WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS SADDAM

A FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, conducted on November 29 and 30, produced some interesting results.

Whenever I mention a poll, I need to qualify my comments. I don't consider polls to be indicators of the truth. I think some are about as reliable as one's horoscope for the day. That said, they can be used as a springboard for discussion.

Overall, Bush's approval rating is up six points since November 8 and 9. Do you think that could have something to do with the Dems' defeatism on Iraq? I do.

The Dems' calls for immediate troop withdrawal and timetables have backfired. They pushed too far too fast and blew it, exposing themselves as political opportunists rather than principled, competent leaders.

One of the most stunning findings of the FOX poll follows:

Do you think the world would be better off or worse off if the U.S. military had not taken action in Iraq and Saddam Hussein were still in power?

Better off -- 27%

Worse off -- 52%

(Same as) -- 8%

(Don’t know) -- 13%

Fifty-two percent is a majority. Most people polled believe that the ousting of Saddam Hussein was good for the world. I find it troubling that the majority is as slim as it is. At least, most do support what our troops have done. However, when the numbers are broken down, an extremely disturbing, though not altogether surprising, portrait is unveiled.

Seventy-eight percent of Republicans consider the world to be better off because the U.S. military removed Saddam Hussein from power.

Among Dems, 41% think the world would be better off if the U.S. had not intervened and Saddam Hussein were still in charge of Iraq.

Eight percent of the Dems questioned see no difference and 18% don't know. Only 34% of Dems think the removal of Saddam Hussein was a positive thing.

That's shocking.

Just 34% are willing to admit that the world is better off with this brutal, murderous tyrant out of power.

Forty-one percent are somehow capable of ignoring the hundreds of thousands of atrocities committed during Saddam Hussein's barbarous reign.

Do all these Dems know something that I don't?

To my knowledge, Saddam gave no indication that he was ready to change his ways. He wasn't on the verge of turning into a benevolent leader. Saddam had no plans to end the massive human suffering that he had systematically inflicted on his people.

From the U.S. Department of State:

-- Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.

-- According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."

-- Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.

-- Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.

-- Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.

-- Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds.

-- The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000 deaths.

-- 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.

-- Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.

-- According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south."

-- Refugees International reports that the "Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government's campaign to dry up the southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as refugees in Iran."

-- The U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2002, estimated that nearly 100,000 Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans had previously been expelled, by the regime, from the "central-government-controlled Kirkuk and surrounding districts in the oil-rich region bordering the Kurdish controlled north."

-- "Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the regime under which they are living." (Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 27, 2003)

-- Under the oil-for-food program, the international community sought to make available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and medicine, but the regime blocked sufficient access for international workers to ensure proper distribution of these supplies.

-- Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have discovered military warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi people that had been diverted by Iraqi military forces.

-- The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors. From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from visiting Iraq.

-- The UN Special Rapporteur's September 2001, report criticized the regime for "the sheer number of executions," the number of "extrajudicial executions on political grounds," and "the absence of a due process of the law."

Executions: Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary executions, including:

-- 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984;
-- 3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998;
-- 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign";
-- 22 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000;
-- 23 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001;
-- At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001;


Only 34% of Dems polled see the removal of the monster responsible for all of this death and misery to be good for the world.

Sixty-six percent of Dems actually rue the fact that he is no longer in power, or see it as irrelevant, or are too spineless to take a stand at all.

Again, I don't believe that polls are capable of revealing absolute truth. Numbers are easily manipulated. Questions are loaded. Samples are skewed.

Taking all of that into account, I still find it amazing that any human being of any political persuasion would have no problem with allowing a mass murderer and torturer to continue terrorizing the people of his country and present a threat to others.

These people obviously have no moral issues with condoning brutality and inhumanity of the worst sort. They are truly lost souls.

I think the 41% of Dems that believe the world would be better off if Saddam was still in command of his terror regime should volunteer to live under the tyrant's control.

Do you think for one moment that any of them would offer to do that?

What percent of the self-proclaimed enlightened, sophisticated, intellectually superior Left would agree to such an arrangement?

ZERO!