Better or Worse Off with Hussein?

Democrats are at it again, making inane comments about the war in Iraq, this time about Saddam Hussein and the incidence of terrorism. They're only trying to gain votes in November, and I hope that you're not dumb enough to fall for it.

There are a lot of Americans who get their worldview from not much more than The Simpsons, Family Guy, Desperate Housewives, CSI, MTV, and Survivor. This culture problem is compounded by the subset of them whose meager political and historical diet is piqued by inane comments such as the one given by Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia. Beating the "no link between al Qaeda and Iraq" Trojan horse to death, he added the supremely looney statement that the world would have been better off if we had left Saddam Hussein in power.

Equally silly is the ill-thought opinion of a portion of Americans that there is more terrorism now than before, and that America is more likely to get attacked now than it was then.

The fact that since September 11, 2001 we have had about 10 less terrorist attacks upon American assets than during the Clinton Administration apparently doesn't seem important enough to inform The Simpson Club's thinking. Even less surprisingly though--it has never occurred to them that Saddam was a terrorist, whose intentions included assassinating former President George H. W. Bush when he visited Kuwait about 10 years ago, and whose 'successes' included presiding over the killing of tens of thousands of his own countrymen.

Terrorism is always more evident in a free society than in a closed, dictatorial one. This is for two reasons:

1. The government in a dictatorship is the 800-pound gorilla of terrorism. Whenever it feels like it is losing control, or whenever someone dares to question its authority, its exceptional terrorism machine kicks in. Just to keep the people off guard, it can raid a home or two and take away a person or two that is never seen again. The best terrorists are recruited from the dregs of a dictatorial society, because they lack the moral scruples that would prevent most people from carrying out such attacks and reprisals. And it is very difficult, if even possible, to compete with it. Dictatorial states carefully nurture, train, and enlarge terrorist groups, providing them with all manner of hate-filled propaganda to keep them from noticing the debaucheries of their own governments, but focused, rather, on the United States as 'The Great Satan'.

2. In a free society, it is much easier for miscreants to know who their enemy is, and subsequently to form an alliance against him. American servicemen and women wear uniforms everywhere they go, but in Saddam's Iraq, one never knew whether someone in the group of people he was with might be a member of the Mukhabarat (secret police) or an informant. Thus alliances for the purpose of overthrowing Saddam were nearly impossible to create.

3. Iraqi terrorists know that there are certain limits beyond which (with certain aberrant exceptions) the United States military will not go. The United States limits itself greatly with its Rules of Engagement (ROE). The ROE of Saddam's dictatorship, however, was essentially "If it feels good, do it." If the terrorists knew that the United States followed them into every nook, cranny, mosque, and cemetery, they would be much less apt to ply their vile trade. If the US Military followed terrorists into mosques, cemeteries, and civilian crowds, and across borders (like Saddam invariably did) there would be few terrorists left.

Terrorist groups invariably reveal their true colors during the beginning of transition from dictatorial government to a society of liberty.

Iraqis cheered Coalition forces as they were rescued from the clutches of Saddam's rule of despotic arbirarity. They cried tears of joy when they discovered that American troops had captured their arch-tormentor. As often as they can get to a TV screen, they watch the Saddam trial, a huge majority of them in hopes that the death penalty can be his reward.

The Iraqi people don't want Saddam back. Terrorism is not worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein. It is simply more obvious in an open society. Not only that, violent debauchery and clashes between criminal elements are a natural result of the fall of dictatorships, which invariably create terrorist thugs and victims bent on revenge.

Why, then, would Senator Rockefeller be so silly as to suggest that the world would be better off if Saddam were still in power? Maybe he thinks if he appeases the crocodile that he won't be eaten until last.

Dumb.