After 9-11-01 there were 2 kinds of Americans

[mdmc]

Those that thought that Saddam was a contained threat, and those that felt that Saddam needed to be violently overthrown in order to protect America.

Which group would you place yourself in?

[Junkdrawer]

1. Saddam was a threat contained, mashed, stomped on and neutralized...

But he was sitting on all that lovely oil....

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Saddam was never a threat to us.

He was a nasty secular dictator who we helped put in power, who we used as our proxy against Iran, and who we basically tricked into taking Kuwait so we could get our War On in mesopotamia. Having outlived his usefullness we then finished the job after the way too convenient attacks of 9-11 and had him executed so that he could never talk about exactly what has gone down with us and Iraq over the last 35 years.

[ixion]

16. exactly. NEVER a threat

that needs to be an option.

[efhmc]

3. What does one (9-11) have to do with the other (Saddam)?

[CaptJasHook]

6. Exactely, Poll needs improvement nt

[mdmc]

23. 9-11-01 caused

Iraq

[Subdivisions]

4. Saddam was contained. A threat he was not. n/t

[tuckessee]

5. How about a choice for "Sadaam was not a threat to the US now or ever"?

[TheUniverse]

7. I cant choose either of those options.

Hell no we did not need to invade Iraq. I dont know if he was entirely contained because he has been known to invade countries in the past, Kuwait, Iran(Remember we helped him on this one.) But still he hadnt invaded anything in 13 years, his resources were lacking so he was mostly, but not entirely contained. Regardless, we have no busniess attacking countries which did not attack us or even pose a threat to us.

[Solon]

8. Where's the, "Saddam wasn't ever a threat." option?

Or "9/11 had NOTHING to do with Saddam."

[DS1]

9. Saddam wasn't even an issue to me, the danger was in Afghanistan

:rofl:

Only a fucking moron would bring a pissant like Saddam into the mix

[Xenotime]

21. * just did it for his daddy

[2Design]

10. only threat was telling truth about rummy, cheney and other BFEE people n/t

[baldguy]

11. Those who succumbed to fear, and those who didn't.

[El Pinko]

12. None of the above.

Saddam was never a threat to the United States or the region in any way.

He was our darling in the war against Iraq, then he took more of Kuwait than April Glaspie gave him permission to and Poppy decided to use him to try to save his founfering presidency.

He was NEVER a threat.

[frogcycle]

13. Bogus poll. He was a threat contained, but...

not to the US directly. The ongoing series of violations of no-fly zone and abuse of the "oil for food" program called for a revisiting of how that containment should be managed. Saddam was getting away with self-enrichment at the expense of his populace, using the myth of WMDs to hold enemies (Iran, us) at bay. Bush used the failures of the "containment" as an excuse for his adventurism. If it had been better run, he'd have had a harder time pulling the wool over as many eyes as he did.

What SHOULD have happened during the Clinton years was a greater level of carrot-and-stick engagement. It was left to fester and handed to bush on a silver platter to pick up where daddy left off. 9/11 just gave him the catalyst he wanted for a completely unrelated plan.

I admit that the trumped-up "evidence" persuaded me that we needed to get in there and clean out the claimed WMD factories, if they did exist. I thought that if, as claimed, inspectors were being bamboozled by not being allowed to inspect at will without advance notice, and stuff was being moved around in some vast shell game, then we needed to demand unfettered, no-holds-barred access, and pretty much dare him to resist. Maybe just say, "here we come" and have a convoy with air cover cross the border. The issue with that would have been that it COULD have been a suicide mission, so who would you send? I expected he'd cave, but what if he didn't? The "shock and awe" approach was obviously vast overkill. But to put it in historical perspective, Lyndon Johnson sent thousands of troops to their deaths by sending them into hostile territory with their hands tied. There certainly was a "never again" mindset toward that.

The poll suggests that Americans were at one extreme or the other. That is grossly untrue. The quandary was that no option between those extremes appeared viable. Many were not satisfied that he was sufficiently and appropriately "contained" but not convinced either that an all-out war of aggression was in any way justified.

[varelse]

14. "Other"-Saddam was a straw man (nt)

[zonmoy]

15. closer to a patsy one of many.

[Dukkha]

17. Saddam was an ENEMY of Al-Qaeda

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0211-11.htm

Bin Laden Labels Saddam an Infidel

But the statement did not express support for Saddam. It said Muslims should support the Iraqi people rather than the country's government.

While urging Muslims to support the Iraqi people and repel any attack on their country, the tape said Saddam's secular "socialist" government had lost credibility.

"Socialists are infidels wherever they are," the statement said. But it added: "It does not hurt that in current circumstances, the interests of Muslims coincide with the interests of the socialists in the war against crusaders."

[Quantess]

18. I never cared too much about Saddam Hussein.

I didn't think he was worth America's time.

[LWolf]

19. I'm the 3rd kind of American:

those that knew Saddam was irrelevant as far as 9/11 was concerned. Those that knew that the whole thing was bullshit, and that Saddam was a useful U.S. creation during the years he "ruled" Iraq. That we didn't have to "get" him, because we'd always "had" him, having put him in place to begin with.

[Orsino]

20. Those who believe in binary logic, and those who don't. n/t

[Edweird]

22. Saddam wasn't a threat. He was "our guy".

That is, until the wind changed direction.....

[mdmc]

24. we need a president that can admit this out loud in public

:kick: