"Pat" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
>
> : The Sunni are less than 10 percent of the population of Iraq. We had NO
> : problem whatsoever supporting Saddam in his war against the
> fundamentalists
> : in Iran, did we? Nope. We sold him weapons and gave him our blessing.
>
> The world has changed since the 1980's, I do believe.
Yes, now we have heavily armed, well financed, and well trained
fundamentalist Muslim terror groups who like to fly jumbo jets into
skyscrapers. You're right.
> Now,
> : when we have been attacked by RADICAL FUNDAMENTALIST MUSLIMS, we depose
> the
> : guy who stood fast against the fundamentalists. Unbelievable.
>
> Whethere we should or should not have, what's done is done. It is
> interesting that you think Sadaam is so admirable.
>
If you are a Christian, a woman, or a non-Shi'a Muslim, you would probably
rather live under Saddam than al Sadr or an Ayatollah. How do public
beheadings, stonings for adultery, no school except for Koran school, and no
freedom whatsoever strike you? Ask the Afghans what it's like to live in a
Muslim theocracy and get back to me. Saddam was a tyrant, but he kept the
fundamentalists at bay and actually built Iraq into a functioning society
for the first time since it was Mesopotamia. Before Saddam, Iraq was ruled
by a series of tribal chieftins who seized control in military coups. Study
your history, Pat.
>
> Do you know
> : that under Saddam, women were allowed to go to college, hold important
> jobs
> : both in the private sector and in the government, and that members of
> : religions other than Islam were treated fairly? Tariq Aziz is a
Christian,
> : and there was a small Jewish population in Iraq for many years under
> Saddam.
>
> And people were gassed en masse, and tortured, and starved and killed on
> Sadaam's and his sons' whims.... But, by damn, Tariq Aziz is a nominal
> Christian, so that makes it all okay, I suppose.
>
And in Iran the Shi'a stone women for adultery, execute homosexuals,
persecute Christians and Jews, beat children, and so on. Oh, wait, that's
how it is in all countries ruled by the fundamentalists. Not good to be
anything but a devout Muslim there, and if you're not devout enough it's a
beheading for you.
> : When the country finally goes over to the radical Shi'a, an Ayatollah or
> : whacked out mullah will become the ruler, and the country will devolve,
> just
> : like Iran.
>
> IF we believe in a democracy and give them the vote of "one man one vote",
> then we have to relinquish total control. That's what I mean by
> representative democracy, and it's happening. Whether the country
"devolves"
> remains to be seen.
We don't give a **** about "democracy". We have a communist dictatorship 90
miles from our shores, and we do nothing. Castro has killed more people than
cancer, and tortured people as badly or worse than Saddam, but Cuba doesn't
have oil, and we're not going to invade for cigars and rum.
>
> You seem to be living in the past, in the good ole 1980's when we just
> supported whatever tyrant we wished so long as the oil kept coming.
Uh, why support the tyrant when we can just take the oil? We also have no
problem supporting the House of Saud, who are as tyrannial and crooked as
the day is long. We still do business with IRAN, you know. Halliburton has
been doing business there for years, through its foreign subsidiaries.
Times
> have changed and you can't hold back the future. We are "giving back" the
co
> untry to the Iraqi people.
But I guess you just say to hell with the Sunni, Kurdish, or Christian
minority, right? You can't be naive enough to not know what happens to the
minority in a theocracy.
You don't know that bin Laden or al Sadr will
> rule.
Of course they will. The Sunnis and Kurds don't have enough votes to
overcome the huge majority the Shi'a have. The Shi'a Iraqis will vote for
whomever the mullahs tell them to, and al Sadr is very very popular. The
longer the occupation lasts, the more likely a radical leader is. But feel
free that Iraq will be the only "representative democracy" in the region,
until the mullahs decide women can't vote anymore.
You just don't know that---and you are underestimating the vast
> population of Iraqis who want a democracy and who are tired of war and
> insurgents and radical Islamists. Your "clue about the region" seems to
me
> to be hopelessly mired in the past with no clue about what is happening
> there now.
You mean the Sunnis? The Sunni are the ones who resisted the radicals. The
Shi'a believe that Islamic Law is the only way to go. You really don't have
a clue. I guess THESE Shi'a will be somehow different than all the other
fundamentalists in the Muslim world, right? Unbelievable.
The vast majority of Iraqis are Shi'a Muslim. They believe that the only law
is Islam, therefore they will elect people with the same belief. You're
naive if you believe otherwise.
