I'd like a red pill on Saddam

I was born in '85 so I was too young to actually realize what was going on. Saddam seemed too be the boogeyman for quite some time. Whas it legit?

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youtube.com/watch?v=IFrnQHaQWoA
youtube.com/watch?v=CuzpFMWReZw
youtube.com/watch?v=PCJ8JqtGahQ
youtube.com/watch?v=ZyKMz3tYx-M
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarian_violence_in_Iraq
cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap2_annxD.html
youtube.com/watch?v=neDgVb9YHcA&spfreload=10
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>the call that got saddam

youtube.com/watch?v=IFrnQHaQWoA

Saddam was a dick, but that's what it took to whip a country full of competing tribes into shape.


Without him Iraq is nothing.

Not really. He was an allie at one point and we armed him to fight Iran as pay back for the hostage crisis. We ignored his Han rights violations for years because he came extremism and Iran in check. Then he wanted out honey pot Kuwait. He figured since he got away with some much he could take back Kuwait and get away with it so we went in and spanked him with 0 intention of actually removing him from power at the time because how he had kept peace in the region. US military was to destroy their military to the point it would take at least a decade to rebuild at which point we cooked up another excuse to go in. Chemical weapons we had given them.

>Saddam seemed too be the boogeyman for quite some time. Whas it legit?

Yeah, but sometimes it's nice to have a boogeyman around.

You are older than 99% of the people on this site, why are you asking here?

he gassed them kurds so we had to take em out

Typical third world dictator. Part time friend/part time enemy of the US like every such mideast asshole. Took over some tiny shithole country and we got involved because oil. GHWB drove him out but didn't overthrow him because he wasn't retarded. GWB otoh *was* retarded. GWB/Cheney/Rumsfeld came into office looking for an excuse to clean up daddy's unfinished business and used 9/11 and some fake evidence of WMDs as an excuse to kill Sadaam and fuck up the mid east for decades. Also, it gave them a trophy to hold up whenever it was pointed out that the war on terror was a monumental failure.

Sup Forums is still capable of sensible, well informed thinking. I'm asking here because I wouldn't know where to ask anywhere else.

he was an asshole
but the invasion of 2003 was totally unjustified

on one hand, yes, it is an acceptable argument that dictators who naturally arise in shitty countries are better than a lawless power vacuum without them

however

saddam did not rise to power entirely on his own, despite his savagery he was just another cold war chesspiece. he was no Muhammed 2.0. so he wasn't natural

he did not behave and did not take coalition warnings seriously. so neither was he innocent

the coalition absolutely botched the invasion, occupation and reformation of Iraq. ie making its military sectarian. nothing to do with a hanged dictator

At least Desert Storm and Desert Shield were justified, he outright invaded another country and got his ass beat by thousands of tons of US Diplomacy. Asshurt that he couldn't get more oil fields, he lit them on fire so no one else could have them, like some kind of saturday morning cartoon villain.

TLDR

>strong leader, like you have to be in a muslim country.
>was anti-dollar
>wanted to ban dollar and use euros instead in the oil trade
>killed terrorists

He was literally 10/10 leader. But because he was anti-dollar ameriburgers invaded once again and destroyed another anti-dollar country.

he was propped up by the US to fuck with Iran and the only WMDs he had were given him to the US so he could try and shoah the kurds, then he started to refuse to use the dollar to trade oil and had to go bye bye

Saddam was terrible dictator who genocided minorities like it was 1944, but was supported by the U.S. to fuck Iran. Then Iraq became a threat to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and had to be put down like a dog.

Tried to sell his oil in Euro's,

got WMD'd

>all you need to know

>muh strong leader

>I don't care about the quality of life the average citizen has, I care about muh STRONG LEADER
What a cuck.

Saddam oppressed everyone and got Iraq into three pointless wars, losing every time. Each time thousands of Iraqis were killed.

He restrain radical islam.

Also it was a good country so they didn't have people leaving the country in droves.

But Captain America arrived to ruin everything, as they always do :)

>Saddam oppressed everyone

Why would you care? is not your country, you don't have the right to change a country that way.

I'm no fan of Saddam, I don't think he was the guy that got hung (check the teeth faggots), but there were long term psyops in play to prep the American people to invade on the FALSE pretext of WMD. I myself vehemently subscribed to these notions at the time. It was only many years later that I realized he was always our goy. WMD was just the pretext, and even if he did have them it was because we gave them to him as our foil against Iran.

This.

>muh NAP for nations
Stupidest idea of all time

'As long as you only kill the people in THIS part, I guess that's okay..'

Yes, Saddam was a mad man.

Their only one person I can think of in British politics that said anything positive about him. Some hypocrite asshole called George Galloway.

Any way, Saddam murdered a lot of people during an uprising in the first gulf war. Mass burial sites all over the country.

Him and his family were fucking insane, in a legitimate way, like Roman emperor tier insanity.

The word is slightly better with Saddam being dead, if anyone deserved it, it's him. How ever, the way UK and US got rid of him was ham fisted. It was so poorly executed it nearly made me in to a conspiracy theorist.

When I could have come up with a better strategy for doing it you have to think, either it was intentional or they're incompetent. Either way, Bush and Blair should not have been in power.

I heard the invasion was conducted very well, actually
It was more the part after the departure which didn't work- they're supposed to have pulled out too quickly, letting ISIL step in

Kys Mohammed, the middle east was better under Saddam, same with Gadafi.

Saddam was our bro, until he wasn't.

Saddam was the just one more casualty in a long line of American schizophrenia in foreign policy. We set Saddam up a position of power in the late sixties, giving him control over a country that was oil-rich and ripe for conquer by the Soviets, but we had just staggered out of Vietnam and had no interest in getting involved in another protracted engagement. Almost immediately after Saddam seized power, the 1973 oil crisis hit, oil prices worldwide skyrocketed, and Saddam kicked out all the international oil companies, nationalizing Iraqi oil reserves. This brought in hundreds of billions of dollars for Iraq, making his grandiose welfare plans possible (remember, having lots of money tends to make your citizenry very agreeable). He kept communism out of Iraq, kept the oil flowing to us, and in return, we didn't care what the hell he did in his country.

Under Saddam, Iraq became very westernized, with a happy and wealthy populace. For the first time since in recorded history (besides the Mongol invasion of Baghdad) Iraq's many ethnic and religious groups quieted down; if they didn't, Saddam's numerous peace forces would execute them. With all this prosperity, it was easy for the people to idolize Saddam, something he encouraged, with his beaming, mustachioed face on walls, currency, statues, and framed pictures in homes. Of course, there was an estimated 200-250,000 Iraqis he had executed during his reign, but that's the cost of keeping a peaceful state.

The timing and the method sucked. The invasion was actually very competent, the generals were good. The politicians who forced the move were terrible.

Why would you invade a barely stable country during a period where international terrorism was rife with obviously made up evidence.

It's almost as if they wanted to culture ISIS, a "safe" heaven for them to develop. Afghanistan was too backwards, mostly simple agricultural economy and level of technology. Iraq was a little more developed.

Why would they kill a mad man who hated Muslim extremists? Remember, Islam wants people to be subservient to it, Saddam wouldn't.

The timing, location and population type were all too perfect to create ISIS.

Saddam did nothing wrong.

youtube.com/watch?v=CuzpFMWReZw

He invaded Kuwait, tried to control the oil supply. We said fuck you, launch a fast, hard hitting attack that basically wiped out most of his defenses and attack capabilities. Bush Sr. didn't want a long drawn out war mostly due to taxes since he won and on "no new taxes" and had to raise them for the war, then he lost. It was a smart move to donate the time and we didn't get bogged down in a long drawn out war just enough to make him a small that.

It is complicated since we were selling him war supplies to fight Iran (we also sold to Iran, look up Iran/Contra scandal) and did support him before, but he bit the hand that fed him. He was an asshole and horrible, but look at what we have now. Bush Sr. was smart about the attack, Jr. not so much.

>id is Fact
>Facts check out

Saddam was a US puppet that went rogue.

it wasn't totally unjustified, just partially unjustified. 1991 was totally justified, and with no-fly zones set up that covered most of the country, the war basically never ended, we just didn't finish the invasion. US flew over 200,000 sorties over the country in the 90s and would bomb radar installations that were active and posed a threat.

The 2003 invasion was a retarded idea, we didn't finish the invasion in 91 because it was a huge undertaking with no real solution. The WMD thing was all a joke, and based on legalese and technicalities. Bush admin fucked up royally by not having a real gameplan about how it would end. Invasion also spooked Iran and Russia, who felt like it might be them one day. We never should have gone in, and after we did, we never should have left.

>Yes, Saddam was a mad man.
He was a dictator, and ruthless, and he had the kind of elite secret police that is in every dystopian novel. One of the worst things about him was that his sons, who would inherit his rule, were even worse than he was.

He might not have been so bad if he just ruled over his little kingdom but he invaded multiple nearby countries and, as I said above, his heirs were little shits that grew up as spoiled children with disgusting and brutal riches. He was scared of Iran's 1979 revolution happening in Iraq, and invaded them (with US encouragement) and it was a WW1-style pointless disaster. Nothing was accomplished and millions of people died. Not like "clean", modern warfare either, but shit like human wave attacks and Iranian children marching over minefields.

Invading Kuwait had to be one of the dumbest ideas of all time though. If he hadn't done that he might have been able to rule for decades as a typical Arab despot with some Western support, kind of like Mubarak did in Egypt.

He did terrible things against his own people as well though. He exterminated thousands of Kurds

How was he a US puppet? He's supposed to have attacked Iran for his own reasons

More than anything, Saddam was a money-machine for the U.S. During his 25 years in power, Iraq accounted for 90% of U.S. and western arms sales in the middle east. And, as ever, we didn't care what he did with his toys, just as long as he kept the oil flowing. It was a win-win for us.

Then he made his worst mistake ever; he invaded Kuwait. Honestly, we couldn't care less about those sandniggers, but us Americans do love our cheap oil. So when it looked like Saddam might consolidate his power in the middle east and make an oil embargo nation, we curbstomped him and ripped decades of social progress to shreds, just to keep our cheap oil. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was also useful to show the world how good our armaments were; modern SAM's and AAA systems could easily be detected and destroyed, leaving you completely at the mercy of a U.S. led ground invasion. This was also the first big field-test of anti-missile missile systems, and was our first war that we could throw everything in our arsenal at.

Saddam's rise and fall was all engineered by the U.S. government, first to prevent takeover of Soviet-friendly forces, then to keep cheap oil and a steady buyer of arms, and finally to prevent him from making Iraq a truly independent nation.

70% of Kuwait was expats, actually
And I don't see what 'social progress' you're referring to under Saddam, who used rape as a political weapon and tortured or executed anyone who disagreed with him.
Kill yourself Michael Moore

Saddam was our enemy because he was a Ba'athist, Ba'athist's believe in a united Arab world
>can't have that

So what was all that shit about Uday again? and the hot cousin?

He was a brutal ruler for a brutal people. He united dozens of different, disparate communities that had thousand-year religious wars between them. You don't do that with sunshine and roses. You have to make it so their fear of you overrides their hatred of their blood enemies.

He had a functioning system, a functioning country, and we tore it down just because we could.

Saddam was ally of USA, that they tried to puppet into a genocidal mongrel to deal later with him and LARP american glory on his grave.

Same with binladen.

Good thing we got rid of the wall street core in our elite in 70`s.

Here you go, a must see
youtube.com/watch?v=PCJ8JqtGahQ

First off, Saddam was an US and Nato ally.
He was used against the revolution in Iran, but because the arabs SUCK at warfare and do not have modern military tradition he was fought off even in the middle of their revolution.

Then from the cables we have read, during the kuwait shit, the Bush admin encouraged him to actually invade Kuwait, without saying it straight out.

Then they attacked him, he yielded.

Then from the cables later we see that he was planned for gassing already before 1.1.2001, along with all dem other shitskins countries (-Iran) we've seen them fuck up.

It's not the matter of he was a bad or good goy, the plan was to fuck him for oil and possible landgrab.

Life wasn't paradise under him, but people had it way better than today.

Now the heathen mind, what he is today. Yes he is still around, watch the speech and as he said to the judghe. I am not defending me here, I am defending you. Or something along those lines. The judge was gassed shortly after.

When they killed him, before the burgers did this mock examination of him on top of it. They didn't even give him the courtesy of a drop.

Instead they stood around him and mocked him, while he slowly let out.
>In this very moment he became something, something that walks again, a gjenganger.

There are two categories of those, and they do great damage from beyond the grave. He falls in the category, of a person that is so unfairly accused of shit he hasn't done, and then killed for it, he also had a strong heart and spirit, which adds to it's power.

You see the madness spring out, aimless madness that has been going on since. This is him. They have no aim, no goal, they think they do but they do not. Only destruction and carnage, this is ISIS.

He has not been given rest, but he plagues the lands and is not satisfied. To break the curse, his grave must be opened and a ritual must be performed.

>He did terrible things against his own people as well though. He exterminated thousands of Kurds
He used mustard gas on Kurds.

>declaring war and invading a country just because their leader is mean
like I said, if he hadn't invaded Kuwait he and Assad might be sipping champagne somewhere together

uday was a deviant and would have been a fucking disaster for everybody in Iraq and all of the surrounding countries. Picture a rich kid of instagram, but with an army of secret police. Pure sadism

>And I don't see what 'social progress' you're referring to under Saddam
they had pretty good infrastructure, power & water, and supposedly a top notch hospital system. One of the biggest complaints about the embargo is that it was hurting so many Iraqi children who would grow up and lead normal lives, while Saddam still made tons of money off of stealing the oil-for-food money

I'm kinda liking this reply. Thx user. youtube.com/watch?v=ZyKMz3tYx-M

If they had said, Saddam you are an asshole and we're gonna kill you. It would have been different, but all these lies and that mock trial.

AQ connections, WMD claims all lies. He was a western allied and also secular. Yes he did bad shit to the shits down there, but that has nothing to do with it.

They should have just killed him, most pref with such a person they shall tear a hole in the wall and carry him sideways out that hole.

One can lift the curse, by breaking his grave and perform a ritual. This stops him.

Saddam is still here, and he is a gjenganger.

For details read Eigill Skallagrimsons saga, where they had to deal with such a creature, that he has become.

He was tricked, he was used, he was abused and exploited and there were so many lies. When he died, he knew what to be the truth in his heart. At that moment, he became what he is now. He is not with his maker, he is still here.

> he is not with his maker, he is still here.

Metaphorically speaking, or do you care to elaborate?

Still, I would like to thank the chan for all the information. Thanx for taking your time to type out the replies.

>functioning
That's a very low bar. Any of the worst regimes I can think of were 'functioning'.

Material progress maybe

Fuck the mudslimes are there too now?

>doctors and healthcare are materials
not sure you understand the state most arab countries are in, let alone were in 15 or 30 years ago

He was a very evil man. However his evil kept the bigger evil of islam chained. Once he was killed Islam was set loose on earth to kill as they like.

Doctors exist in the most barbaric countries as well. Everybody needs doctors. What I mean is they don't show social progress.

I don't think there are many bigger evils than Saddam. Mostly he was killing good people.

His terrorizing Iraq kept Islam in check. Once he died the vaccume of power was filled by the predecessor terror movements to those we see today. Many of which are funded by Iran and Black Ops.

>doctors and health care grow like weeds even under african warlords
whatever, guy

He wasn't terrorising Islam. The actual narrative is, he kept the Sunnis fairly happy so they didn't have to be terrorists.

But he did that by chopping off heads and enslaving women to their husbands, which makes you think

Can anyone explain why Saddam gassed the kurds? Google is just giving me bullshit answers.

Fun fact, we entered the Gulf War because congress, HW Bush and the media all knowingly pushed FAKE NEWS

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)

FUN FACT: Vargs Father worked in Iraq for an oil company and he grew up there for a bit

>LOOK INTO THE HISTORY OF SWEDEN IN THE MIDDLE EAST

>INCLUDING IN LEBANON WITH THE DRUZE

There's no reason they couldn't.
Give them time and they would have doctors and hospitals but they would still have genital mutilation and slavery and what not
That's what I mean

"What do you mean our daughters are fucking niggers?"

Your turn. what would Hitler say to your letter to him sent back in time?

shit. i thought i was making a thread. Too many bong hits man.

If it works only a fool tries to fix it.

>There's no reason they couldn't.
well sure, except that social programs like that require a functioning and incorrupt government.

>genital mutilation
>slavery
>what not
Iraq was one of the most westernized and secular Arab countries, so I don't even know what you're trying to say here. Slavery exists in some of the gulf states, but didn't in Iraq.

>give them time
this was in 1990, almost 3 decades ago.

what kind of fucking retard sjw do you have to be to not only defend the invasion of Iraq, but defend it based on their "social progress"? Jesus fuckin christ retard. Not only are you awfully wrong about it but it's some of the dumbest reasoning you can come up with for removing someone from power. Cultural issues like that are not dictated from power.

>Can anyone explain why Saddam gassed the kurds?
He systematically killed anyone who was a threat to his power. There are rumors that Kurd uprisings were supported on and off by the US, only to have us puss out of helping them and creating a Kurdistan, but personally I find that hard to believe due to the fact that Iraqi Kurds love us. If you're asking why he used mustard gas instead of just brutally killing them, it's hard to explain, Arabs just love demonstrating power. Showing any kind of weakness means a whole bunch of other Arabs will go for your throat.

they were getting uppity
Saddam believed he had approval from the US to invade Kuwait, which is why he went ahead with it. You can look up the exact line he got from the US ambassador, but it was basically that the US would not get involved. People still argue over exactly what happened.

>guy born in 85 asking people born after 9/11 about saddam

Bush/neocon cabal instigates Kurdish uprising psyop.
Kurds actually believe it's true and they're going to get Kurdistan.
It's bullshit.
Bush/Jews, having achieved their goals, permit Kurds to die.

I assume the gassing was likely encouraged through back channels both to setup Saddam as a future enemy requiring another invasion to kill, and to use up the stockpile of WMDs given to him by the US government in the 80s.

another pawn in the decades long game that the US and UK have been playing to keep the middle east uncompetitive and fractured, just like ghadaffi and most other arab dictators

assad is the current enemy because he isn't like these dudes

watch hypernormalisation get woke

>Burgers
>languages

I was born in 75. You really just made me feel old.

A lot worse than Assad, but fighting him was wrong and fighting Assad is just according to the left.

There is no redpill, he was dumb mud skin who got played by foreign governments until the u.s came and destabilized his nation and executed him.

Sadam was a fucking cuck kek, he kept the savages on a short leash though.

I was talking about under the African warlords you subhuman nigger.

>you need a functioning and incorrupt government
Not really, and to make progress with those you don't need a government which is 'becoming less corrupt'

Took this photo in Halabja, where Saddam gassed (I think) about 5000 Kurds

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack

Lovely people

>thinks african warlords will develop 97% healthcare coverage free to all citizens
>calls people subhuman niggers

>you don't need a functioning government to provide government services
You're a special kind of retard. Why don't you get your fetal alcohol syndrome checked out by NHS and tell me how that would go with some shit third-world government?

I know I'm at home fucking their A+ wives, but somehow they don't seem gassed enough. # fucking hot wives.

>before said 'doctors and healthcare'
>now says 97% free healthcare coverage (given by government)

Hmm

Also the point is really that there wasn't social progress. Material progress doesn't show evidence of that

Again, his was a brutal regime, but compared to EVERY OTHER NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST, it was a functioning system. The military protected the citizenry. Religious civil war between the Sunni's and Shiite's was not an annual occurrence. The Iranians were kept at bay, and the religious madness that seemed to engulf every other country around them couldn't get a foothold in. Day to day life was pretty good for 99% of the Iraqi population, everyone had money, very good healthcare (even by U.S. standards), and life was generally good.

He single-handedly kept Al-queda from establishing a foothold in the Anbar province because he knew how toxic their ideology was, and look what happened almost immediately after he was ousted by the U.S. Al-Queda moved in, took over abandoned military bases and equipment, press-ganged former soldiers into service, and conducted real terror operations across the Middle East, leaving us with the mess we currently have to deal with.

78 here.

>doctors and healthcare are materials
>healthcare coverage is different from healthcare
>government programs are not social
Click the image and learn how to read.

Just a sucker for pain. devil don't rush me.

>not an annual occurrence
Less frequent, but the uprisings that did happen were very bloody

>Iranians were kept at bay
War against Iran was terrible, and perhaps was the result of the nature of Saddam's regime (minority dictatorship)

>everyone had money
Not really. You could blame sanctions if you want, but sanctions are a tool in the US arsenal so you shouldn't invade US allies

Installed by the CIA in 1968...un-installed by the CIA in 2003. Did some stuff in between.

he was an ally we funded and armed him to keep surrounding countries in check, looked the other way when he did some horrible shit. killed his ass once we were done using him

Oldfist.

I was on lunch at work. And there's a TV in the lunch room. And Pawn Stars was playing. And one of my coworkers who was an Iraqi kurds was also on. And somebody was selling some Saddam Hussein piece, and when Rick was like "Saddam Hussein was a bad man"
The Iraqi kurd I worked with was like "Fuck off!" to the TV.

So yeah... there seems to have been some misinformation in the West about Saddam. Odd reaction from a Kurd to somebody insulting the guy who allegedly gassed the Kurds.

I don't think that's accurate, you can tell generally someones age by the quality and level of stupidity in a post. I would estimate you to be...hmmm...thirteen and a half.

Put in power by the english to take care of oil deals.
He went rogue and started doing a good job taking care of his country.
England pushed Iran and Iraq to war for 7-8 years, supplying weapons and funding Iraq.
1991, England attacks and leaves uranium all over.
Leukemia goes up massively, millions with cancer.
2000s, same shit again.
assassinate, replace government, burn all money, instate jew central bank.

Saddam didn't tolerate extremism or any terrorism.
Iraq had more rights for wimminz, stable economy, was growing, literacy rates increased a great deal.
See Libya, Syria etc.

When a leader loves his country more than fears the jew - it becomes a target.

>this one brain-dead snadnigger said 'fuck off' in an ambiguous context so the Halabja Chemical attack did not happen okay

>When a leader loves his country more than fears the jew - it becomes a target.

True that.
I mean just look at Gaddafi.

Tried to free the biggest continent on earth from the jew. Ended up getting raped to death in the ass with a knife.

>sat morning cartoon villain
That is exactly what he was to you, a figure on the television news with a bunch of people making jokes about him.
Propaganda, that is your source.

saddam, mubarak, gaddafi, now assad... when you get rid of secular/semi-secular arab nationalists in the region, you'll get either saudi like islamists or isis like islamists. this is sure as hell.

>did a good job taking care of his country
No, you're supposed to say there was war and starvation but it was America's fault (TM)

>rights for women
>rape rooms, women can't leave the country without their husbands permission, rape as a political weapon

I'm not saying it didn't happen.

But as somebody who has been interested in militaria since the 1990s I can assure you that Iraq did not have "smart bombs" in 1988. So bombs hitting a residential neighborhood miles away from a military target is not really unheard of.

It's tragic, absolutely. But his fucking country was under attack. What the fuck do you expect him to do?

If Quebec formed into some breakaway republic and was helping a foreign adversary wage war against Canada, I'd hope Trudeau would bomb the motherfuckers.

America has been playing the jew game of setting one against the other and funding both until collapse since the beginning.

They even do it to their 'allies'.

>Wow! That's beau-
>Hijabs


Apply napalm to it.

>Number of interior religious wars in Iraq during Saddam's reign: 0
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarian_violence_in_Iraq

>Iranians were kept at bay, I'm not sure what your point is. Iraqi's were forced to use mustard and nerve gas to repel mass infantry suicide attacks by Iranians, it was messy and brutal.

>Average GDP was $2304 in '89, decreased over the years due to Iran-Iraq wars, Kuwaiti invasion, U.S.-forced inflation. GDP for citizens was still several times larger for average citizen than any other middle eastern country.
>cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap2_annxD.html

I really don't know how else to tell you how wrong you are.

I remember shock and awe on pol, shit was crazy.

youtube.com/watch?v=neDgVb9YHcA&spfreload=10

This.

Yep.

Hitler, tried to save Germany from the jew and received a world war for it.

Russian Tsar's famitly received a shared plot.

France's nobility received a gift basket.

It goes on.

So you're saying they dropped bombs on the residential neighbourhoods by accident?

'Religious wars' is clearly a hard category to pin down. Shia's certainly felt oppressed and had a lot of their places of worship actually demolished. I don't think it matters much whether you decide uprisings were 'religious enough' to qualify.

>Iraqis were forced to use chemical weapons
>invade Iran and cry about how Iran is 'forcing you' to use horrible chemical weapons on residential areas
Wtf I feel sorry for Saddam now

>low, decreasing GDP = everyone had money

Saddam gassed the Kurds, which were Iraqis that fomented dissent and civil war. They wanted war, not because of any grand notions of freedom or democracy, but because they wanted to go fight and kill other Iraqi's like they'd done before Saddam. They wanted to go back to the stone age.

How would you react if you saw on TV that the government gassed a violent terrorist group that lived in the Appalachians and raided small towns to steal women and supplies, mutilating or killing anyone that fought back?

Once again, Saddam's tactics were very heavy-handed, but he needed to send a clear message to people who were two generations removed from living like their biblical counterparts.