08-07-2014, 03:10 PM
(08-07-2014, 02:19 PM)Duchess Wrote: It seems that everything that happens there is so much worse than Saddam's atrocities.
That's the thing.
By western or democratic standards, Hussein was positioned as the devil (back then; I think a lot of people are looking at things with new eyes and with more information available to them).
I'm not saying Hussein wasn't a tyrant, but he did not have WMDs and was not an al-Qaeda supporter as Bush and Cheney claim. And, the country was more stable (with more religious minority tolerance) under his leadership than it is under his US-backed successor Maliki. Now this. The Islamic Fundamentalists are taking over the country and there is no room from their extreme Sharia policies for non-Muslims who won't convert to Islam, nor for moderate Muslims. Convert, flee, or die -- those are the options for the Iraqis.
Over in Syria, Assad's military is doing better at fighting back against the same IS groups, but it's not been easy and over 100,000 Syrians have been killed by both his forces and the rebels fighting against him for control of the country. Many more than that have fled to Turkey, Jordan, Qatar... I think, and it's just my opinion, that extremists fueled the early protests -- to which Assad responded way too heavy handedly -- hoping to ignite a civil war in what was one of the most stable countries in the Middle East (where various religious populations co-existed). Now IS holds some of the Syrian oil fields and grounds used for IS militant training, etc... Take Assad out and you've quite likely got another Iraq, IMO. He may be a ruthless SOB by our standards, but he's still got a lot of support in his country.
Ironic, right? We're still officially backing the "freedom fighters" in Syria to bring down Assad whilst those same "freedom fighters" are now labeled "terrorists" as we condemn them for trying to topple the Iraqi government.
From where I'm sitting, it sure looks like IS is succeeding in breaking down the border between the two countries and establishing an Islamic (Fundamentalist) State.