Saddam Hussein's Death was not worth it

It is now the middle of the year 2011 and it has been almost five years since Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death and executed. If you are a person that believes in having a more peaceful world, you would think that removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq was not worth all the lost lives and injuries. And you are correct. Removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq was a bad political mistake by the United States and all the countries that have participated in this conflict. Here is a list of the most common reasons given for overthrowing Saddam Hussein while I will present the other side of the issue to bring across the point that Saddam Hussein being removed from Iraq did not really make the world safer.

1. Saddam Hussein was a terrible person who executed and tortured many of his own people

Yes, Saddam Hussein did kill and torture people during his rule from 1979 to 2003 and he was a dictator. However, there are many countries in this world that have dictators in them. It is not the business of the United States government to go around the world looking for dictators to overthrow. The United States should be concerned about issues in this country only and they should not interfere in the affairs of other countries. And even though Saddam was a dictator, he was not the worst dictator in the world. He was still better than many other leaders. Just because Saddam was a terrible person did not mean the United States had a right to even be occupying Iraq. The US had no right to keep on saying that Saddam was such a terrible person when they were supporting dictators like Hosni Mubarak before he stepped down as ruler of Egypt or Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov. There are many other countries in the world that have dictators in them some of which the US supported under the George W. Bush Administration.

2. Removing Saddam Hussein would give Iraq’s people a chance to have a democratic government

Any person that has any real knowledge of the Middle East will know that Iraq can never be a democracy because the people in that country are not used to a system of government like that. They do not even know what a democracy is. Since Saddam has been replaced, I don’t see any signs of Iraq being a peaceful, democratic country. Iraq is now under control of the Shiite branch of Islam which is different from the Sunni dominated regime of Saddam Hussein. Iran now has more of an influence in Iraq than they ever could have had.

3. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction

This is one of the biggest lies of all. Iraq’s weapon systems were dismantled many years before 2003. There were many routine inspections and checks for dangerous weapons and there were and still are no signs of these dangerous weapons in Iraq.

4. Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11^th atrocities

This assertion was also proven to be a completely false assertion. Saddam Hussein was a secular leader who had no role in the atrocities. Hussein would never have supported Osama Bin Laden’s radical ideas and he wanted to see Bin Laden eliminated for years. Even then US president George W. Bush came out and publicly admitted later on that Hussein was not responsible for the attacks. Also, the claim that invading Iraq would make the world safer from terrorism has also proven to be false. Invading Iraq has caused the country to be destabilized and there are bombings, shootings and kidnappings daily in Iraq. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused an increase in violence not a decrease of it.

5. The world would be better off without Saddam Hussein

Is the world really better off without Saddam Hussein? I don’t think so. Only those conservative right wing Republicans would falsely assert that the world is better off without Saddam. If you told this to millions of Iraqis now living under US occupation, they would say that the exact opposite is true. The world is a more dangerous place in some parts now that Hussein is gone. Saddam Hussein was able to keep Iraq under control. Schoolchildren in Iraq could go to school with little or no fear. They can’t do that anymore as the violence in Iraq occurs daily. Under Hussein’s leadership, Iraq for many years had an educated population and people had access to clean drinking water. Now, Iraqis are living in fear with very little access to clean drinking water and daily electricity loss. Conditions in Iraq are certainly not better now. Right now, Iraq is a breeding ground for fanatics.

The loss of over 4,000 US soldiers was not worth the cost to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Now there is no one to provide a barrier against Iran’s increasing influence in the region. Saddam Hussein was a leader that knew what was best for his people and he kept the country of Iraq stable. Saddam was a good enough leader for his people. I am a person that believes in peace and I do not believe that getting rid of Saddam was worth the dollars spent and all these lives were lost for nothing. And most true military experts would agree that the wrong war in Iraq is a lost war because there was no clear objective from the very beginning.