Uday and Qusay are now the names on President Bush’s lips.

Various folks: I do understand that Saddam Hussein has gotten a lot of bad press over the years. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that his achievements are vastly greater than those of his sons. My evidence for the statement that Saddam was a hero to millions of Muslims in many countries around the world? The mass street demonstrations in his support and the fact that people continue to be willing to give their lives for Saddam.

Saddam may not have been a great enough man to be noticeable by the President of the United States. But I think that historians will eventually conclude that he was the greatest Iraqi of the 20th Century.

Are there strong strains of anti-semitism in the Arab world? Yes.

I’ve been thinking about this comment and it doesn’t rest well with me. Because they do not care for Israeli aggression in their region and are prepared to make trouble for them does not make the Arabs anti-semitic. Are we anti-Islamic because we have attacked Iraq and Afganistan? No, we are anti-terrorist.

not “especially cruel but by modern-day

Philip, The notion that “Saddam was a hero to Muslims worldwide” is a canard. It’s tantamount to saying that Muslims worldwide stand for torture, mass murder, rape, and brutality. Is the Muslim world fucked up, right now? Yes. Are there strong strains of anti-semitism in the Arab world? Yes. But neither Saddam nor his sons was ever regarded as Muslims. Perhaps Bin Laden, but not Saddam. Saddam is as much a creature of the West as he is of the sad state of the Arab world.

There SHOULD be a distinction between bad US foreign policy and country X bad foreign policy. The US is a democracy. I vote. In theory at least, this means that I am somewhat responsible for the actions of our elected leaders. When the leaders *I* elect go out and start doing really shady things, I feel this reflects poorly upon me as a citizen who, by voting a leader into office, would seem to condone this type of activity.

It is easy to dismiss a civilian in Dictator Nation Y of guilt for his country’s actions. That civilian probably has no say in his government’s policy at all. It is not so easy to dismiss *me* of guilt.

Of course, the counterargument (which I’ll adopt) as to why I’m not personally responsible for, say, the CIA terrors in latin america? US citizens really don’t run the US government. This seems self-explanatory, but in spite of this it seems many US citizens still support the 2003 government as their representative like it was the 1776 government.

Please forgive me if I refute the argument that the killing of civilians for political gain by other nations justifies my nation doing it also.

First of all, my dear would-be terrorist, you didn’t need to clarify that you were european; your hyperbolic and self-righteous tone when talking about the U.S. already showed it.

I went to the link that you tossed, and what calls my attention is that it (as well as your post) lumped together the many countries that sold weapons to Irak (U.S., Britan, the USSR, France) together… and then procedded to blame the U.S. and *only* the U.S. for keeping Hussein in power. May I remember that, back then, the USSR was an, erm, separate entity from the USA and that, therefore, its decision to supply Saddam with weapons cannot be blamed on Washington? Go to http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/ground-equipment.htm and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-force-equipment.htm, count hoy many soviet and french models appear there, and then how many americans.

Mind you, I’m not denying that the U.S. sold Irak weapons for a certain time, but considering that the USSR supplied them with practically their entire air force, I find it funny that you people claim now that the U.S. (and only the U.S.) is singlehandedly responsable of Hussein’s stay in power. If you had talked about Marcos or Noriega as U.S. sponsored dictators, I wouldn’t have said a word, but saying that Saddam was a U.S. Cold War client is provably false.

As for the rest of the claims in that article… well, yes. Foreign policy is dirty. Realpolitik is dirty. The U.S. played together two regimes that it didn’t like (Iran and Irak) in the hope that they killed each other for as long as possible, a callous and inmoral action by any means. And France, fearful of the american influence in Africa, armed the francophone hutus in Rwanda, who then procedded to slaughter one million english-speaking tutsis (http://www.freeafrica.org/commentaries5.html). Where is your righteous indignation for the behaviour of your fellow european country? Oh, I guess killing one million africans is a small price to pay to stop yankee influence in Africa…

And BTW, it might surprise you to know that I am european too. However, unlike many europeans, I don’t feel the need to trash everything american just to feel superior and good with myself. Certainly not after the stellar role of the EU in (not) stopping the Yugoslavia genocide in the early 90s (remember who stopped the siege of Sarajevo?)

The CIA helped Saddam take power:
http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2003/3/17/191524

Philip: Are you trying out for that AM radio talk show now?

“why glorify their memory with all of this personal attention from the leader of the U.S., the representative of the American people?”
Should there be a blare of trumpets after that question? I can almost hear them resound, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! THE EMPIRE!

“Can we not find larger concerns?”
We could attack France next. The people have already been primed for that one. Cheese loving weasels, I believe the French were called. One thing about W, he likes to see heads roll. That could keep him occupied for a while.