Jon Stewart is amazing. He has 20-20 hindsight.

...as opposed to all the other media talking heads?

Be everywhere... forever.

Sadly that's more than Cheney and co. can say.

They screwed up the country, but still don't understand why and how (most of them won't even acknowledge the 'if').

What's even worse is many people still want to cling to the fantasy that Iraq wasn't already a disaster under Saddam's reign of terror.

Oh defiantly... which is why we needed to spend trillions of dollars, thousands of american soldiers and untold tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian lives, to accomplish... what exactly?

It may have been a disaster for many Iraqis (and it still is), but not so for most of the rest of the world. That can no longer be said, which means it's far worse now thanks to our expensive and deadly involvement.

Too bad he couldn't convince Kerry and Clinton, both of whom signed on for Iraq in spades.

Damm!! *Blocked as usual in Canada.
It would be very helpful if people could post the episode these clips come from so we can find and watch them.
We don't get clips on thecomedynetwork.ca, we have to watch though a dozen commercials and the entire program to see this stuff...

Please give us the Episode and/or air date so we can watch....

This video has been flagged as having an embed that is Region Blocked to not function in certain geographical locations - declared blocked by Sagemind.

Air date would be very helpful. TIA.

June 16, 2014 - Howard Schultz

Forgive me but I don't understand. Are you telling me you believe that Saddam era Iraq was better for the rest of the world? I hope I'm misreading you, because I'm pretty certain the entirety of the populations of Iran and Kuwait at a minimum are unanimous in feeling more secure in the absence of Saddam's military threatening them with repeats of his previously devastating wars of aggression against them. Tell me I'm somehow misunderstanding you,

Yes, Saddam era Iraq was better for the rest of the world than the current situation, by far. Far from perfect, but far better. More mass killings, rapes, and threats against us and our interests (and Iraqis, Iranians, and Kuwaitis)today than under him from what I see.
We didn't go to Iraq to support Iran or (in the latest instance) to support Kuwait. We put and kept Saddam in power BECUASE he was an enemy of Iran. I supported ousting Saddam out of Kuwait, and even limiting his abilities then, but not a second protracted 'war' for chameleon reasons with no plan for after he's gone. Removing him left a power vacuum that was an easily foreseeable problem we did little to solve and is now biting us in the ass.
You are misunderstanding because you are apparently equating what's 'best' for their 'neighbors' with what's best for the world. Saddam had little to 0 ability to strike beyond his border nations, so he did not pose a threat to us (except to those still believing the BS apocalyptic hype for the 'war' which have all proven to be lies). A power vacuum in the middle east is NOT what's best for all, or obviously even what's best for the neighbors, and IS a threat to us.

Saddam started the Iran Iraq war, which saw over a million dead, including the most prolific deployment of chemical weapons since WW1.

Saddam followed that up with the Al-Anfal campaign. Read up on it, it's one of the most brutal attempts at genocide in recent history, including chemical weapons, concentration camps, over a hundred thousand deaths and an effort to breed the Kurds out of existence through systematic rape of Kurdish women.

Saddam followed that up with the complete annexation of Kuwait. Effectively removing a UN member state and claiming at as part of his Iraq.

Saddam followed up his forced removal from Kuwait with a retaliatory genocide of Shia Iraqis again topping a hundred thousand dead again.

But yeah, he fortunately lacked the military might to succeed in such ventures for a time. He was bluffing having stocks of chemical and nuclear weapons to keep his neighbours in check. Pity he was removed from power then and we didn't wait till he could make good on his bluff.

Agreed, Saddam was bad, I'm just saying he's not as bad as it can get
(and seems to be getting). If recent reports are to be believed, I expect another genocide to follow, and numerous wars.
Most of the 'evil' he did was with our blessing and support, so I have a hard time now acting like he wasn't our proxy in those wars, or at least still our 'buddy' even when he gassed his own people...only when he went off script and tried to 'annex' Kuwait (screwing with 'our' oil) did we decide we didn't 'like' him in power, but did little about it.
I don't have a good answer of what to do now, but if asked I would have suggested we stay out completely from the start, it's like we learned nothing from our disastrous involvement in Iran.

Saddam was not as bad as.....

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign

Go read about the Kurdish genocide before you start a sentence like that.

I know it sounds profound and educated to observe that America was friends with him at the time. Ponder that comment further though and it looks uglier and uglier. Does American approval, or lack of condemnation some how change how awful you see any act to be? If it does, that explains a lot but for myself I reject for the stupidity it is. I don't give two craps about American policy when assessing genocide and prevention of genocide, I'd strongly advice the same to all others.

From what I've seen so far, the current 'insurgents' (ISIS) are even more hard line, and more ruthless than Saddam was. They have not yet had time or power to commit the genocide he did while we supported him, give them time. They certainly seem to be working hard on it from my viewpoint.
I knew full well about him gassing his own people, I did reference it in my post. I'm making the assumption that, if they gain the power they're seeking, ISIS will be worse, I make this assumption because they already have shown their colors with the limited power they have, I would expect worse if they gain real power.
My point about the US supporting Saddam does not mean I don't see the evil of his acts, it means I don't see how we, as a nation, can really complain about them now when we gave him the arms and put him in power, and kept him there after he committed atrocities, nor can we use them as 'reasons' to remove him from power...since we supported him at the time.

Should I assume you do not agree with the sentence...Saddam was not at bad as.... Hitler...Pol Pot...etc. Perhaps you should go read about WW2 before attacking the viewpoint that Saddam was not the worst possible leader...I suggest there have been worse than him.

I don't think you actually read up on the Al Anfal campaign if you wave it away as just Saddam gassing his own people. That was the least of the horrors he inflicted on the Kurds. If you don't care I can't make you, but I'll not idly ignore your ignorant claims it was less than what it was. ISIS hasn't even come close to it yet, and they'd need an incredible increase in their abilities and support to even try.

If you want to champion Saddam as the lesser evil, at least bother to study what he did more closely first. I'd also ask your opinion on Abu Ghraib and Fallujah.

As for American policy, I repeat my complete lack of concern for it when forming my opinion of what is good or better. I don't care whether America is some white knight or not, I care that Saddam gone is better than Saddam in power. My assessment of that doesn't depend on why America claims to have done it, nor on America's post actions or dealings with Saddam. Saddam gone leaves Shia and Kurdish Iraqis no longer leaving under fear of genocide(better than 60% of all Iraqis there). It leaves Saddams neighbouring countries no longer fearing another war of expansion and aggression from him.

And your on the right track with Hitler and Pol Pot when classing Saddam. Read about all he's done and you'll find they'd be right at home with him.

Gassing them was considered the worst part of what he did by most, agreed he did evil for decades, and that equated to more than a single (or campaign) of gassing, but as far as single events go, it was the worst.
As I said, just give ISIS time, they are more hard line and eager to kill than Saddam seemed, and on the rise fast. If YOU want to champion ISIS as a lesser evil, you should bother to study what THEY are doing now, with an insanely smaller group and less power than Saddam, if they gain power and people, I see them as likely being worse.
American policy should concern anyone who's discussing it, which is what we've been doing. If American policy doesn't matter to you, why are you not on your way to the Sudan or Congo to remove those dictators that are committing genocide yourself? When discussing what America's military did and does, American policy matters.
All Iraqi's live in fear today, as do their neighboring countries.
Saddam wasn't 1/10th the 'evil dictator' Pol Pot or Hitler were, and was never a threat to anyone but his neighbors. If you really think he was (1) I must assume you spent the 90's in Iraq trying to assassinate him, right? and (2) you really need to read some history.

Please do give us a closer look at ISIS is doing. Massacres, torture, rape, collective punishment and on, correct? Maybe killing what, 100 people at a time in the worst instances? That doesn't distinguish them from Saddam. Within Saddam's rule those crimes are what guys like yourself colloquially referred to as Saddam's 'firm' hand. They are his, so to speak, lesser and more routine crimes. I'd left them beneath mention thus far.

If you must insist on parroting your ignorance of Saddams al-Anfal campaign I'll resort to posting excerpts as evidence that the gassing was but a small part of it.

4,500 Kurdish villages were destroyed by Saddam, that's entire villages turned to rubble.
182,000 dead civilians by counts gleaned from Saddam's own records of how many Kurds his forces had succeeded in eliminating.
The concentration camps Saddam ran were pretty clearly modeled after Hitler's:
With only minor variations ... the standard pattern for sorting new arrivals [at Topzawa was as follows]. Men and women were segregated on the spot as soon as the trucks had rolled to a halt in the base's large central courtyard or parade ground. The process was brutal ... A little later, the men were further divided by age, small children were kept with their mothers, and the elderly and infirm were shunted off to separate quarters. Men and teenage boys considered to be of an age to use a weapon were herded together.

The conditions within the camp were terrible and torture, abuse and beatings were routine. The men of fighting age though were sorted for the express purpose to later drive them out into the desert by bus or truck for mass execution. This is how Saddam carried his genocide of the inhabitants of the 4,500 villages he'd destroyed.

Anyone interested in more or questioning the veracity of the above account can find more and endless references and evidence here:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/index.htm#TopOfPage

As for American policy, I don't quite see where I suddenly bear personal responsibility to clean up the world if I choose to form my opinions on world events independently of it's 'fit' to American policy.

I don't care much if it was Bush or Putin that took Saddam out of power aside from hedging on which would leave a better Iraq, either would be tough not to be an improvement from Saddam. Similarly for Sudan or the Congo, I'd be rather glad if world powers finally cared enough to try and spare the people there suffering under brutal military repression and endless war crimes. I'm not quite sure why you wouldn't share such a view?

From the reports so far (no clue to the veracity of them, just as there's no clue to the veracity of your 'reports') a group of about 5000 have so far, taken nearly 1/2 the country and 'informed' the populace that if they are the wrong sect of Muslim they must leave (or be killed)...they have massacred, raped, punished, tortured, and on...publicly and proudly (which makes them more dangerous, because they don't consider what they do is wrong, Saddam did but did it anyway). EDIT: they are gaining in numbers and power FAST...if they reached the level of power Saddam had and follow through on their 'promises', there will be millions killed and far more displaced.
Fuck you with your insulting BS, because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm ignorant. I know full well of the atrocities committed by Saddam, repeatedly, over decades, with and without our support and acceptance. You, on the other hand, claim Saddam was as bad as Hitler and Pol Pot, so I'll parrot your insult and say YOU must be ignorant of history. I repeatedly said gassing was not the only crime Saddam committed, but was obviously the worst SINGLE crime...genocides are multiple crimes over time, gassing is a single act at a single time, and the worst one he did. Understand now?
I would not accept Saddam's records to make your arguments, he was a well known insane liar.
for instance, which is it...4500 villages, or 7500 villages destroyed? Your 'information' claimed both, perhaps you should READ the information you cut and paste before deriding others for 'being ignorant of it'?
When you are forming your opinions ABOUT American policy, it makes no sense to ignore American policy.
I don't share your view about removing 'the bad man' from power because it never works. Without a reasonable, well liked, popular, intelligent government to 'take over' for the despotic leaders, and few if any zealots willing to destroy everything if they can't control it, you always end up with smaller despotic leaders fighting over the power or civil war, which has nearly always been worse (at least in the short term) than the despot. Because it never happens that the reasonable replacement government is ready before the expulsion of the despot, or that there are no zealots grasping for the power that's suddenly up for grabs, simply removing despots is usually worse than leaving them in power.
If it were done thoughtfully and thoroughly, I would support replacing them, but it's not done that way. At best, it seems the follow up is an after thought, which usually leads to disaster.

My information and sources are consistent on the 4-4,500 count of villages, the 7,500 was my own typo in my post, now retroactively corrected, thanks for pointing me to it.

For the rest I think your first sentence said all you needed to, there's no clue to the veracity of your 'reports'. Your view of a meticulously documented account from Human Rights Watch including interviews of hundreds of first hand witnesses, thousands of captured documents and audio tape recordings, as well as forensic evidence taken from places including but not limited to the mass graves themselves is to declare there's no clue to the veracity of such a report.

I think that about sums up everything, no?

No, it does not.
You cited Saddam's 'records' as a source, records which are notoriously exaggerated. You misquoted HRW and editorialized much of it. It sure seemed like a bad cut and paste job, but now you seem to indicate you simply wrote it yourself, badly misstating the facts (typos). Your 'reports' are as verifiable as mine, and more easily discounted since you site Saddam's records as a source, while the one's I reference were video records made by ISIS themselves. HRW may be a better source for both of us, but again your point is moot.

Once again, you are fighting a straw man...no one said Saddam wasn't horrible. I have and continue to say that the reported and recorded actions of ISIS are worse (for the amount of power and men they have) than Saddam was, and their stated goals and methods of achieving them are also worse for the people involved AND us.
It's interesting to me that you had nothing to say about my thoughts on 'removing the bad man' from power, from my viewpoint the actual topic of this conversation.
I think that about sums it up, no?

No, dumbassess....Here's a 'strawman' for yas all:

The terrorists are created by a highly influential and financed cabal of cunts who need attention drawn away from their fascist police-state vision of something worse than Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and Nineteen-Eighty-Four combined ever thought about being imagined, in order to prepare the world for an end game fist-fuck without lube and wrist-watches the likes of which Bradbury, Huxley, or Orwell could have never fucking imagined in their worst drug-addled nightmares, This potential anything-goes scenario enabled, by willing participants who think they have a clue ready to doubly-assfuck the gullible into thinking that sophistic mumbo-jumbo is some kind of cure.

Get a fucking clue people, you're all cattle to the conductors of the most twisted opera of catshit ever perpetrated on the civilized world.

Now: Are these the words of a "troll" or simply someone with a clue tired of reading the rambling retardation of passionate idiots??

^Trolling vitriolic rambling retardation.

Would there be any more name-calling, scripted cretins in the room returning to read a reaction unsuited to solicitation by an anonymous internet-blog-john who'd like to react rather than respond with intelligence-minus-ego-driven smugness???

Please newtboy (god that fucking handle grates), enlighten us all as to your personal hatred and dislike for someone who doesn't politely and tenderly caress your balls while choking on half-mast cock?!

Or how about this? Take your personal grudges elsewhere,or me and you into some private chat arena where we can kiss and make babies?? Hmm?? Fuck man, you and your goddamn new dysfunctional friends, the word hemorrhoid comes to mind.

Oh and, someone else it seems has something or another that went down with a familiar wave, should anyone be concerned?

I am. How about we discuss something you and whomever?? Simply a few 'little things', shouldn't take too long...

...as too usual...a discussion,...civil, information driven, more or less courteous and respectful...

...then IT, "Little...choggie Thing," rears ITs vitriolic filth dripping and spewing head.

At least, for a rare change, IT speaks from whence IT has an obvious extensive base of knowledge and experience, eg., drug-addled nightmares,


...and,...oh goodie...another insincere, self serving voting op! HMMMMM! Let's see,...I vote both, kind of,...TROLL who at ITs characteristic worst is yelling amazingly reflective self knowledge through his megaphone that is his alimentary canal in to his flith stuffed deafened ears.

...Swirley's mirror...ear's still plugged....

Here's the real swirly.....Two tandem cunts in matching ski-gear downhill on black diamonds forcing the admins they dream will suck their cocks, stuffing my head into a prep-school bathroom toilet unable to defend myself against some shit.
Y'all run with that.

@newtboy,

Who'd of thought our back and forth would wind up the civil portion of the thread?

On veracity, accuracy and demonstrable evidence please note I twice provided external links beyond my own day so. The last being to a thoroughly researched and documented account from Human Rights Watch. The only claimed verbatim quote I included was italicized to make clear what was quote versus a shorten in my own words summary. I included a link to the full document so anyone questioning my summary is very to call me out on specifics. Thus far the only in accuracy in aware of has been corrected. If you believe I'm in any other way mischaracterizing events as HRW documented it ask you to point it more specifically or failing that cease insisting that my account is anything less than very thoroughly backed by very well evidenced research.

By way of declaring lesser evils, I would ask you to be specific about worst ISIS has done that you feel so trumps the million dead of the Iran Iraq war and Saddam's multiple genocidal campaigns.

Lastly on ISIL, I don't think they are specifically the ones to stay up at night over anyways. Nouri Al-Maliki's credentials as a brutal thug are underestimated quite widely IMO and I very much expect the real nastiness will come from his crushing of Sunni Iraqis in the guise of stopping ISIL. Ugly times ahead, but I fear the guys your worried about are going to be taking it more than dishing it out, sadly leaving more Sunni Iraqi civilians dead than anyone else.

Indeed, however with small exception I thought we were being fairly civil. That said, we all know what to expect from the 'little f*#king thing'. It's why the admins are constantly on his ass, and he may be banned again.

My point about veracity was that one has to trust the 'reporting' by others who may have an agenda to further. Without first hand knowledge, it's difficult for some (like me) to give full trust in ANY reports. I tried to read the first link you provided, but it started with a 'letter' to Saddam and I admit I didn't go farther.
As I recall, the numbers were more in the 1-300K dead from the ethnic cleansing (I have 175K in my head, but I don't know if that's right). I was old enough to watch the reports live when it happened in the 80's-90's and worry I might be drafted. I have not intended to imply Saddam wasn't terrible, only to imply he was not as bad as possible.

What I've seen so far from ISIS were hundreds if not thousands of 'prisoners' marched to their execution after surrender, even after swearing allegiance to ISIS, reports of mass rapes, village destruction, 'warnings' to all those not in line to leave or die, takeover of 1/2 the country in weeks (or less), all by 5000 people. Reports are that they are gaining members, allies, and massive amounts of money and arms. For their size, they appear to be worse than Saddam, who had hundreds of thousands, if not millions at his disposal. If you multiplied the videoed crimes of ISIS in just the last week by 200+, you would understand my point that they seem worse than most weeks of Saddam's rule....when you consider their respective sizes.
I'll hope you are correct, and ISIS is soon to be wiped out, but it's certainly not happening yet. No matter how it plays out, you are certainly right that ugly times are ahead for Iraq.

"Indeed, however with small exception I thought we were being fairly civil. That said, we all know what to expect from the 'little f*#king thing'. It's why the admins are constantly on his ass, and he may be banned again."

Calling another user a little fucking thing is a clear violation of sift guidelines, hobble-able offense, but you get a pass huh?? Rules be-damned for for the most vocal of haters, a real piece of work this one....

Flavor of the Month? Dickberry.

You cunts in this thread is whats wrong with the world.

...another self-serving cowardly lie from "the little...thing,"

quoting "the little...thing" Itself:

"...oh and yes, my name is chingalera that, "little fucking thing over there.' "
(http://videosift.com/video/Hey-this-bottle-belongs-to-you: 9 months 2 weeks ago September 9th, 2013 04:47PMPDT.)

Otherwise, ironically self descriptive...the irony obviously on It.

...as long as you are inclusive...I am in total agreement.