re: #394 Daniel Ballard

Please take this as in support of dealing with Saddam eventually not the invasion itself.

He was a serial attacker. Iran, Kuwait, his own territory. His own words from jail are what what I base much of his intent on, and his frequent attacks on UN sanctioned forces in the no fly zones. Many of his neighbors wanted him out over the threat he posed.

Most of his neighbors are themselves assholes, though. And the US can’t really object to people being serial attackers. We’ve launched more invasions, wars, police actions, etc. than any other nation.

I really don’t like the weirdly moved goal posts implied in “no threat to the US”. While (perhaps) strictly true, it misleads one into forgetting the manifold interests we have over there.

It’s not a moved goalpost. Saddam was sold as a threat to the US. He wasn’t. His biggest enemy in the region was Iran. Al Queda hated him too. He was a lackadaisical enemy of Saudi Arabia, our allies who are shitheads on human rights.

Lots of tyrants in the M.E. Few have invaded two countries and gassed their own people.

The invasion of Iran is something that we encouraged, by giving Iraq targeting data. Using it as a justification for invading Iraq when we encouraged it is pretty shameful.