Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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William Raspberry, in the Washington Post, today:

We can argue all day that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant whose defeat and humiliation should evoke no sympathy from us. But he did have a functioning country. There was a government in place. People went to work and to the market and to school in relative safety. Can anyone really believe that the U.S.-spawned anarchy has left the Iraqi people better off? We broke it. Do we have the moral right to walk away with the shards scattered across the floor?

A ‘functioning country’?

You know what functioned really well in Hussein’s regime? The secret police.

“People went to work…” …when they weren’t going to mass graves.

“And to the market…” Unless you were a Kurd, and you happened to be in Halabja, when Saddam murdered you and about 5,000 of your neighbors with VX, sarin, and mustard gas. Shopping was kind of tough when you were vomiting, your eyes were bleeding, and you were choking to death.

“And to school in relative safety…” unless you were a woman, and Uday or Qusay felt like raping you.

Or if you were a Madan, or Marsh Arab, where Saddam purged you.
Or if you weren’t killed in Saddam’s wars with the Iranians, or the invasion of Kuwait, or the first Gulf War.

An end to the rape rooms, to the paper shredders, to the nation of fear dominated by the relentless sociopathic sadism of Saddam and his sons. Instead, Iraqis have a shot at democracy — and a tough fight against Abu Zarqawi and his cowardly band of suicide bombers. And Raspberry asks, has that left the Iraqi people better off?

We actually have to debate this?

What kind of American says, "give me the 'functioning government' of the dictator over a chance to live in freedom"? This is "Braveheart" in reverse — preferring to live on one's knees than to die on one's feet.

[Posted 01/03 01:28 PM]