Will the death of Saddam be a good thing or a bad thing for peace in the Middle East?
923810
It won't make much difference.  It is already about as bad a situation over there as possible.
1100599
Hey Hans, stick to the subject.\nWithout war there would be no peace. Without war or the threat of war, the Germans would control Europe, the Soviet Union would still exist and Saddam would still be killing his own people and stockpiling WMDs. Without our military and OUR President the world would be a much more dangerous place. Someone prove otherwise. God bless our military and God bless our President!\n\nremeoui - Keep drinking the Kool Aid!
1066191
Today should be a holiday, i think of it as an equivolent to getting hitler, it will take a serious toll on the al quida.  \n\nYou guessed it though liberals are saying that it is a bad thing.  Some say that his death would bring 50 more people just like him, i again compare it to hitler, there was no one quite the same as hitler and the war would have been a different story without him.\n\nI think we are making some huge progress in iraq and am happy we are getting the job done
887010
Getting the verdict on Saddam shows progress in Iraq, a victory talking point. The trouble is Iraqi violence may acutally be up now because Iraqis believe they can influence US elections. Add that to the verdict, and you have quite an incendiary mix. In other words, annoucing the verdict now will likely lead to more deaths in Iraq than announcing it next week would. But announcing the verdict now probably will get the Republicans more votes, which is all that matters of course.
883064
My personal belief unfortunately will be the same as Vietnam...after spending vast amounts of money and human lives we may end up withdrawing.\n\nThe true outcome is determined by the citizens of the US .Will the citizens continue to support a war that has proven to be costly both in economic and casualty aspects? \n\nIt will take more than military force to establish peace in the Middle East.The divisions among the Shites and Sunnis go back many decades and peace must be worked out among these to groups themselves.\n\nThese groups will continue to live in the area long after the Coalitation Forces have returned home.
288874
World War III will happen and the world will suffer!\n\nI am more uncomfortable with Israel having nukes than Iran. Iran wants a deterent from America and its Allies invading them for their oil like we did in Iraq. Yes, Saddam is an asshole and deserves to die but he was never a real threat to us. I don't believe in Bush's answer of we attack to protect freedom and save innocent people...blah blah blah. If that were true then we would have invades China, North Korea or many of the countries in Africa and South America because these goverments are also killing innocents and crushing freedom but there NO OIL THERE for us to take or the country in question can fight back.
262405
Indeed, I wonder how long he'd last on the streets of Baghdad! I think one would have to be extremely politically correct to worry whether or not Saddam's getting a fair trial... Sad though it is - and a noble experiment - Bush's plan to bring democracy to Iraq has predictably turned to crap; give them democracy and they'll elect an autocratic cleric or madman. The Middle East typically produces characters like Saddam, essentially because that's what it wants. You can't educate people who are stuck in the Dark Ages.
616340
Absolutely. He was the first Arab leader to agree to meet with the Israelis. Egypt was on the verge of accomplishing peace in the Middle East. However, terrorists would not allow this to happen and Sadat was murdered.
919750
Nope.  Under Saddam the utility system worked, there were no roving gangs of thugs, and there were not Al Qaeda insurgents wandering the land.  Since the invasion 600,000 Iraqis have died.  Saddam was a bad guy, but the price of the invasion has been very high for Iraqis.
125779
yes\n\nsure happy ,saddam is a big bucher & criminal ,1.5 million Iraqi killed by him and his fellows
878808
Does war bring those people back to life?  In any case, the primary questions are what the cost is of the war, whether or not there is an ongoing genocide, and whether or not less drastic options can be used instead.  If more people will likely be killed by the war than would have died had the leader stayed in power, war is unjusitified.  Overthrowing a leader must be based on saving future lives.  Why bring a person to justice if the act of doing so causes even more deaths?  In the real world of international politics, killing more people out of "justice" is not justified.  Only the expectation of future killings can be the grounds for starting a war, and even this is not sufficient if the war is going to cost more lives than would have otherwise been lost.  If Saddam was responsible for the deaths for 2 million (which includes battle deaths from starting wars, and by this logic Bush is responsible for the deaths of this current war), that is very bad, but does not justify starting a war which will likely kill more people than would have died anyway.  A war of liberation is only justified if it makes the liberated country better off than it would have been; thus far that has not been the situation.  Also, a war to save lives would only be justified if other options were impossible or improbable.  This was not the case in Iraq.  Saddam allowed weapons inpectors in to the country, and its a reasonable assumption that human rights inspections would have been allowed as well.  If he refused human rights inspections and weapons inspections, then you would have a case for war on humanitarian grounds and on the grounds of WMD fears.  But he did not refuse weapons inspectors entry, and was never asked about human rights inspections, so there is no valid case based on WMD's or human rights, despite past murders.  \n\nFinally, saddam allowed weapons inspectors in to all areas of the country, not just certain ones.  according to the inspectors: "The Iraqi side has tried on occasion to attach conditions, as it did regarding helicopters and U-2 planes.  Iraq has not, however, so far persisted in these or other conditions for the exercise of any of our inspection rights.  If it did, we would report it."  http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/SC7asdelivered.htm\n\nIraq was cooperating, albeit grudgingly, with inspections.  As for proof, how do you prove that you do not have WMD's aside from allowing inspections and saying that you don't have them?  Its very difficult to prove a negative.  "Iraq was supposed to turn everything over to the UN, which would supervise its destruction and removal. Iraq instead chose to destroy - unilaterally, without UN supervision - a great deal of this equipment. We were later able to verify this. But the problem is that this destruction took place without documentation, which means the question of verification gets messy very quickly." - Scott Ritter, former US weapon inspector in Iraq. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,794771,00.html\n\n"Got rid of nuclear weapons"?  He never had nuclear weapons.  The WMD's that he had in the past were chemical and biological, never nuclear.  That's widely acknowledged now.  And the WMD's that he had in the past, even if he still had them, would have been useless - "Iraq manufactured three nerve agents: sarin, tabun, and VX. Some people who want war with Iraq describe 20,000 munitions filled with sarin and tabun nerve agents that could be used against Americans. The facts, however, don't support this. Sarin and tabun have a shelf-life of five years. Even if Iraq had somehow managed to hide this vast number of weapons from inspectors, what they are now storing is nothing more than useless, harmless goo." - Scott Ritter http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,794771,00.html\n\nThe war had no justification on humanitarian grounds, nor on WMD grounds.  The guardian story quoted twice above is a
42000
i think a lot of it..comes from islam.  although it contains five pillars, of peace and charity - one is required to defend islam (this is played down by moderates and used mostly by extremists) and that is exactly what saddam did. he could have killed millions MORE, but in defense of islam it would have been somewhat acceptable.  islam does mean "peace" but when your new occupying power, US, are not brothers within the islam faith, we're technically the infidels, and shouldn't be tolerated.  the people of iraq are mostly peaceful people and should be viewed as such... But islam only allows that to go so far when you've lived under a theocracy your whole life...
820795
as per the recent poll conducted by the guardian news paper, bush outranked the presidents of Iran and north Korea who are regarded as danger to world peace. the poll was conducted in Canada, Israel, the UK and the USA and in some countries he was second to osama. the peace loving , democratic people of the USA sent signals to the world that they do not approve bush's policy in Iraq. the number of civilians killed is not 150000 but more than 600000 and all third world countries must unite and denounce bush's policy in Iraq and bring pressure on the UN to establish an international tribune for the trial of bush for war crimes in Iraq.
928147
No.  The entire process was doomed from the beginning.  Besides the fact that the operation was poorly planned and executed, the people of Iraq have too many long standing ethnic/religious differences.  Just like eastern Europe under the Communist regimes, these differences were quelled by the strong-armed rule of Sadaam.  We are dreaming if we think that we will force middle eastern people to become like us.  They will not accept our religion or our western values.   They will have to work it out themselves with our support, not our intervention.
419350
The only reason that anyone is interested in peace in the middle east is because of oil. The Iraq-Kuwait war was started because of oil. \nSo to answer your question 95%. If Iraq and Kuwait didn't have oil then no one would give a rat's ass. \nJust because it is about oil doesn't make it a bad thing. If the would's oil production is cut off the reults may be 10 times worse than the war in Iraq.
986590
To be honest I think its a Catch 22 situation.  You let him live and one group of people will be annoyed and rebel, you kill him and a different bunch of people are annoyed and rebel.  So no matter what happens there is going to be violence and terrorism in my opinion.  So what should be done?  Who knows, Saddam has been tried and found guilty of mass murder, he should be punished and in the eyes of Iraqi law that means death by hanging.  All we can do is obey the law.
185154
No! Peace is great for this world! There has been enough bloodshed!