i think to fully understand the situation in Iraq, people should read about what happened before the rise of Hussein, and how he gained his power and became the americans' favorite bad guy.
a long time ago the USA's archenemy was still the Soviet Union and the Communism. the biggest stronghold against the commies at that time was Iran/Persia. USA was arming Persia until they had the world's 4th largest army !!! in order to finance such a huge army, the Shah of Persia oppressed and exploited the population so badly, that they soon gathered around a religious leader - Ayatollah Khomeini - who eventually lead the Persians in a peaceful and quite effective revolution, with millions (!!!) of desperate Persians on the streets. not a single shot was fired, and the Shah and the heads of his regime had to flee into exile. now the US government had a problem. the 4th largest army of the world was now in the hands of an islamic religious fundamentalist, who sure wasn't willing to continue the fight against the USSR.
so they turned to yet another dictator who practically lived in the neighborhood - Saddam Hussein ! they told him "Saddam, you're our man. we give you the weapons, you march into the Iran, stop the islamist revolution of Khomeini, and as a reward you may keep the oil wells that you conquer."
for eight years Hussein tried to conquer the Iran - without success. the casualties were too great ! since the oil wells were everything the Americans offered as a reward, and also everything Hussein wanted, he simply chose another - far easier - opponent he could raid - Kuwait ! for the americans that was an outrage, and over night Hussein turned from an ally to the new Hitler.
make yourselves clear what happened there ! killing thousands of Persians and Kurds was o.k. for the US gov, but seizing Kuwait...NO WAY !!! "hey Saddam, we're the ones to tell you whom to slaughter, is that clear ?"
Hussein basically didn't do anything different ! all he did was breaking a war pact with the USA, but suddenly he was the latest monster on this planet.
after the fist Gulf War Hussein has been so debilitated, that any talk about him being a threat to the world still makes me break out in hysterical laughter.
he hardly had enough military power left to oppress his own country, let alone attacking another one.
and that stupid argument that Hussein was plotting with Al-Qaeda. to hear that from the so-called sophisticated people is an affront to human intelligence itself. Hussein, a capitalistic dictator to whom religion is nothing but a useful tool, and Bin Laden, a religious fanatic, are working together ?!?
Saddam was the black sheep in the middle east !!! an atheistic dictator surrounded by theocracies, just imagine that. any true moslem detested Hussein !!! and no fundamentalist would have dared to plot with him.
and what would he have gained by conducting a terroristic attack on the USA ??? killing some thousand people, not even soldiers, and then -totally content- waiting for the devastating retribution ?! yeah, right ! this man knows the wrath of the USA ! Saddam may be insane, but he's not stupid. he would have known that revenge would fall on his head like a sledgehammer.
there's no way Saddam was involved in 9/11 !!!
as for all the "good things" America and other western democracies are doing all around the world (development aid and similar), let me tell you this: we're only investing and helping if it pays off !!! where was the US army during the bloody civil war in Rwanda, that cost over a million peoples lives - a civil war of unprecedented dimension ? the US army even ordered the UN troops out of Rwanda ! why ? well, because Rwanda has no natural resources.
talking about AIDS in Africa: tens of millions are infected ! their life expectancy can be prolonged with the proper medicaments. USA is the biggest provider of those medicaments, but the problem is that no African can afford them ! so when the african governments asked the USA to pass them the patents and production rights, so that they could distribute the medicaments to a smaller price, GWB denied that request with the following explanation: "it would conflict with the principles of the Free Market Economy" !!!!!!! in other words: "we wouldn't profit from that" !
so much for our helpful christian western society...
politics is still all about power and domination, money and property, deception and war. it was, is and will always be a fucking dirty business.
