print” … there is something really screwy about this administration’s admonitions to Iraqis to get with the program. As though Iraq ever had it together; Saddam’s reign was one of the more peaceful periods in the history of this fractious people. What a shame it’s too late to dust Saddam off, give him a sponge bath, and beg him to restore law and order to Iraq.
Secretly, that’s what anyone with a head and a heart would want. We could promise solemnly never to mess with him again — just so long as he keeps his mitts off nukes, continues to check Iran (which he did splendidly), and minimizes massacres. To be fair, Saddam’s last major massacre was in 1991, during which only 3,000 Shiites were murdered. That’s less than the monthly quota under “democracy.”
No one is praising Saddam, yada, yada, yada. But even the Saddam-equals-Hitler crowd cannot but agree that Iraq was not a lawless society prior to our faith-based intervention. Even the war’s enablers must finally admit that under our ministrations Iraq has gone from a secular to a religious country; from rogue to failed state…â€?
The excerpt is from my latest WorldNetDaily.com column, “At Least Saddam Kept Order.” Feel free to comment.
“At Least Saddam Kept Order” is just one more reason why I’m having such a hard time deciding who to award the title of “worst” American President of the last Century; Jimmy Carter because he did nothing right, or King George because he does everything wrong. Now, where is that damn coin…..
Your column has fleshed out the comment I have been dropping lately to nominally conservative friends and relatives: “Today’s Irag kind of makes me nostalgic for Saddam Hussein.” I have more emotional, profane and vulgar comments that you probably would not care to publish. They will be online on some of my forthcoming websites. Hint: The war in Iraq has been nominated and is the hands-down winner of this year’s (and possibly many years’) “Clusty”. The “Clusty” is like an Oscar, Emmy or Grammy available to political and goverment “leaders” at all levels, as well as exceptionally bad corporate and media performances. “Clusty” derives from a word that is an updated version of military slang terms SNAFU and FUBAR.
Saddam kept order? Iraq is simply not a country, never has been, and apparently never will be. Herein is the error of all assessments, in cluding his.
Sectarian violence is a misnomer as well. The extent to which clan and tribe affect the Middle East is utterly ignored (or unknown) by commentators and world leaders. Family, clan, tribe–ethnicity (even within the same race)–this is the foundation of a nation, always. Not ideology.
Iraq is not a nation.
Eccles. 5:7,Masoretic Text: “If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and the violent perverting of justiceand righteousness in the state, marvel not at the matter; for one higher than the high watcheth, and there are higher than they.” and should a “friend” pass by…Proverbs 26:17, Masoretic Text: “He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife not his own, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.” What more is there to say…?
Touche!
So are you suggesting that what Iraq needs is a more benevolent dictator who would rule with an “iron hand” like Saddam, but doesn’t kill quite so wantonly? [I’m suggesting the US stop meddling. What do you think Iraqis have NOW, in addition to death and destruction? What do you think they will get in the FUTURE, now that their country is broken!]
This is not a rhetorical question, nor am I being sarcastic. The question of whether a more-or-less benign authoritarianism is the best some peoples can expect is one libertarians generally steer clear of – or deny the validity of altogether. [This libertarian never avoid 1) describing reality and deducing truths about it 2) illustrating the consequences of central-planning style interventions.]
I remember when I was doing research among the Filipino community in the midwest and asked what they thought of then-president Corazon Aquino. A typical response was, “Corrie Aquino is a saint – but a saint cannot govern the Phillippines. She is a woman and is not willing to shed blood.”
Several years ago I read that taking out Saddam is a piece of cake but what we do afterwards is a real challenge. The Arabs have been killing each other for years and the bloodshed appears to have no signs of abating.
When President Bush landed on the flight deck of the USS. Abraham Lincoln ON May 1st, 2003 he was greeted by a banner reading: “Mission Accomplished,” and so it was.
Let’s go back to August ’03. The mission referred to was to take out Saddam Hussein (and that man needed taking out), the ‘battle-tested’ Iraqi army ceased to exist as a cohesive fighting force in but a few days of combat and, most important, Libya, Somalia, and Pakistan made haste to join the winning side—us.
If we had quit right there and then, leaving behind a note to whoever grasped power in Baghdad that they could have a repeat performance anytime they felt so inclined, it is exceedingly unlikely that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia (all three democratically elected) and Kim Jong-il of North Korea, would have dared to snap their fingers in a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it gesture in Jonathan’s face.
But no, we had to go and try to impose a ‘democracy’ on a culture to whom the concept of a ‘loyal opposition’ is so absurd that it doesn’t even merit consideration, and that a man can differ with you and still be an honorable person totally incomprehensible, is a recipe for disaster.
What are we now doing in Iraq? Win a war? We won it. To put it plainly, Arab armies stand no chance in a slogging match against a Western army; it is simply not in their military tradition. The Arab military genius lies in light cavalry tactics—they skirmish an enemy to death.
We are now faced with the same problem that defeated General Bonaparte in Egypt, that defeated the British and French in their respective mandates in the Levant, that defeated France in Algeria, that defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, that defeated Israel in Lebanon and is defeating them in the West Bank. We are now facing a classical guerrilla war fought by a band of dedicated fanatics holding their own lives as well as Iraqi civilians of no account as long as they can kill us.
Right now our forces in Iraq face two enemies, namely Jihadists eager to earn their 72 virgins each (as an aside, what do the girl-jihadists get?), and the American media eager to play the “Gotcha!’ game who, in the full knowledge that should they be captured by the Jihadists and on video decapitated after being made to grovel and beg for mercy, are eager to trumpet on top of their voices any behavior of our troops which does not conform to their idea how to conduct a campaign in which there are no rules, at least not from our adversaries.
Let’s face it our adversaries no longer fear us and why should they.
E. David Litvak
I fully agree with the article about Sadam. Most Middle Eastern nations can’t properly function witout a heavy dose of ‘Saddamism’. He was a ‘good’ man for Iraq.
Mike