So, Mr. Ratigan, is the world a better, safer place with Saddam Hussein removed from power?

Before going into my (current) final answer to the question, let me recount a story from an interview I did in August with Mike Mason of radio station KBBI in Homer. As far as I know, none of this interview was ever aired.

Mr. Mason said, “Let’s talk about mass murder.” My ears pricked up. Now we’re getting down to it. Mason continued: “Saddam is accused of killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. Have you seen the tape where several people are sentenced to death by Saddam and removed from the courtroom? Moments later, gunshots are heard.” I confessed that I had not seen this tape, but Mike assured me that he had, and he could vouch for its authenticity. He then asked, “Didn’t the U.S. have a responsibility to remove this mass murderer?”

[In July of 2004, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that shortly before assuming power as “Interim Prime Minister”, Iyad Allawi had personally shot and killed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station. Though firing at point-blank range, a seventh man survived. The story was reported by one of Australia’s most respected journalists, Paul McGough. It concludes:
“US officials in Iraq have not made an outright denial of the allegations. An emailed response to questions from the Herald to the US ambassador, John Negroponte, said: ‘If we attempted to refute each [rumour], we would have no time for other business. As far as this embassy's press office is concerned, this case is closed.’”
Links to the original story and an interview with McGough by Australian Broadcasting can be found in the Wikipedia articles on Allawi or the Iraq Interim Government. I strongly urge readers to check them out.
This is not a digression: Allawi, who planned terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians while on the CIA payroll in the 1990’s, is now the leading candidate to become dictator following the upcoming coup, which I predict will be shortly after (or before?) November 7th. The gloves will come off then: no more silly talk of Iraq as "a beacon for democracy in the Middle East".]

My answer to Mike Mason went like this: “I am certainly not going to defend Saddam Hussein or attempt to prevent the Iraqi people from obtaining justice, but remember that during the 1980’s, when many of the atrocities took place, he had the full backing of the Republican administrations in Washington, which also gave him the green light for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990; that over 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of sanctions during the Clinton years; and that over 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the current war and occupation. I agree that we must bring mass murderers to justice, but our first responsibility is to deal with the mass murderers in our own country.”

I wondered at the time if my answer might have been a bit too strong for Mike Mason's or KBBI's stomach. I'm relying on memory here, but they can clarify the exact language used by simply airing the interview, or this portion of it.

My answer to the question at the top will be the subject of my next post.