A lot of what's been said hardly requires comment. I think it is quite sufficient to note everyone opposing the war has still ignored or swept away the Kurdish people. Not only has the campaign of genocide against them been stopped, the now Peshmerga fight alongside the Americans in Iraq. For anyone not ignorant of the horrors Saddam inflicted on them, that should settle the matter. Anyone wanting to consider themselves a humanitarian can hardly consider ending the Kurdish holocaust less important than all the other anti-war arguments being thrown about.

If you really think Hitchens is that cool, try to find anything that supports his 10 points of "positive accounting" in the article Cole responds to:
...
Actually, I can agree (a little bit) with his # 7: the immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.


"a little bit"
Go look at Saddam's Al-Anfal Campaign and see what he did to the Kurds.

Dropping mustar,sarin and VX gas on villages like Halabja wasn't the worst that he did. He just used that to push back the Peshmerga so his troops could round up more Kurds. Every Kurd his army could find was sent to be sorted, males age 15-50 where separated from the rest. The women, children and elderly were sent to concentration camps. There they were regularly beaten and raped, and many died of starvation and neglect, mother's lost virtually every child under age 3 to starvation and disease, while being raped and beaten. Life in the camps also sometimes ended in being executed or gassed. For the men, they only stayed in the camps a few short days before, without a single known exception, they were bussed to pre-dug mass graves to be executed and buried by bulldozer.

If you can only agree "a little bit" with the gains of the Kurdish people as justification for Saddam's removal I'm thinking you've set the bar for intervention too high.

edit:
and thanks for all the down votes, I'll stick to posts that only show the pro-war side in a bad light in the future. If he was owning Palin or McCain instead...

>> ^Farhad2000:
I don't need to ask anyone, I live in Kuwait. People are still sour at Iraqis and Saddam and are still pressing for the new Iraqi regime to honor all post 1991 debts.
But to say that people wanted the removal of Saddam Hussein due to some altruistic feelings is simply false when looking at these issues on a international level. The secular wedge of Iraq divided the Sunni and Shia worlds of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and threatened them at the same time something neither liked but something that was used to great affect by the Americans to secure beneficial trade and oil agreements and massive weapon sales.
Iran didn't start the war, it was Iraq who needed something to unite the people for after the prolong political cleansing that Saddam inflicted on the government.
Hussein Khomeini is in league with the fallen Shah government that was installed in a CIA backed coup, the religious regime that came in was no better then the Shah. But I would not give any voice to someone who is sympathetic to the neoconservative cause.
Yes he was a bad bad man, but to say that the American invasion and removal by force is the best way to deal with such instances is just lunacy.



Here is what I actually said:

"shoot people in their own homes and cities..."
Do you really mean to make it sound like civilians are the intended targets?

"in a preemptive global police action"
Removing a dictator that committed genocide against his own people, annexed a neighboring sovereign country and failed at annexing a second is pre-emptive?

"instigated for monetary purposes"
Really? Even after this video and the well documented down turn the American economy is going through? Are you sure?

"If China or Russia came over here and did the same to us..."
Oh yeah, let's go really far out into left field. Let's pretend that the insurgence in Iraq is fighting to reinstate the toppled Baathist regime. Let's ignore that the true liberation army of Iraq, the Peshmerga army of Iraqi-Kurdistan, is fighting alongside American troops. Let's even pretend that American citizens are just as unhappy with their government as Iraqi's were with Saddam. That's an insult to every man, woman and child now buried in the mass graves of Northern Iraq.


I never suggested what the 'best' way was. I just stated that the current situation in Iraq, as bad as it is, isn't as bad as the genocide that Saddam was continually pursuing. More over, one can hardly look at pre-war Iraq under Saddam and say that some kind of collapse and ensuing civil war wasn't already on the way. You can't say that the factionalism that the American's have blundered into worsening, wasn't being fed even worse by Saddam's heavy handed oppression of all Kurdish and Shiite people.

More importantly, the main point I was addressing is the notion that the video speaks of, the cost to American tax payers of the war. It is pretty ridiculous to suggest that the Iraq war could have been anticipated to be good for the USA's economy by anybody, and so talk of a war based on American greed is just hyperbole. The only benefit to America of removing Saddam is the same enjoyed by many other countries the world over, one less dictator encouraging war, genocide and division. Pretending the disaster that is the current state of Iraq wasn't well in the works since even before the first Gulf War is extraordinarily dishonest(though that lie was pushed the most by Bush/Cheney pre-War)

>> ^Sniper007:
Oh my, classic. "...ravages of market forces." Damn that market! Damn it all to hell! We need the government to control that evil market!
The 'experts' on this video can see the problem, but they have absolutely no clue what to do to fix it. Domestic "insecurity" is what the government should be addressing? What, now the Feds are supposed to make sure everyone is warm, well fed, healthy, happy, moral, educated, exercised, wealthy, insured, safe, and secure? When did the Feds acquire that responsibility, or that power? What if someone doesn't WANT to be warm, well fed, healthy, happy, moral, educated, exercised, wealthy, insured, safe, or secure?
Oh, and we aren't at war. Call it what you like, but it is not 'war.' Wars are declared by Congress. If you're in the military, and really love this country and it's Constitution, you may want to think twice (or even thrice) before you travel over seas to shoot people in their own homes and cities in a preemptive global police action instigated for monetary purposes. If China or Russia came over here and did the same to us, without even declaring war, we might be a little pissed off ourselves.


"shoot people in their own homes and cities..."
Do you really mean to make it sound like civilians are the intended targets?

"in a preemptive global police action"
Removing a dictator that committed genocide against his own people, annexed a neighboring sovereign country and failed at annexing a second is pre-emptive?

"instigated for monetary purposes"
Really? Even after this video and the well documented down turn the American economy is going through? Are you sure?

"If China or Russia came over here and did the same to us..."
Oh yeah, let's go really far out into left field. Let's pretend that the insurgence in Iraq is fighting to reinstate the toppled Baathist regime. Let's ignore that the true liberation army of Iraq, the Peshmerga army of Iraqi-Kurdistan, is fighting alongside American troops. Let's even pretend that American citizens are just as unhappy with their government as Iraqi's were with Saddam. That's an insult to every man, woman and child now buried in the mass graves of Northern Iraq.