If you read the history instead of the demonizing propaganda, you will find that Saddam was a brutal son-of-a-bitch, and the brutalities were to prevent a civil war.

In the same manner that Tito was a brutal son-of-a-bitch, and when he died, Yugoslavia deteriorated into civil war.

Like Stalin, who held the country together with brutality, and when he left, the Soviet Union disappeared.

Well, much of the US brutality in Iraq is to prevent a civil war. Just like Saddam, only we're foreigners who don't understand the culture and they're fighting us for that reason, too.

Two wars in Iraq. One, against the foreign invader, much as you'd fight Iraqis if they were zipping around your neighborhood shooting things up. And two, a religious/civil war.

As the CO of the 1st Marine Division told the folks in his area, "If you go along with us we'll be the best friend you ever had, and if you don't we'll be the worst enemy!".

Just like Saddam.

As for the propaganda and demonizing, remember the Kuwaiti who told Congress about Saddam's troops unplugging the incubators? It's for adolescents, children, people who haven't developed the ability to reason.

Was Saddam bad? Absolutely.

Is the US occupation as bad. Absolutely, only it's more expensive and costing American lives.

Has the entire area been destabilized beyond redemption? Of course, which was predictable and predicted. Bush will go to his grave with the blood of thousands of people on his hands in his efforts to enrich Halliburton.

Arf