ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape

[cmdrjones]

My advice: Go long on on popcorn futures....

My advice: Go fuck yourself.

As far as the nazis go.... are you saying using the same analogy that Churchill did 75 years ago and in the same way somehow shows how things are different now? Or do you just abhor any mention of Nazis like its some kind of taboo?

Churchill was a dumbass and the quote befits a dumbass. I abhor dumbasses and people who think Nazis are better than ISIS, IE YOU!

Second question: Do you think the Mujahedeen of the 1980s were islamic extremists, or simply islamic people fighting an invader? Also, have you ever MET any mujahedeen from the 1980s? I have.

The resistance of against the Soviets carried heavy islamist undertones since it was fueled and is still fueled by religious extremists in the pakistani secret service. The US didn't care since everything religious was better than the godless communists.

Also, I don't believe a single word about you having met any of them. If you keep that claim I demand you to put up evidence for that right here, right now.

#1 Anatomically impossible Mr Garibaldi
#2 answer the questions
#3 nice attempt to disqualify... BTW When you are a Vet, a published author and the British head of state, I suppose you can talk shit, I'll NOT hold my breath.
#4 and so, we've moved from "It was Islamic fundamentalism" to "It has undertones." I consider that little goalpost move to be worth... 6 points.
#5 Perhaps that's true about the US attitude about the Mujahedeen. It is also irrelevant.
#6 So we're back to assuming the other guy is a liar eh? Am I going to have to embarrass you again?

[Channel72]

cmdrjones' claim isn't that unbelievable. There are a few former mujahideen and other former militant Islamic fighters (like former PLA fighters) who are now converted Christians, and often speak at churches throughout the United States. It's not uncommon for them to speak at mega-churches or other such venues.

[Ralin]

I'd assumed he was talking about meeting one (or someone claiming to be one) while deployed. As I understand it a good many of them were vehemently anti Taliban and even supported a secular society or something resembling it.

[Ziggy Stardust]

cmdrjones' claim isn't that unbelievable. There are a few former mujahideen and other former militant Islamic fighters (like former PLA fighters) who are now converted Christians, and often speak at churches throughout the United States. It's not uncommon for them to speak at mega-churches or other such venues.

While that's true, cmdrjones has not earned himself any benefit of the doubt, here. He has been caught lying in the past, and I believe was even recently temp-banned by Thanas for dishonest debate tactics.

The point is not to defend Saddam - the point is to highlight the gross negligence of the US post-invasion strategy. Removing Saddam is a "good" thing in isolation, but so far it has not resulted in a net positive for anybody.

It works both ways, though. I feel like everyone in this debate fundamentally agrees with each other, but both sides are just being stubborn about it. Nobody has tried to defend the US post-invasion strategy in this thread, that I can tell. Just as criticizing the US strategy is not in and of itself an endorsement of Saddam, TRR's criticism of Saddam is not in and of itself an endorsement of the US strategy (and he has been explicit in this).

His only point (and a fair one) is that it is a false dichotomy to claim that the ONLY possible options for Iraq are either Saddam or ISIS. If the US had deposed Saddam but NOT been criminally negligent and incompetent post-invasion, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Proper causal thinking relies on considering the counter-factuals; not blithely assuming that the historical course of events was the only single possible course of events.

[Patroklos]

It's a stupid argument because the vacuum in Syria was going to be filled by someone exactly like ISIS in all the relevant ways once it existed. There are in fact a half dozen serious contenders who fought and still fight ISIS for their current spot. Not to mention groups like ISIS would have existed in Iraq regardless of how good the occupation turned out.

It's just another form of Western hubris to assume we are the only input into how ISIS or a likely alternative comes about. Most of their members are not Iraqi and Iraq itself is a sideshow.

[The Romulan Republic]

First of all, apologies if it takes me forever to get back to you. It does not necessarily mean that I am unaware of your posts, that I am just dismissing them, or that I don't have an answer for them. I'm arguing with a lot of different people here.

See, if what you say is not actively directed against the establishment, how are you then a dissident?

Your actions can be "...actively directed against the establishment..." without being violent.

Hell, you could argue Bernie Sander is actively targeting the establishment, but I don't see his supporters shooting people and blowing things up.

And to what degree are we going to exclude people from the dissident list just because they propose a violent solution? The Dalai Lama is clearly a dissident, though he proposes violent change. But he is proposing it, not enacting. And then, there are people who, as I am sure you know, asked for the US military to attack Iraq. Kurds, for example. Are they not dissidents in Iraq because of that?

Of course you can be a dissident and also be violent. And I don't think I ever denied that in this thread. But their is, generally at least, a distinction to be made between violent and non-violent dissidents, legally, morally, and practically speaking.

Your right to be offended. But people used violence, for example, to end slavery in the US.

Indeed.

Since it appears I neglected to do so in this thread (though I have elsewhere), I will point out that I consider defensive necessity, as well as enforcing the law, a potentially justifiable reason to use violence. The American Civil War was arguably both from the Union perspective, and in any case I would never criticize a slave for using violence if necessary to escape their bonds, as I would consider it a form of justifiable self-defence.

I am hepling your argument here. Otherwise you will corner yourself with this pacifism. The war in Iraq caused such a massive amount of deaths, that you really do need all the excuses you can get.

My pacifism is not absolute. I simply have boundaries between where I consider violence acceptable and where I do not. They may differ from yours', and lean more towards favouring non-violence, but I don't think I'm fundamentally different from most people in this regard.

As for your implication that I am excusing the war in Iraq, I have been very clear that I oppose the 2003 invasion. I do support fighting ISIS, but that's a different matter.

I am so tired of imbecilic simple-minded thinking. Because I don't like Saddam Hussien and his regime, and I am glad he's gone, I apparently must be a supporter of the invasion.

I am not. Sometimes, both sides are wrong.

I wish Saddam Hussein had been removed from power though some other means and I wish that what happened after the invasion had been handled much better than it was. That does not mean that I'm going to pretend that Saddam Hussein's regime was a positive for Iraq.

Funny how you say this defending a violent internationally recognized war crime of direct aggression.

See above.

I am tired of this shit.

I have said repeatedly that I am against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and their is no contradiction between that and despising Saddam Hussein, thinking his regime should not be held up as some sort of positive society, and even being glad that he's no longer in power.

[Metahive]

#1 Anatomically impossible Mr Garibaldi
#2 answer the questions
#3 nice attempt to disqualify... BTW When you are a Vet, a published author and the British head of state, I suppose you can talk shit, I'll NOT hold my breath.
#4 and so, we've moved from "It was Islamic fundamentalism" to "It has undertones." I consider that little goalpost move to be worth... 6 points.
#5 Perhaps that's true about the US attitude about the Mujahedeen. It is also irrelevant.
#6 So we're back to assuming the other guy is a liar eh? Am I going to have to embarrass you again?

O, nice to see how many numbers you already know, can you count to a full ten, too? Come on, you can do it, what comes after six? Se...se...can you say it? Also, you can totally fuck yourself, your spine is like butter after all.

As for your accusation of "backpedaling"...who was that really prominent guy who fought with the Mujahedeen, what was his name again, o yeah, OSAMA BIN LADEN. Maybe some Mujahedeen were more secular oriented, but there was as big a contingent that was on a religious jihad to expel the godless communists and that's why those shmucks could claim the country after the Soviets retreated. Or do you think those guys came out from nowhere?

You have only embarassed me so far in that you're a human male like me, but I'm used to that. So, still waiting for that evidence since I don't take your word for anything other than that you shit your pants regularly.

[Patroklos]

The Mujahideen and the Taliban, while sharing some characteristics, were by and large not the same people and and where they overlap include a particular subgroup of Mujahideen. They fought a war against each other that continued in some form up to the U.S. Invasion

[Metahive]

Doesn't matter, the US, Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan financed all of the Mujahedeen and the Taliban and the Mujahedeen were not two distinct groups during the Soviet Invasion anyway.

ETA:

For some reading on the issue:
http://williamblum.org/chapters/killing ... fghanistan

[Patroklos]

You are right they were not two but rather quite a few more than that.

[Metahive]

You are right they were not two but rather quite a few more than that.

And all were Mujahedeen since the word is an umbrella term not pertaining to any resistance fighters specifically.

[Elheru Aran]

IIRC, the Taliban started out as a group of Mujaheddin (which is apparently the spelling that Firefox thinks is correct... whatever) that, after the Soviets left Afghanistan, started getting ambitious and flew the fundie flag high. That whole 'repent and God will be on your side' thing. Turns out it can work on a population recently devastated by warfare and where the majority of the men are packing and full of vinegar.

[K. A. Pital]

Mujahid means a fighter of jihad. Yup. There were secular mujahid groups in Iran, but they were brutally massacred. There are no secular mujahidin in other countries, not to my knowledge. Simple as that.

[Thanas]

Do you trust the US to fix things?

I certainly trust them enough to be able to destroy ISIS so far to render them inoperable. That is not fixing things, but it is a start.

I'll agree, we should clean up our mess. But do you trust our government with that task? Or do you think whoever takes it on will likely make things worse? Maybe we could earn some good will from Iraqi citizens by holding very public war crimes tribunals for the people that can clearly be connected to it. Cheney, Bush the Lesser, Rumsfeld. And of course soldiers that have clear documentation of being excessive shits. But even after that we'd need to do everything humanly possible to punish soldiers that do shitty things under their own initiative. We should fix our mistake, but I don't think we've got the people in charge that would do it, much less the capacity to keep such people in charge for the needed amount of time.

You know who currently in the west is bearing the brunt of the fighting against ISIS? The EU, for they are the nations that have to house several millions of refugees. I'd suggest the US pitch in with that, but of course "not our problem HERP DERP".

There are a lot of actions that the US can and should take that would immediately alleviate a large portion of the suffering. But they do not do that. Not even the bare minimum like redirecting assets already in place to save drowning refugees is on the table. For all intents and purposes, the US public and the US political establishment have decided to play three blind mice. I mean, even in this thread you got people claiming that the screwup in the middle east is not the fault of the US and that they should just leave the Middle east to itself, which is a particularly childish and immature response.

[Elheru Aran]

Destroying ISIS would solve one problem, but it would create others. For example, removing the powerful terrorist group that controls a lot of territory, leaves a lot of territory free for the taking by whatever bright boys are on top of their game. It's certainly not something that can be done unilaterally.

As for the refugee thing... I fully agree that the US has an enormous moral obligation, would you like to contribute to our campaign for getting the US to open asylum to refuge seekers from the Middle East? Bearing in mind that the country is run by a pack of slack-jawed drooling Neanderthals and Barack Obama.

It basically comes down to this: Is the US going to intervene with ISIS? Is the US going to attempt to help resolve the Middle Eastern mess? Answer to the first question is 'probably but don't be surprised if Obama hands that football off to whomever wins in 2016'. Second question: insert wheezing cynical laughter. Oh, sure, it'll 'help' insofar as the Saudis stay happy, Kuwait stays happy, and the black gold keeps flowing.

[Channel72]

His only point (and a fair one) is that it is a false dichotomy to claim that the ONLY possible options for Iraq are either Saddam or ISIS. If the US had deposed Saddam but NOT been criminally negligent and incompetent post-invasion, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Proper causal thinking relies on considering the counter-factuals; not blithely assuming that the historical course of events was the only single possible course of events.

Yes, I'm aware things didn't have to turn out so badly, given the starting point of a 2003 invasion. The only point I'm trying to get across is this:

The human factor here is really what matters. For the average Iraqi, none of the bullshit we're talking about here matters. The only thing that matters is that 15 to 20 years ago, they had a stable, functioning society with free education and healthcare. They enrolled in Universities, got jobs, started businesses, got married, lived their life.

We took all of that away.

I've met so many Iraqi professionals - doctors, scientists, dentists - highly educated women and men, really smart people with degrees from Baghdad or Mosul University, people with families and careers and lives ... all of that is gone. Some are dead (many educated professionals are kidnapped for ransom as a daily occurrence, or outright shot for literally no reason), others were lucky enough to successfully get out of Iraq, and now live in places where there are large Arab communities, like Toronto, Detroit or LA - but they are the lucky ones who already had family abroad. The Iraqi Christian population (Chaldean/Assyrian) is decimated, gone ... some escape to Jordon, others are refugees elsewhere, many just plain dead.

What happened to Iraq is literally as if, say, an advanced alien species suddenly showed up to Earth, decided they didn't like President Bush, so they invaded the United States, blew up all our bridges, highways, hospitals and power plants, dissolved our military, let all of our prisoners out, and then just got bored and left us like that.

Again, I'm not trying to argue that Saddam's regime was great or something. Iraq was really never the same after 1991 - which again, surprise surprise, is also mostly the fault of the United States. H.W. Bush gave false signals to the Iraqi people that the US would support an uprising against Saddam. That never happened because once again we lost interest. So the uprisings happened, and Saddam reacted with utter brutality. Ever since that point, Saddam became more and more erratic and arbitrary, executing people for the flimsiest reasons, secretly bugging everyone's office, recording everything... Certainly, Saddam Hussein was a problem that needed to be solved. But blasting Iraq back to the stone age is not a solution. The technological and social infrastructure that Saddam created was mostly good, and should have been built on - not destroyed.

And for anyone who claims they'd rather be free in anarchy than comfortable under a paranoid dictator, you're probably lying to yourself, or else you've been brainwashed by too much Western idealism and never actually had to live for an extended time period in 3rd world conditions with no electricity, constant water shortages, and zero public safety.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Do you trust the US to fix things?

I certainly trust them enough to be able to destroy ISIS so far to render them inoperable. That is not fixing things, but it is a start.

I'll agree, we should clean up our mess. But do you trust our government with that task? Or do you think whoever takes it on will likely make things worse? Maybe we could earn some good will from Iraqi citizens by holding very public war crimes tribunals for the people that can clearly be connected to it. Cheney, Bush the Lesser, Rumsfeld. And of course soldiers that have clear documentation of being excessive shits. But even after that we'd need to do everything humanly possible to punish soldiers that do shitty things under their own initiative. We should fix our mistake, but I don't think we've got the people in charge that would do it, much less the capacity to keep such people in charge for the needed amount of time.

You know who currently in the west is bearing the brunt of the fighting against ISIS? The EU, for they are the nations that have to house several millions of refugees. I'd suggest the US pitch in with that, but of course "not our problem HERP DERP".

There are a lot of actions that the US can and should take that would immediately alleviate a large portion of the suffering. But they do not do that. Not even the bare minimum like redirecting assets already in place to save drowning refugees is on the table. For all intents and purposes, the US public and the US political establishment have decided to play three blind mice. I mean, even in this thread you got people claiming that the screwup in the middle east is not the fault of the US and that they should just leave the Middle east to itself, which is a particularly childish and immature response.

I'll agree with all of your points here.

But when it comes down to it, we really should take the efforts to rebuild their infrastructure. We should do things within reason to help a stable government get established, and not just try to put puppets in place. Lots of things we should do, and even have the capacity to do. Unfortunately, the conservatives only understand violence as the means to gain "respect" and that's the opposite of what is needed to actually rebuild Iraq and allow them to create a stable government. And an enormous number of liberals in this country are completely fatigued with military action. Many have lost faith in the military being able to do something right and prefer inaction, many think we have no business occupying other countries even if we're responsible for them needing some sort of military presence to deal with bad people that see an opportunity. The handling of Iraq and Afghanistan has left a seriously bad taste in the mouths of an enormous number of people, and regaining trust is going to be an uphill battle. And given current US methods of dealing with "terrorists" over in the Middle East, namely indiscriminate drone strikes that very often maim and kill women and children that are just trying to do some farming... Yeah. We need some serious reform in military tactics before annihilating ISIS becomes something that wouldn't cause absolute carnage against innocents, too.


I want the US to clean up its mess over there, we should do it. But I don't want to give that job to people who will just make things worse. It's a dilemma.

[Wild Zontargs]

[Insert global power here] invades a hellhole and tries to impose peace, stability, democracy, and modern infrastructure when we (the rest of the world) don't like it? Imperialist assholes, the lot of them! Go home!

[Insert global power here] doesn't invade a hellhole when we do want them to? Isolationist not-my-problem assholes, the lot of them! Get in there!

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. You'll never do a perfect job, you'll take the blame for everything that goes wrong, and a lot of innocent people will die either way. An old story, this one.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

-- Rudyard Kipling, 1899

[Joun_Lord]

The human factor here is really what matters. For the average Iraqi, none of the bullshit we're talking about here matters. The only thing that matters is that 15 to 20 years ago, they had a stable, functioning society with free education and healthcare. They enrolled in Universities, got jobs, started businesses, got married, lived their life.

We took all of that away.

I've met so many Iraqi professionals - doctors, scientists, dentists - highly educated women and men, really smart people with degrees from Baghdad or Mosul University, people with families and careers and lives ... all of that is gone. Some are dead (many educated professionals are kidnapped for ransom as a daily occurrence, or outright shot for literally no reason), others were lucky enough to successfully get out of Iraq, and now live in places where there are large Arab communities, like Toronto, Detroit or LA - but they are the lucky ones who already had family abroad. The Iraqi Christian population (Chaldean/Assyrian) is decimated, gone ... some escape to Jordon, others are refugees elsewhere, many just plain dead.

What happened to Iraq is literally as if, say, an advanced alien species suddenly showed up to Earth, decided they didn't like President Bush, so they invaded the United States, blew up all our bridges, highways, hospitals and power plants, dissolved our military, let all of our prisoners out, and then just got bored and left us like that.

Again, I'm not trying to argue that Saddam's regime was great or something. Iraq was really never the same after 1991 - which again, surprise surprise, is also mostly the fault of the United States. H.W. Bush gave false signals to the Iraqi people that the US would support an uprising against Saddam. That never happened because once again we lost interest. So the uprisings happened, and Saddam reacted with utter brutality. Ever since that point, Saddam became more and more erratic and arbitrary, executing people for the flimsiest reasons, secretly bugging everyone's office, recording everything... Certainly, Saddam Hussein was a problem that needed to be solved. But blasting Iraq back to the stone age is not a solution. The technological and social infrastructure that Saddam created was mostly good, and should have been built on - not destroyed.

And for anyone who claims they'd rather be free in anarchy than comfortable under a paranoid dictator, you're probably lying to yourself, or else you've been brainwashed by too much Western idealism and never actually had to live for an extended time period in 3rd world conditions with no electricity, constant water shortages, and zero public safety.

The problem is Iraq under Saddam was better BUT only for certain people. People who were enemies of the state for whatever reason, Kurds, non-Baath party members, people of the wrong group (Sunni or Shia, whichever Saddam didn't like), the people of Iranistan or just anyone who ran afoul of the corrupt state. For them they could find themselves imprisoned for no reason, tortured, murdered, and just have a life of a second class citizen. Those people probably had it worse then Palestinians in the loving embrace of Israel and I'm damn sure very few people here would defend the treatment of Palestinians.

The reason people weren't exactly crying of Saddam being taken down (then taken up) was he was a bad bad no good man. A man who restricted the rights of his citizens heavily, who started wars with his neighbors, who used chemical weapons against people, who exterminated nearly 200,000 Kurds many of which were women and children, had several mass graves found, and had countless people tortured.

But who gives a fuck right? SOME people had it good so Ol' Saddy should have just been left alone. Why we should have done the same to Hitler, after all SOME German people had it good, were educated, and their society and tech was better then it was better or after. Who cares about the campaign of genocide Hitler waged against "undesirables" right?

Yeah I know I just invoked Godwins laws so fucking hard it hurts and you probably wouldn't be advocating letting Hitler run loose but for fucks sake mang, thats a bit what it sounds like. Its sounds like you are fine with murder, torture, human rights abuses, genocide so long as SOME people are comfortable, SOME people are educated, and SOME people have it good.

Saddam was a monster, he did monstrous things. His removal might have been FUBARed worse then the Wii-U's sales but his removal itself wasn't a bad thing.

[Insert global power here] invades a hellhole and tries to impose peace, stability, democracy, and modern infrastructure when we (the rest of the world) don't like it? Imperialist assholes, the lot of them! Go home!

[Insert global power here] doesn't invade a hellhole when we do want them to? Isolationist not-my-problem assholes, the lot of them! Get in there!]

I think many are saying that the US wasn't right to invade Iraqistan in the first place but because we did, because we broke it, we are obligated to go back in and try to glue and duct tape the broken nation back together.

[Channel72]

Saddam Hussein is so FUCKING AWESOME. I get really hard every time I think about his sexy, sexy mustache, and torture chambers.

Yeah I know I just invoked Godwins laws so fucking hard it hurts and you probably wouldn't be advocating letting Hitler run loose but for fucks sake mang, thats a bit what it sounds like. Its sounds like you are fine with murder, torture, human rights abuses, genocide so long as SOME people are comfortable, SOME people are educated, and SOME people have it good.

Yes - you understood my post exactly. I strongly advocate murder, torture, and genocide and I also like plagues, famine, and pestilence. As anyone who reads my post can see, I clearly believe Saddam Hussein is seriously amazing, and probably the best world leader ever, second only to Joseph Stalin, who is best known for stimulating the Russian economy and increasing living standards ten-fold. Plus, he also had a sexy mustache, but I can't decide if it's more sexy than Saddam Hussein's. I'll contemplate that issue a bit and get back to you.

I think many are saying that the US wasn't right to invade Iraqistan in the first place...

Ha! Iraqistan. That's hilarious. It's also funny because Iraq is a primarily Arabic speaking country, whereas the -stan suffix comes from an Indo-European origin, but you obviously knew that. But whatever, anything East of the Mediterranean is pretty much the same third world shithole, so you know, whatever.

[Batman]

This is getting annoying. Nobody is saying Saddam's Iraq was nice, it was just massively better than what we have now. Yes, Saddam's Iraq stunk. But back then SOME people having it nice meant a LOT of people did. Currently, NOBODY does.

[Joun_Lord]

Yes - you understood my post exactly. I strongly advocate murder, torture, and genocide and I also like plagues, famine, and pestilence. As anyone who reads my post can see, I clearly believe Saddam Hussein is seriously amazing, and probably the best world leader ever, second only to Joseph Stalin, who is best known for stimulating the Russian economy and increasing living standards ten-fold. Plus, he also had a sexy mustache, but I can't decide if it's more sexy than Saddam Hussein's. I'll contemplate that issue a bit and get back to you.

Well I'm glad we cleared that up then, though I do say Saddam had the superior mustache.

Seriously though, I know you aren't saying Iraqistan under Saddamn was perfect but you do seem to be trying to give it a pass because it had doctors and professionals and professor doctors and women doctors with degrees and healthcare and the rivers ran with honey atleast according to Sean Penn.

You seem to be ignoring the hardships and brutality that went on under Senor Hussein or atleast implying it okay because people were edumacated and it wasn't as bad as it was now.

Thats more or less what some white trash Notseaturtle apologists say when defending the Turd Reich. People were educated, people had a functioning society, it was a strong nation, the roads ran on time and the trains were paved. Sure some people died but it was for the greater good (Greater Good). It was not your intention to echo these ill bred and ill mannered douchebags but still ye do.

Ha! Iraqistan. That's hilarious. It's also funny because Iraq is a primarily Arabic speaking country, whereas the -stan suffix comes from an Indo-European origin, but you obviously knew that. But whatever, anything East of the Mediterranean is pretty much the same third world shithole, so you know, whatever.

That actually was from me mocking right wing fundie douches who seem to view the entire Middle East (even the parts that aren't actually part of the Middle East) as one homogeneous zone of funny brown people what speak that moon speak Arab-bic and it kinda stuck with me.

[Metahive]

You seem to be ignoring the hardships and brutality that went on under Senor Hussein or atleast implying it okay because people were edumacated and it wasn't as bad as it was now.

Actually, he's saying that whatever bullshit the Iraqis had to suffer under Saddam and his crazy sons was still vastly superior to what the benevolent intervention of Bush and his Bushmen wrought and that this is a pretty shameful accomplishment on behalf of those gentlemen.
Yeah, Bush's actions caused more pain, death and suffering than the antics of Uday Hussein, who was probably one of the most disturbed motherfuckers on this planet, Junior Bush can be so proud of himself.

[The Romulan Republic]

This is getting annoying. Nobody is saying Saddam's Iraq was nice, it was just massively better than what we have now. Yes, Saddam's Iraq stunk. But back then SOME people having it nice meant a LOT of people did. Currently, NOBODY does.

I don't think anyone is saying Saddam Hussein's Iraq wasn't better. Just that it wasn't good enough.

Why should the people of Iraq be expected to settle for "Well, most of you aren't suffering too much as long as you don't piss off the government somehow"?

Edits: It doesn't mean it was right for America to invade Iraq, but is that really how low you want the bar to be set for a government? Or does that only apply to an Iraqi or Middle Eastern government? Because I can't help suspecting that people who are holding up Saddam Hussein's regime as a better option, or treating it like the only alternative to the horrors of ISIS, would never accept such a regime for their own countries no matter how bad things got (I certainly hope they wouldn't), but have much lower expectations of what them backward Middle Easterners can do or what is good enough for them.

[The Romulan Republic]

To be clear, I'm not accusing anyone of deliberate prejudice. But I also believe that people make assumptions about the Middle East without necessarily realizing what they're doing.