Absolutely Nails It

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

he was funding terrorist organizations...OUTSIDE HIS BORDERS

There's no evidence of this that I've ever seen.

The closest argument is that he was donating money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, but this is clearly more motivated by a desire to be seen as a compassionate leader by the Arab street rather than generating more terrorism.

in every country suffering under a dictator' oppression "most of his country hated(hates) him.," this is the exactly the case...you are so naieve...

Not always. In many dictatorships the brutal leader is seen by their people as a protector. In Iraq I think this was less so, hence the need for such obsessive security. Saddam's grip on his people was pretty weak.

in the late 90's when it served the dems/left NBC was running stories on Saddam with his picture side by side with Hitler's during their news cast and making all of the comparisons.....SOMETHING CHANGED????? From Hitler to Santa Clause in like 4 years...

In the late 1990's there was a big neo-con push to depose Saddam which generated a lot of attention. Nobodies saying he was a good guy, the issue is if he was a bad enough guy to warrant a mostly unilateral invasion. In the late 1990's the opinion from Clinton and the US Congress was a resounding no.

The only reason he was a bad enough guy this time around is because the Bush admin fabricated the link to 9/11.

What changed? Our leadership changed, not Saddam.

"contain and work toward a coup"...let's see...Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, shall I continue....where exactly has the "contain and cause a coup" ever worked? how about "contain and ignore the threat and suffering" that's the UN model.... which is why we have NK and Iran as a current pain in the A#$.....

Much of the containment issues we have been having are a direct result of our policy positions actually empowering those who which we contain.

N. Korea is a great example. You can't label someone as "evil", declare you're not going to talk to them and then have a hissy fit when they don't follow your every command. It just doesn't make any sense.

-spence