[Saad]

Yes, but you missed the key element of context, as well as validity.

Comparing Hitler to Saddam isn�t just a hollow charge based on mere disagreement with the man, but is based on elements of his actual dictatorial record. Therefore it's not in the same class of 'dippy comparisons' as was being discussed.

Do you disagree with me that Limbaugh reguraly uses the word 'feminazi'? Is that not indicative of his opinion, or is he making light of the National Soialists' actions?

[Saad]

On NPR 10/23, Grover Norquist comared the estate tax to the holocaust.

In the New York Post 10/23, Howard Dean was compared to Josef Goebbels.

The right uses the references as does the left.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by Saad:
Do you disagree with me that Limbaugh reguraly uses the word 'feminazi'? Is that not indicative of his opinion, or is he making light of the National Soialists' actions?

Since when did Rush Limbaugh become a 'mainstream' official? Who cares what he says any more than what Michael Moore sprews?

People give both of these two more credit than they deserve.

[Saad]

So what mainstream liberals have used such an analogy?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Ted Kennedy only recently said the prison abuse was the same as Saddam being back in charge, which is a rediculous comparison. You can find a whole host of rediculous charges from Kennedy alone- is a US Senator 'mainstream' enough for you? He compared attacking Iraq as being the same as Japan attacking Pearl Harbor.

Jesse Jackson on NUMEROUS occasions has compared conservatives he's disagreed with from everything to Klansmen to Nazis. Al Sharpton has pulled the race card more times than anyone can count. Carol Mosely Braun called George Will a Klansman for disagreing with her.

Gee, are Democrat party PRESIDENTIAL hopefuls 'mainstream' enough?

Senator Robert Byrd compared Bush to Herman Goering on the foor of the Senate no less.

George Soros said "When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans."

And you can find far worse from 'non-mainstream' liberals who as I said, use such tactics on a regular basis, including right here on this board.

[Saad]

Pat Robertson has been a presidential candidate several times.

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

"Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together."

Grover Norquist controls one of the largest PACs in the US.

The Nazis were for gun control, the Nazis were for high marginal tax rates, Do you want to talk about who's closer politically to national socialism, the Right or the Left?

Both sides use the metaphore, and it should not be used.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by Saad:

Both sides use the metaphore, and it should not be used.

On this point, I don't think we were ever in disagreement.

So think we'll see an end to the lame Bush/Hitler nonsense?

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:

Well, that would be the Johnson administration and the Carter administration, ��supported by the CIA�. Now you're backpedaling and blaming the CIA entirely, and the administrations may or may not have known about it (in which case they could hardly have �brought him to power�).

In other words, you're just regurgitating the usual leftwing pablum about Saddam being a US creation, and then backpeddaling and changing your spiel willy-nilly because the actual facts of Saddam's biography don't support the silly allegations.

I'm not into any leftwing- or rightwing-conspiracy-theories. Fact is that Saddam was put into power by the USA, be it the administration at that time that decided to do that or it was done by the CIA and paramilitary-structures all on their own, with or without the knowledge of the administration.

From here in my part of the world this seems just to be hairsplitting.

Taliesin

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
I'm not into any leftwing- or rightwing-conspiracy-theories. Fact is that Saddam was put into power by the USA, be it the administration at that time that decided to do that or it was done by the CIA and paramilitary-structures all on their own, with or without the knowledge of the administration.

From here in my part of the world this seems just to be hairsplitting.

Taliesin

This is too funny! Here you are presenting your 'argument' as a series of 'either/or' guesses, proving that you're just making things up!

Yeah great, so EITHER it was Carter that put Saddam in power, OR the CIA, OR some combination of the two- you don't know which, but hey 'from your part of the world' you just make up a few bizzare either/or situations and SWEAR that one of them (even though you don't know which) is actually 'factual!'

You can definitely get away with 'pulling a Moore', and saying 'oh it was just humor' on this one, because it actually IS pretty humorous!

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Yeah great, so EITHER it was Carter that put Saddam in power, OR the CIA, OR some combination of the two- you don't know which, but hey 'from your part of the world' you just make up a few bizzare either/or situations and SWEAR that one of them (even though you don't know which) is actually 'factual!'

Don't be so stupid and ignorant, there are other posters here who have already posted links that showed the support of Saddam Hussein by the CIA long before he became the dictator of Iraq and since then continously until 1990.

It's pure hairsplitting from here if the presidents of the USA decided this or the CIA, they are both part of the american government-system, and part of the american nation.

It's in fact your patriotic duty as an american to find out if Carter or Johnson were somehow involved in the installing of Saddam Hussein as the iraqi dictator not mine. For me it doesn't matter if an US-president decided that or the CIA-chief or some dude from the paramilitary-structures under the pentagon. Fact is that Saddam Hussein was put into power by the USA and was supported by the USA before that until 1990.

Taliesin

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

That the CIA had dealings with Iraq proves absolutely nothing.

You've yet to outline your 'case' of Johnson or Carter bringing Saddam to power, you're just spewing more nonsense along the lines of: "oh it happened somehow, and somehow it was their fault! Now I'm not sure how, I can't point to a single link, I can't show a single credible source that shows any US administration/Saddam in power link," but hey, 'from your corner' that's just something you can float with no proof and expect not to have to prove it.

Typical less is 'Moore' non-argument from the left!

[Saad]

Upon interviews with Ali Saleh Al-Sa'adi and Eretz Yisroel, he claimed that the CIA had been involved in the coup.

EretzYisroel

On 8 February, 1963, the Baath Party staged a bloody coup against Qassim, killing thousands of communists. Many believe that the CIA was involved in the coup as a way of destroying communist influence in the region. Ali Saleh Al-Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general, said: "We came to power on a CIA train."

The Star Tribune

In 1963, the Baathists overthrew Qassim, with help from the CIA, and this time they killed him, but held power only briefly, setting off a a period of coups and counter-coups.

Said K. Aburish, author of "Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge," who worked with Saddam in the 1970s, has said that the CIA's role in the coup against Qassim was "substantial." CIA agents were in touch with army officers who helped in the coup, operated an electronic command center in Kuwait to guide the anti-Qassim forces, and supplied the conspirators with lists of people to be killed.

"The relationship between the Americans and the Baath Party at that moment in time was very close indeed," Aburish said. The coup plotters repaid the CIA with access to Soviet-made jets and tanks the Americans hadn't yet acquired.

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
You've yet to outline your 'case' of Johnson or Carter bringing Saddam to power

I don't have to outline anything regarding Johnson or Carter, because you were the one bringing them in into this discussion. I was talking about the US bringing Saddam Hussein into power, and this has been already proven numerously. It plays no role if the CIA and other secret organizations including paramilitary troops brought Saddam into power or Carter/Johnson themselves, it plays no role if the presidents knew from that coups or not.

The interesting part is only that the USA brought Saddam into power, installed his dictatorship, supported him military and otherwise and even delivered to him chemical weapons.

I can't be left nor right as I'm not part of your american system, it doesn't really matter if a left government or a right government is in power in the USA. For us here both are as bad as they can be.

Sorry, dude, but by dodging the facts at hand you won't win any intelligence-prizes.

Taliesin

[Spliffdaddy]

You can't explain it, can you?

[Saad]

You can't explain it, can you?

It would seem that you would be the best qualiied to explain such a connection, as indeed, as Taliesin indicated no such connection. He claimed but a connection between the CIA and Hussein, and that connection has been documented in numerable places.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by Saad:
He claimed but a connection between the CIA and Hussein, and that connection has been documented in numerable places.

No, he claimed: "Saddam was a dictator brought to power by the US-administration at that time, supported by the CIA..."

As has been pointed out several times, Saddam came to power in 1968 (not 1963) and officially in 1979. Read any biography of Saddam Hussein. (In fact, that would actually be a good starting point for ALL of the conspiracy-loon types.) The timeline of his rise to power is well documented, so you have a set timeline in which to make your conspiracies work. You can't just make it up as you go and either/or your way around the established facts.

Neither of you have yet to prove the initial claim of: "brought to power by the US-administration at that time."

The CIA have covert dealings with everyone. That's what every intel agency in the world DOES. You're merely twisting this fact to say that they are therefore responsible for everything in the regime that ever happened, like the rise of Saddam, which is of course ridiculous.

[Saad]

As has been pointed out several times, Saddam came to power in 1968 (not 1963) and officially in 1979.

The Baathists took power in 1963. The first paragraph reads:

On 8 February, 1963, the Baath Party staged a bloody coup against Qassim

Perhaps if you read a history primer on Iraq...

I didn't claim that an administration had brought Hussein to power, instead, I claimed that the CIA assisted him (and other Baathists). Presumeably, the President is not aware of all dealings of the CIA.

Here's a good place for you to start your study:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/iraqtimeline1.html
http://www.worldhistory.com/iraq.htm

[BRussell]

The Baathists didn't take power in 1963. The Baathists were competitors to the people who took power at that time, according to your links. And Saddam was in his 20s then and not a player in national politics at the time.

I'm not sure why people are trying to make things worse than they actually are. The Reagan admin clearly favored Iraq as a counterweight to Iran in the 1980s, and maybe the CIA was involved in overthrowing the communist-leaning gov't in Iraq during the early cold war. But that's not "the US installed Saddam as dictator."

And I strongly doubt the CIA gets involved in coups in other countries without the preznit's knowledge.

[Saad]

The next two decades were marked by political instability and authoritarian regimes. The government of Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim, the leader of the Free Officers, was toppled in a Baathist-inspired coup in 1963, and Qasim was killed. Col. Abd al-Salam Arif, the pan-Arabist who succeeded Qasim as president, was deposed in 1968 by the Baathist Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, who had briefly served as prime minister following the 1963 coup. Bakr was ousted, in turn, by Saddam Hussein in 1979. Negotiations aimed at a political union with Syria (also ruled by the Baath party) and Egypt foundered in the 1960s.

Iraqi army officer Abd al-Salam Arif, b. 1920, d. Apr. 13, 1966, became president of Iraq in February 1963 after leading a coup by Baath party officers in which Iraqi leader Abd al-Karim Qasim was executed.

He was overthrown by Baath members, but Abd al-Salam Arif, the military official, purged the government of Baathists in the same year.

[BRussell]

Well if Aref was a Baathist, he sure had a funny way of showing it.

From your link above, 1963:

Kassem is killed in a coup led Colonel Abd al-Salam Aref and the military as well as members of the Ba'ath party (Feb. 8). The Ba'ath party, founded in Syria, advocates pan-Arabism, secularism, and socialism. Colonel Aref becomes president, Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr of the Ba'ath Party becomes president.

Aref purges the government of Ba'ath party, including President al-Bakr.

And then he was overthrown by the Baath party in 1968. It seems like he used the Baath party to stage a coup, and then ousted all of them after he got to power. Then they ousted him 5 years later.

I don't understand all the political nuances of this, but it's clear that Saddam wasn't installed as dictator in 1963. He was a Baathist, and they came to power in 1968, and then Saddam took power for himself in 1979. But I haven't seen any evidence that the CIA was involved when he came to power in 1979. That was basically an internal party transfer, rather than a real change in governments.

[edit - you changed your post. OK. So are we agreed the CIA didn't install Saddam in 1963?

[Saad]

Yeah, we were writing at the same time, I think.

[eklipse]

Regardless of how he ascended to power and in spite of all his faults, Saddam Hussein was still one of the best Arab leaders in recent times.

- and if you think that's a sad commentary on the state of Arabian politics - you would be correct.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by eklipse:
Regardless of how he ascended to power and in spite of all his faults, Saddam Hussein was still one of the best Arab leaders in recent times.

Really? Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, they're all worse than Saddam?

[Saad]

I disagree with you. The Jordanian King Abdulla is one of the most popular and respected leaders in the world. Mubarak is a renowned diplomat, though autocratic. King Ibn Saud is probably one of the most revered Arab leaders.

Leaders that lack respect or clout would probably include Fahd, of Saudi Arabia, Ariel Sharon, King Faisal II in Iraq, and Hussein. Late in his rule, Hussein gained clout for his opposition to the US, but is other wise viewed as slightly sacreligous. Fahd is severely disabled after s eries of strokes, and has yet to step down. Faisal II was a puppet, and a clumsy one.

[Face Ache]

You thought the USA pix were bad ? lol

Yup.

[BRussell]

Egad.

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
No, he claimed: "Saddam was a dictator brought to power by the US-administration at that time, supported by the CIA..."

You seem really to hang onto my lips, but I'm not inclined that way, sorry:

If I had meant the presidents of the US I would have written: Carter and Johnson have installed Saddam Hussein, but because I was not sure how much involved said presidents were in that, I wrote instead about administrations and the CIA.

Administration can mean presidents and (!!) their people behind them, like today's administratin is not just made up by George W. Bush junior, but also by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell and also the current CIA-chief and the chief of the paramilitary-troops.

What the administrations are doing officially and what they do secretly are often two shoes, but you can be lucky that the cold war is over and more and more informations about the secret side is being revealed, at least for you in the west.
We here in the islamic world we knew already that the US have installed Saddam Hussein from day one of Hussein's dictatorship.

Taliesin

[ebuddy]

Through a series of successes not related in any form or fashion to US policy or policy-makers earned his way into Baath Party leadership. By successes I'm also including martyrdom in the form of prison sentences served for his actions in support of Baath Party officials and membership therein. This is where he attained much of his education.

Then was instrumental in leading a revolution in 1968 (his bravery and stability were noted that day),

was eventually constitutionally elected Vice-chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council in 1969

facilitated the formulation of Autonomy for Kurdish citizens in 1974

became Lieutenent General and was awarded the Rafidain Order First Class of military

in 1980 bravely and wisely led army against an invasion by Ayatollah Khomeini's regime (whom we considered a bigger threat to the stability of the West at the time, hence our mere support in the form of weaponry and medicine)

was victorious in battle and eventually became 'Order of the People' by 1988.

Granted, while I believe Saddam was an evil man, his initial intentions and visions for his Country seemed healthy. It seemed important to him that stability and modernization be primary goals. Regardless of what you believe about Saddam, he did not need our help in attaining eventual leadership of Iraq. We did not plant him. He worked his butt off and through a series of legislative and military successes earned his leadership much like those in our country. He was the enemy of our greater enemy at the time and we supported him in order for him to take care of our threat for us. Whether you like it or not, it was an advantageous relationship. What he did with that power is what landed him where he is today.

[dcolton]

Originally posted by eklipse:
Regardless of how he ascended to power and in spite of all his faults, Saddam Hussein was still one of the best Arab leaders in recent times.

- and if you think that's a sad commentary on the state of Arabian politics - you would be correct.

I am speechless

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by dcolton:
I am speechless

Too bad it won't last!

[dcolton]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Too bad it won't last!

How much do you weigh?

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by dcolton:
How much do you weigh?

What's your favorite color?

[dcolton]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
What's your favorite color?

How old are you?

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by dcolton:
How old are you?

Is this you?

edit: removed asl man.

[dcolton]

Is this you?

don't do that

[eklipse]

You thought the USA pix were bad ? lol

[lil'babykitten]

rofl!

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
...Moore BS Moore BS Moore BS...

Give it a rest already.

Moore really is less!

You made a false claim, have thoroughly been proven wrong, and now are just making a list of excuses, all of them just as unproven as your original false statement.

[ladybird]

..

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Give it a rest already.

Moore really is less!

You made a false claim, have thoroughly been proven wrong, and now are just making a list of excuses, all of them just as unproven as your original false statement.

The truth is so hard for you to swallow, perhaps you should try to change the harddrive in your head, your current one has just crashed, as the only argument it can produce is "Moore, Moore, Moore...".

Reread the articles some other posters here have quoted and linked to that clearly show that the CIA has supported the Baath-party in its massacres regarding the communists in Iraq, which has brought the Baath-party to power and therefore also Saddam Hussein.
The Baathists even have said it directly that they came to power on a CIA-train...

Taliesin

[Saad]

That's just it, in the world YOU live in, mainly one that you've crafted for yourself where *everything bad* is selectively the fault of the US via some crudely constructed conspiracy.

Prove it. Cite specific quotes. Use evidence.

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by dcolton:
[B]Is this you?

Can't wait to see you banned...

[dcolton]

Originally posted by angaq0k:
Can't wait to see you banned...

LBK and I were joking around. Get over it.

BTW, how is Usama?

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by dcolton:
LBK and I were joking around. Get over it.

BTW, how is Usama?

Thanks to your President, he is still watching you.

[dcolton]

Originally posted by angaq0k:
Thanks to your President, he is still watching you.

Well, next time you see him, tell him I have a littel present for him.

[Saad]

Yeah, its a pretty awkward post to view while others are around.

[ebuddy]

OBL is another "ace in the hole" and will be presented like the Elephant Man at Barnum and Bailey's. He will be presented at the worst possible time too.