[Professor S]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

Is it acceptable in my mind? No. No, Saddam was a horrible dictator, and it was well documented that he killed many of his own people. He deserved the hanging that he got.

It would be interesting to look at some numbers, and see the annual number of Iraqis the US has killed since the start of the war vs. the annual amount killed per year when Saddam was in power. The comparison isn't completely fair, and the numbers should level off in our favor at some point....but it's still an interesting statistic.

Well in order for numbers to level off in "your favor", 1.5 million Iraqi's would have to die. And there are cold hard numbers, but those numbers change depending on who you talk to and what criteria they use. Those that want to paint the war as evil, count every death possible, sometimes including natural causes, to make their point. Those that are pro-war do just the opposite. Regardless, realistic numbers don't even come close to Hussein's brutal regime and likely never will since the new strategy is working out so well and deaths have fallen to the point that the Iraqi government is asking us to reduce troop numbers because they think they can handle it themselves.

Otherwise, as horible as Saddam's dictatorship was, he at least kept some order...even if it was at the expense of tens of thousands of annual deaths.

So do you or don't you think that the tens of thousands of deaths under Saddam were more acceptable or not? First you say no at the beginning of the post, then you follow it up with this statement? Say what you mean and stop trying to play both sides of the fence. There is no such answer as "No... but yes."

I really wish I could find the video of Hussein's rise to power. It was televised as he sat on a stage, smoking a cigar, and having every other person seated in their "parliament" escorted out of the room and killed. Ever see someone shit themselves? Watch that and you will. Literally. I couldn;t disagree with you more, and actually talk to a Iraq war vet to see if your view holds any water. They've talked to the people there, and you opinion of "ordered dictatorship" will likely change.

That argument is valid, because let's face it....Bush isn't a humanitarianism. He's an OILitarian.

Explain the logic of this statement. Honestly, every time someone says something to the effect of "blood for oil" all they do is tell me they refuse to think critically about the war...

If the United States went to go fight for every group of people suffering massive net losses under the hands of a cruel dictatorship...well, we'd be involved with more than Iraq right now.

So if we can't do everything we should do nothing? I've never understood this argument. If we follwed the ethic behind it nothing would ever get done in the world in any venue. Don't let the impossible perfect prevent the achievable good.

In any case, we are there NOW. This is a real situation with real consequences if we abandon the situation or just let Iran do whatever they like. Do you know how much Hussein feared Iran? He lied about WMD's because he was afraid if Iran knew they had gotten rid of them they would have plowed them under. This is according to Hussein's interrogator.

Hussein feared Iran more than the US. And we shouldn't be concerned over their nuclear program and missile tests?