Dean says:

Although I didn't think it was possible, recently Maher hit a new low. He's said on his show, repeatedly now, that Iraq was better off under Saddam. And he even said clearly that he was not joking and that he really believed it. And more than one of his shallow guests sitting around angrily agreeing with each other (which is about 80% of what his show is anyway) agreed.

This was easily the most despicable and deplorable thing the man has said in his entire life.

I'm thinking someone ought to start an internet button campaign: send Bill Maher to Suleimaniya in Iraq. Send him on a guided tour to this museum.

That museum is featured here, in Michael Totten's photo essay, "The Head of the Snake", a memorial of Saddam's genocidal genocidal Anfal campaign.

"Anfal" is a principle from the Koran which allows the looting of a non-Muslim population when Muslims conquer them. Since many Kurds are Muslims, I'd have to guess that Saddam was following the Wahhabi principle of calling non-Wahhabi/Sunnis 'infidels'.

“Dear Mom and Dad. I am going to be executed
by the Baath. I will not see you again.”

The museum describes how tens of thousands of men, women and children were tortured to death as a result of this "Anfal" campaign. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were slaughtered and their villages were destroyed as part of this ethnic cleansing campaign.

Two interesting clips from MJT's comments:

To all of you on this post saying that the U.S. was not supporting the Iraqis in the 1980's, its fact the that U.S. was supporting Iraq with its war with Iran not only financially, but also training some Iraqi special forces and providing them with a variety of different weapons. The Kurds were back by Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, this opened up a new front in the war against Iraq. The U.S was supporting Iraq during this time and this same support is what killed thousands of Kurds. I know it because I was there, I served in the Iraqi army during that war, well I was drafted in. I am Iraq I speak Arabic, where do you think I learned this English from? I was there and we were trained by the U.S, and it was with there support that Iraq finally got some control on the Kurds in the north. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted by: Habibi at March 3, 2006 09:03 PM

:::

I am a Kurd, I am pro-Israeli. I admire there struggle for independence from these Arabs. Look at the Middle East, look at North Africa. What happened, were all these people Arabs. No what Arabs did to the middle east, and north Africa is the reason that that region of the world is like that today. They forced there language, religion and there culture on everyone they could. Look at North Africa and countries in the Middle East they all fell to this disease arabazation. They only people that stood there grounds were Israelis and Kurds. I lost more than 15 members of my family, because they would not say that there Arabs. There is a saying in Kurdistan; before they put me to the firing squad I will yell that I am Kurdish and Kurdish and Kurdish and Kurdish to the marrow of my bones. With the spread of Islam, lands that were not Arab became arabanized by force. Arabs came from the desert the land of camels and sand and arabanized the whole region. And now to the question if Kurds are pro-Israeli, we are 200% pro-Israel and you know why, because they are standing for there rights. There are 21 Arab nations, but it’s a crime for one nation to be Israeli.

God bless Kurdistan!
God bless Israel!
God bless America!

Posted by: Blind at March 3, 2006 09:58 PM

Dean said: You think if we put up a [Send Bill Maher To Suleimaniya] button campaign and got a bunch of blogs to link it, we'd actually get this nasty and shallow man's attention?

Send Bill Maher to Suleimaniya.