re: #14 Destro

“the Ba’athists who would leave me alone if I stayed out of politics”

Really?

The thousands of women and children gassed in Halabja were anti-Ba’athist operatives? What about the other 40 or so Kurdistani villages that were also gassed around that time? And the Anfal Campaign only targeted political activists?

The half million Madan who were driven out or shot or poisoned and their villages all burned to ground; they were all involved in anti-Ba’athist politics? The two million refugees fleeing from the indiscriminate shelling and assaults by the Iraqi Army in 1991 that killed tens of thousands of civilians, and the refugee columns which were strafed and shelled by the Iraqi Army, they also were all involved in anti-government activities? The Iraqi Army’s systematic round-up of all young adult males in many cities in the south, followed by their summary execution was only targeted at known political activists?

Frankly, I feel that the American occupation of Iraq badly flawed. Nor am I convinced that the invasion of Iraq was necessarily in the United States national interest. However, that does _not_ obscure the fact that Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens.