McCain's Speech

McCain's speech wasn't as good as Giuliani's, but he managed to get a good jab in on Michael Moore. McCain described Moore as "a disingenuous filmmaker....who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact -- when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children inside their walls."

I have heard a lot of people in the anti-war crowd claim that Iraq was not actually that bad before the war. This argument is new since Moore's F 9-11, and I think it can be attributed directly to his film. They say that Iraq was actually a nice, prosperous place before the war. Additionally, they claim that Saddam didn't hurt random people. He only harmed members of opposition groups or rebels. Sure he killed thousands of Kurds, but that was, like, 10 years ago.

Of course, this is totally ridiculous. Saddam was a monster who, like his idol, Joseph Stalin, murdered for fun. I read an interview with one father who talked about how one of Saddam's monsterous sons kidnapped his daughter on her wedding night and kept her in a cage where she was repeatedly raped. When they got tired of her, she was LITERALLY fed to hungry dogs. Was SHE part of a rebellion? Of course not.

I heard another fascinating commentary from a reporter on NPR. He was, and still is, against US involvement in Iraq. After spending a year living there, however, and seeing the mass graves, and talking to the people that lived throught the tiranny, he concedes that Saddam was far worse than he ever imagined.

I think there are legitimate reasons to disagree with the Iraq war. Arguing that Saddam was actually not as bad as we all thought, however, is ridiculous. One must willfully ignore the facts as well as the testimonials of those who lived in Iraq to take this stance. But, then again, Michael Moore has never had a problem willfully disregarding facts.