Is world better without Saddam?

[TrueChristian]

The United States currently has around 5000 (I think) nuclear warheads and has used them in war.  Does this merit other nations attacking the US, on the chance that the US might - someday - use them again?

Yes.  America may be the nation most deserving of attack of any kind, since it is clearly the most bellicose nation in the world.

America has killed so many thousands of innocent civilians at this point that really there's no moral reason for the nation's continued existence.  It is because of power, both economic and military, that America continues, not because of any merit the nation may have earned in WWII (70 years ago, remember).

I can't deny America has done many terrible things and killed more than a few people.

However, since I live here, I do have a stake in my country's continued existence.

Whether we deserve to exist or not... it's worth asking if Saddam posed a threat of some kind to us.

I might argue yes, strange as it sounds. This is a new opinion I have and a year ago I would have scoffed at identifying with the neo cons.

But what is one to make of a man like Saddam who even among so called "terrible dictators" was a special kind of sicko?

He was the first man to commit a chemical genocide since Hitler (Al-Anfal campaign).

I know he was not an ally of Al-Qaeda, however he was tolerant if not sympathetic to Islamic extremism. He may have helped inculcate it in his own country ( look at how many of his former officers are with ISIS) and he had Zarqawi in his country for over a year before we invaded.

To this day, Zarqawi's presence in Secular, Baathist Iraq has not made sense to me. How could Zarqawi have entered Baghdad with Saddam's knowledge? Given that  Baathist Iraq was sort of an Arab North Korea ( one nearly as difficult to enter as it was to leave)  I find it hard to believe that Zarqawi (the famous head of Sunni insurgency) could have been in Iraq without the knowledge of Saddam and his ruthless security service.

For the poster who said we have been "out to get Iraq since the 70s" you are mistaken.

In the 80s I think we were just fine with Saddam. Reagen, Bush and Rumsfeld were all apparently fine with him, and we supplied him generously during his war against Ayatollah Khomeini. It is the height of hypocricy IMO that were just A-OK with him until his invasion of Kuwait.