Article: How Saddam Happened

[ClubMed]

Article at Newsweek.

[LinuxNewbie]

i already knew that one. the most ironic part is that the US gave him tons of weapons that he later used/tried to use/will use on the US.

why was Iran a concern anyway? all i heard was something about Iran turned into a religious place where the Shah (spelling?) ruled like a dictator.

was he preaching anti-US stuff before the US supported Iraq in a war against Iran? me dunno much about middle east

[daveleau]

He was the lesser of two evils at teh time. Nothing wrong with what we did, because if you are smart and look at the context of the situation OF THAT TIME and not bias yourself on present events, you will see that that course was the best course of action to subdue the then feared and hated Iranian threat. They have since subsided and Iraq is now a threat. If we hadn't done that, we would now be facing a much more powerful iranian threat with twice the land sinc ethey would have taken over Iraq. Now, instead, we have one guy that we can handle albeit needing military might to do so.

[Redwolf]

We also helped Jopseph Stalin get rid of his archnemisis. Too bad he then saw us as the enemy afterwards

In the back issue of a TIME magazine, there was an excellent article about enimies of enemies, and past issues with such (like the Soviet Union, Afganistan (which helped us win the Cold War but hurt us 10 years later), Iraq, Vietnam, and other such.

[ClubMed]

Go back and read the article again Dave, America seems to have a habit of creating monsters that come back to haunt it. IMO that's quite wrong and misguided, it's about time that your politicians learn from their mistakes, because it's starting to cost a lot of American lives.

[Redwolf]

In a position such as ours, we leave good and bad things in our wake, intentionally and unintentially. Maybe we should yell 'DOH!' and kick ourselves, but we shouldn't sulk over this. Saddam is no less deangerous, regardless of if we had a hand or not. We still must face him, militarily(sp) or politically.

I added something about Hiroshima, but decided not to since this thread will catch on fire then.

[daveleau]

We are not perfect, as no one is. We do/have done the best thing for the situations we encounter and we continue to strive to do. What you fail (horribly) to realize is that our politicians are not psychic. We have a long tradition of vanquishing our enemies (humanely as possible in most situations), helping them rebuild, world-wide humanitarian efforts, and are the best thing that has happened to the world when it comes to human rights and ethics. We cannot gauge who will rise up from the ashes of our conquests over true worldwide evil. If we worried about that, your country would still be in shambles or you'd be a pawn of Hitler still (see link at bottom)! Also, If we let our enemies continue to live and breathe freely, then they will only try to take us over (us being the world). What you fail (again horribly) to see is that non-action is worst and is the quickest way to be defeated. Ever heard of "a good offense is the best defense"?

You are basing your opinions on some utopian society that does not exist but is most closely mirrored by (not your country or any other, but) the USofA. Until you can come up with a better society of your own, I think you should thank us for your freedom, and ease up on the criticizing. (Austria was taken by Germany twice and freed by us and their economy is greatly helped by the US even today and our military is there to protect your country since the vast bulk of UN forces are American.)

http://www.austria.org/oldsite/jul97/stephen.htm

Bottom line, quit comparing the US to a utopian society. Any nation except for the Kingdom God sets up when Jesus returns will fall short. The US has done tremendous amounts of good and small amounts of bad and the bad was either by mistake or was a byproduct of a greater accomplishment. No one except for God is perfect, period.

[Redwolf]

Agreed.

Intresting edit's Dave...

[Epidemic]

for all the demons we created how many of those demons would have existed with out our assistance? Would there be worse demons were it not for our intervention?

I too never really understood why Iran got so much abuse at the hands of the US. In the end was the Shah any worse than the Ayatollah Khomenei that followed? How much worse was the oppression under the shah than under Khomenei?

The worst one was OBL. He probably wouldn't have mounted to much without help from the US.

But the circumstances then were different. Who would have guessed that a monster would be created?

The Shah of Iran has been dead over 20 years.

I don't understand why the powers that be in this country take it upon themselves to keep getting involved in problems all over the world.

"What goes around comes around."