Semi-Daily Journal

Not to be an apologist for a clearly "bad guy," but what's the chance that at least some of those mass graves are primarily populated by Iranian and/or Iraqi soldiers killed in Iran-Iraq war of the 80's?

Saddam was a "bad guy" ( what a childish phrase! ) but Bush I and Bush II have a proven track record of exaggeration and embellishment where the degree of Saddam's "badness" is concerned.

I find it tough to believe that Saddam needed to kill that many Iraqis to maintain power, or that he would kill en masse for no good reason. He was evil, but smart, and killing hundreds of thousands of your own population indiscriminately is not a smart way to retain power.

Saddam bad man, no need to exaggerate, eh?

Joey:
I agree with you.

Some of the mass graves may date to the attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf war.  (The United States encouraged the people of Iraq to rebel by hinting that we would assist an rebellion.  We didn't.)  I'm not aware of any mass killings since then.  As I understand it, the number of Iraqis executed for political reasons over the last decade is counted in hundreds, not hundreds of thousands.

It is hard to argue that our deposing Saddam has done these people much good, isn't it. The time to help them was in 1991 when most of them were killed for following Papa Bush's exhortations to rise up against a Saddam who was on the ropes and who could have easily been put away.

From Reuters: "Investigators have identified six major crime periods: 1983 attacks on Kurds, a 1988 campaign against Kurds, chemical weapons attacks on Kurds 1986-88, the 1991 crushing of a southern Shi'ite revolt, 1991 crushing of Kurdish insurrection, and crimes against all sectors of the population during the entire period of Baath rule."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20031108/ts_nm/iraq_graves_dc

This would seem to preclude that these are soldiers killed in battle, though not definitively. However, it says that these murders were committed while Saddam was a US ally or immediately after the bust-up over Kuwait.

Again, not to defend Saddam, but isn't unmarked burial, in the ground, without a coffin or embalming, the normal form of Islamic burial? Certainly the last time a Saudi king died the press made much of the fact that his body was simply taken out into the desert and covered with sand, nothing more.

How are we to know that these graves are of Saddam's victims, rather than normal burials? Obviously if the people in them have been killed, that would be probative -- but all we have in these reports are masses of bodies, which is what you would expect in any Islamic country.

It could be a publicity stunt by Bush, however, as unwise as Bush has acted it doesn't change certain facts about Saddam. It is certain that a large percentage of Iraqi citizens do not want the US presence there, but most Iraqis are relieved to have Saddam gone. When you have a liar on the one hand, and a murderer on the other, you're safer with the liar, but you cannot trust either.

Certainly Saddam was an evil man. However, some perspective is necessary here.

Most of those he killed in his own country were armed rebels seeking to either overthrow the government or to separate sections of the country into independent states. This is true of both the Kurds and the Shiites.

Lincoln was willing to go to war with South - to the tune of 500,000 dead combabtants and unknown large numbers of dead civilians to stop similar actions in this country.

And what of Bush 1? Saddam was willing to kill the southern Iraqi Shiites, but Bush was not only willing to let it happen, he was the architect of their fate.

If Saddam is decidely evil, what then is Bush 1?

>some perspective is necessary here...

Saddam is certainly way WAY down on the list of modern mass murderers...well below the scores of millions slain by Hitler, Stalin and Mao, the nine+/-million by Chiang Kai-Chek, the 2ish million of Pol Pot, etc.

Shall we calculate a breakpoint beyond which a president can go to war? Shall we spot the madmen, say, 5 million deaths before we overrule their lackeys in the UN?

Bucky, the USA shouldn't be engaging in unilateral tyrant toppling. ( Or maybe, tyrant tipping? :) Let's make it an international community effort, the better to avoid war when profiteering is the real motivation.

Would you agree that most people actually really don't care that much about mass murder in other places as long as it's you don't rub their noses in it?

bucky,

if 'spotting' a tyrant 5 million murders is sufficiently horrifying, why did bush go to the elaborate lengths that he did to gussy up the wmd claims?

let's face it, evidence is quite incontrovertible that those claims were gussied up.

i was strongly anti-war because i never really believed the 'imminent wmd' b*** s***. I could have been persuaded to support invading iraq to topple saddam based on his genocide.

i like to make up my mind based on my government presenting me with the truth.

how about you?

>Would you agree that most people actually really don't care that much about mass murder in other places as long as it's you don't rub their noses in it?

Totally true. Witness the world yawning over the various genocides/mass murders in Africa over the decades.

>unilateral tyrant toppling

Morally, anything unilateral can be made to seem selfish. In reality, the French, the Germans and Russians all profited from Saddam's brutality, so they were not likely to jump on board our bandwagon. France held the Iraqi oil concession as Saddam reigned over the gas attacks, rape rooms, etc. Not a pretty sight.

I abhor war as much as the next pacifist. But when there are thousands of lives at stake, and ample legal authority under both US and UN acts, war was the "least bad" choice.

And Suresh, while you fuss over pre-war rhetoric, Iraqi women aren't being grabbed off the street for a night of "fun" with Saddam's sons. Think about whether human rights or domestic partisanship is more important.

"[...]
And Suresh, while you fuss over pre-war rhetoric, Iraqi women aren't being grabbed off the street for a night of "fun" with Saddam's sons. Think about whether human rights or domestic partisanship is more important."

No, now they all fear to get out their home because it is no longer only Saddam's sons that are set to rape them.

DSW

>they all fear to get out their home because it is no longer only Saddam's sons that are set to rape them.

A citation for this?

>>they all fear to get out their home because it is no longer only Saddam's sons that are set to rape them.

>A citation for this?

This is a 4-month old report from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3070063.stm

One clipping from the above-reproach BBC certainly outweighs all the mass graves. And torture chambers.

> One clipping from the above-reproach BBC certainly outweighs all the mass graves. And torture chambers.

Nobody said that (if you read carefully, even Antoni didn't). It's just that, from the purely pragmatic perspective you seem to take yourself("least bad choice"), your reply to Suresh apparently misses the point.

What point? That Saddam made the trains run on time?