Word: saddamism
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...between imposing a police state or unleashing a civil war. Given the fractured history of the country and the divided makeup of the population, those two possible outcomes were predictable before the U.S.'s invasion in 2003. Bush's war has taken a bad but stable situation under Saddam Hussein and made it worse for Iraqis and the world...
Before the usual voices claim that the sectarian violence in Iraq is evidence of the futility of toppling Saddam Hussein, consider that the worst repressor of individual freedom in the Middle East--Iran--is still busy fomenting strife among its neighbors. Iran's militant regime is sowing chaos in the Middle East as it goes flat out to develop nuclear weapons. It needs a distracted West and a war-torn Iraq to accomplish that goal...
...accept the argument that the escalating sectarian violence in Iraq has nothing to do with 24 years of Sunni oppression of Shi'ites and Kurds under Saddam but is the result of the incompetent U.S. invasion. What about the passion to avenge atrocities committed by the former regime? The U.S. can't be blamed for that. Still, Iraqis are probably better off with a dictator, somebody to force them to get along. They thrive on dictatorships and blood feuds...
...parties monopolize power in their respective territories, and their despotic tendencies threaten civil liberties and the fledgling democratic process, creating an environment that is rife with corruption and repression. Frustration at this dual monopoly appear to have been behind a violent outburst yesterday at Halabja, the town on which Saddam Hussein inflicted a barbaric chemical attack in 1988, killing 5,000. It was the anniversary of the atrocity, and the mob destroyed the government-sanctioned shrine to the victims of the attack...
...Hundred Small Saddams Sunni-dominated Kurdistan is a tolerant refuge for religious minorities, who are free to worship as they please, these groups say. But the ruling parties keep tight rein over the Muslim religious establishment through the Ministry of Awqaf, an institution that was created by Iraq's British overlords in the 1920s to control mosques, mullahs and what gets said in Friday sermons. The Baathists maintained the Awqaf as a useful tool of coercion, but it was disbanded by the American-appointed Governing Council in 2003 and forbidden by Iraq's new constitution. Yet Ministries of Awqaf still...