. They would still be under
>>> the jackboot of
>>> Saddam and his vicious sons. The rape rooms would
>>> still be in operation.
>>> People would still be thrown living into plastic
>>> shredders... head-first
>>> if the death was to be merciful.
>>
>> No, the irony here is that Saddam's atrocities were of
>> no interest to you when he was the US ruling elite's
>> pal (against the Iranian's) in the eighties, when
>> Rumsfeld was glad-handing him, and the US corporations
>> were selling him the precursors for the WMD's he was
>> using to fill up those mass graves with Iranian
>> corpses that you never gave a damn about, and Iraqi
>> corpses that you are now so very very shocked to learn
>> about, and which the US power elite, as Saddam's
>
>
> Again someone like Jeff posts the "common knowledge"
> that is JUST WRONG.  It is so tiring when people fail
> to see through such propaganda and bithely repeat it.
>

As opposed to you own version that contradicts much of what I have  
gathered?

> The US WANTED to support Iraq against Iran in those
> days when the main enemy was the still vital and
> threatening, but was unable to stomach Soddam and
> his behavior and so stood aside mostly during the
> war with Iran.
>

The US put Saddam in power to start with.  He was "our man" we  
thought for a while.  We didn't go after him until he stopped doing  
what we wanted instead of what he wanted or thought best for Iraq.

> As to precursors, these are the same chemicals that
> are used in agriculture as pesticides and are also
> equipement and stocks used in pharmaceuticals -- in
> those days Saddam had not (yet) shown his prediliction
> for GASSING HIS OWN PEOPLE and developing other
> weapons of mass destruction BY THE TON (and long since
> admitted by Saddam.)
>

Funny.  At the time the US military said the gas involved was  
Iranian.  Again, the caps make your argument much weaker.

> The US was NOT a major supporter of Saddam despite
> the lies you have heard and may even have fallen into
> the habit of repeating.
>

Incorrect.

> The attempts to change history in order to rehabilitate
> the murderer Saddam are just plain disgusting.
>

The attempt to justify any stupidity we do in the region by saying it  
was all about removing Saddam for the sake of the Iraqi people is a  
most disgusting manipulation and blatant lie.   The good of the Iraqi  
people was not our motive.  Neither were mythological WMD.   So  
endless inflation of Saddam's admitted evil or back and forth about  
how much we supported him rather misses the most important point.   
What was our real reason for going there and remaining there at great  
cost?

> Any argument against removing Saddam most devolve down
> eventually to:  THe world would be better off if this
> murderer were never removed from power so the US should
> just leave Iraq and return Saddam to power.

We and the Iraqis would have been better off to have not done Desert  
Storm in 91 and to have never imposed the sanctions.  We set up  
Saddam then and bombed the hell out of the infrastructure.  We knew  
after that and the sanctions and occasional targeted (at industrial  
targets) bombings since that there was no way that Saddam was a real  
threat.  I and a few others said so at the time.

Assuming for a moment that Saddam was every bit as evil as your  
opinion states, would it have been legitimate for us to go over and  
spend hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives,  
tens of thousands of Iraqi lives (even Bush admits to 30,000) and  
inflame the entire region  greatly increasing the hatred toward the  
US just to remove him?   It doesn't seem like a very well-justified  
action to me.  Apparently it didn't seem well justified to this  
administration either as they lied through their teeth about WMD and  
the means to deliver it being in Saddam's hands in order to scare  
Congress and the American people into going along with this farce.     
So turning around now and saying we did the right thing because  
Saddam is soooo evil and we care about the Iraqi people sooo much is  
utterly contrived and pathetic.

- samantha