In 2004, the movie The Butterfly Effect was released to theatres. The movie, starring Ashton Kutcher, focused on the misadventures of a young man who realizes he has the ability to travel back in his own timeline and alter the present. Each change he makes further compounds the error and the agony of his initial decisions in life, and he is forced to accept things as they were, or accept a present/future/past that is bereft of the one outcome he fought so hard to preserve.

- The butterfly effect refers to the extreme dependence of a system on initial conditions, in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position. [Wikipedia] -

Like the idea of a butterfly flapping its wings instigating a chain of events that could start a tsunami on the other side of the world, or even catalyze the collapse of a world economic power, Saddam Hussein's hanging is likely to have an impact in the unfolding of world events for some time to come. On this, and the question of Saddam's fall from power, I would like to pose several rhetorical questions for reflection. In particular focusing upon the many consequences of U.S. intervention in Iraq.

Question number one: Should Saddam Hussein have been removed from power? (Now, I'm not asking for a response to this question. I already said the queries would be rhetorical.)

Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a man of extreme means. He was responsible, directly or indirectly, for alleged acts of genocide ( I say 'alleged' because genuine acts of genocide require the wholesale persecution of a people or culture, and Hussein's attempts did not solely include the Kurds). He was responsible - again, directly or indirectly - for mass assassinations, instances of torture, and the profiteering of war. He made money being a dictator, and lived in lavish palaces while his nation's majority suffered sub-second-world, if not third-world conditions. (These terms being antiquated.)

However, the question is not whether or not he was a good person, or whether or not he had any legitimacy of rule (save that supported by force of arms), but whether or not he should have been removed from power. Think on this a moment before reading on, and be certain that you are sure you understand what I am asking. I'm not asking if Hussein was right for rule, or if removing him from power was the right thing to do. Those are questions of ethics and morality, and I do not claim to be a master of these. The question I ask is: Should Saddam Hussein have been removed from power?

When people ask me the common question, "If you could go back in time and shoot Adolph Hitler, would you?" my answer is always no. Because I understand that the vacuum created by his loss at any point before his suicide would have left room for Himmler or Mengler to assume power. I believe that Hussein's removal has had an effect opposite to that proclaimed by the U.S. before intervention in Iraq. Alleged WMD's aside, the U.S. said they wanted to remove the threatening aspect of leadership, cut the head off the snake.

However, removing the head from this snake didn't kill it, but turned it into a hydra, with several equal heads popping up to replace the offended appendage. Now, the hydra feeds upon itself, each motivator seeking to designate the course of the whole.

So, my question lays there before you on your computer screen. Consider this, with questions of ethos, theocracy, and creed aside. What are the consequences of Hussein's removal from power on world politics, and how will his execution further impact these consequences?

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"Negligence is an extreme thing." - Tsunetomo

Good question. Its ramifications are already evident.
I don't know whether I should spend time polishing my predictions or go help kick some Zionist arse.

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668.....the neighbour of the beast.

So tell me, how has the millions of abortions affected the future. Are there some people that do not exist that should have and what detrimental effects has that had on us? Somehow I think those millions of murdered children may have had some benefit to society, up to and including finding a way to prevent there ever being another Hitler, Saddam, et al. As long as you're using the butterfly effect for anti-US purposes, take it to its logical conclusion.

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I'd really hate to be responsible for any poorly-considered discussion on the manipulation of fate.

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668.....the neighbour of the beast.

Hmm... I see immediately the interjection of an agenda. You wish to raise a question of abortion in a thread designated for international politics, in particular issues of the middle east. Now, if you were to mention forced abortions or euthanasia in a dictatorial regime, or the stoning of adulterous women who are discovered pregnant, et cetera, your interjection may hold logical support. However, what you have just done is tried to change the subject of discussion. I would appreciate it, as I'm sure the moderators would, if you kept questions of abortion to the appropriate threads.

Moving on... Let us consider the question of the colloquial hydra, and how it applies to the chaos theory and Saddam Hussein's hanging. We are immediately faced with a number of - no doubt - unpleasant scenarios which may unfold in the days and weeks to come.

Immediately following Saddam Hussein's depositus and capture we have the emergence of several individuals of varying influence who assert themselves rightful successors to Iraqi leadership. Primary among these are members of the Hizb al-Ba'th al-'Arabi al-Ishtiraki (otherwise known as the Ba'th party), and several influental Islamic Imam. The former, having their influence significantly diminished by the empowerment of the Shi'ite population, can be overlooked (except by possible allegations of connections to or funding of insurgency in Iraq - 'insurgency' itself called into question by the U.S. involvement in Iraq, a matter of semantics to be sure).

Now, what of the Imam? There are twelve different uses of the term 'Imam' in the Qu'ran, seven in the singular and five in the plural. In Shi'a Islam, an 'Imam' is most importantly a leader of the Shi'ite community and must be descended from Husayn or Hassan, among other attributes. Often, the term 'Imam' is given to the leader of the Mosque, who does not have to be a cleric. As a matter of fact, any Islamic penitent may lead the Mosque in prayer, or issue the call to prayer. The term, ultimately, is a civic or secular title, with notable religious overtones (as is to be expected in a culture where religion is integral to its function and identity). However, not all Imams are clerics, and not all clerics are Imam.

Islam is unique among religions, because more often than not it transcends nationality in a way that Christianity does not. If you asked the average American if they considered themselves a Christian, American, Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, or Other on a census, and secondly to rate the priority in order, most would use a hyphenate appelation, or rate nationality first. In a study conducted in 2004 in Scotland, it was found among Glasgow Pakistani Teenagers, even those several generations Scots, that they would prefer to be known as Muslims first, or as Islamic-Scots, or some other hyphenate appelation.

Knowing both that Imam is a secular title important religiously, and the importance of relgion in defining identity among people of Islamic heritage, it is not difficult to understand the emergence of the Imams as important players in Iraq, post Hussein. Further, the creation or development of an Islamic state is also not unforseeable. I, personally, do not believe that democracy in its Americanized form can or will be sustainable within Iraq or Kurdistan. The people must want democracy, and must willfully choose their leaders. Otherwise it falls apart.

This is why I ask the question, "Should Saddam Hussein have been removed from power?" Iraq is now at a nexus, a crossroads, a meeting of options and opportunities from which chaos may decide the outcome or course. I believe that while Democracy may be chosen by the people, it will naturally take a form different than that of the West, and indeed it must because cultural and traditional climes differ. If they are to make peace among themselves, and not fall to civil war, then they either must choose this path themselves, fight it out, or stand under a single leader.

Removing Saddam Hussein was, undoubtedly, not a question of how, but when. However, by removing Hussein before someone of equal, albeit questionable, merits could be found to replace him. Hussein may have been evil, and ruled by fear, but perhaps that fear kept the other instabilities and tensions between the Shi'a and the Sunni in check. Perhaps, just maybe, it took an iron fist to keep a volatile nation from ripping itself apart at the seams.

Please keep in mind that this is just conjecure, offered for argument and reflection, and I do not purport to wholeheartedly believe everything I have written here. I am merely playing devil's advocate, but please consider the ramifications of Hussein's removal.

With the Imam leading the popular vote, despite the raising of the Iraqi 'government', what of Iraq after the American secession from Iraq? Will the government hold? If not, which is more probable than not, what of the tensions between Sunni and Shi'ite? Can they resolve their differences? Further, if they cannot, what course do you see the death of Saddam Hussein playing?

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"Negligence is an extreme thing." - Tsunetomo

Your premise seems strange here. You invoke the "chaos math" idea of sensitive dependence on initial conditions (rather oddly, IMO) as a way to demonstrate the intricate complexity of a particular decision on the world at large. However, you then ask the rest of us to do what super-computers cannot, namely, to predict the compounding effects of a particular decision on the world at large.

I'm not saying that we couldn't come up with some good working theories as to what a world with Saddam still in power might be like. What I am saying is that your allusion to the mathematics seems counter-productive to your point. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions speaks directly to our inability to make reliable predictions in timely fashion with current processing capabilities. So, I just find it a bit odd that you would talk about how hard these predictions would be to make (and wildly inaccurate) by citing that particular idea, and then ask for predictions.

Now, moving away from the math, you're going to have to give other posters some heuristics to ask whether or not Saddam should have been removed. For instance, does/will his removal eventually result in more death than the other path? More instability in the region? More years of war?

What criteria should we use to evaluate your question?

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

What do you mean by "questions of of ethos, theocracy, and creed aside"?

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"Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety."

Macbeth 3:1

There's plenty of meat in the guy's thread as well as a mention of abortion.
I think that the topic lends itself to wide-ranging considerations. Don't you ?

A rhetorical question, not wanting to deflect from the thrust of the OP.

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668.....the neighbour of the beast.

I realize that many of you may think this is being picky, But I think it is a misnomer to connect this to the butterfly effect. You are, after all, talking about taking action to "AFFECT" the future (not change it.) and it is being done in the present. Thus time travel is not involved.

That said, I think it is a reasonable subject to be discussed.

This is what I'm asking people to consider, and indeed comment upon. I wasn't seeking so much an answer to my question, so much as conversation regarding the impact of his removal from power. I'm asking for people's predictions on what the impact are, not the 'what ifs' of an alternate future where he could still be in power. Perhaps I should have been more concise.

Basically, what do you as individuals think of his being deposed and hung, and what do you think are the different courses this development may be? We can already make a few guesses, given the reactionary increase in sectarian violence, but what else do you think may be happening?

Further, do you think he should have been removed? What, by comparison (not as a 'what if' scenario, per se) would the world be like if the U.S. had waited to depose him? Would this sectarian violence still occur? Is the vacuum generated by his absence a direct measure of his importance in Iraq, whether real or imagined?

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"Negligence is an extreme thing." - Tsunetomo

I do, but the manner by which 'the guy' made his position was too abrupt to properly segway into the possibility of wider consequences and considerations. He made it sound like he was jumping into 'And what about abortion?!', as opposed to 'I see a rise in the abuse of women's rights and aversion from the freedom of choice in childbirth'. Do you see my point?

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"Negligence is an extreme thing." - Tsunetomo

No agenda and no intention of making this an abortion thread. The fallacy in the original post is to bring the Butterfly Effect into the present. The Butterfly Effect is based on going back in time and altering a known past, seeing how it effects the known future. In reality, the question asked here is not in any way related to changing the past, therefore effecting the future, but speculating on the effect of present events on an unknown future.

The Butterfly Effect is not valid here, because you are not going back to change the past. There is no way to know how any event will effect the future, because the future hasn't happened, thusly my reference to abortions, as you have no way to tell what might have happened were they not to have been done.

I didn't mean to elicit knee-jerk responses, but rather to point out how many parameters there are, all effecting what the future will be. Unless you know a future with Saddam intact, you can not invoke the Butterfly Effect.

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First off, the removal from power of Saddam is a good thing.
But there were some serious flaws in how it was done. And these flaws allow to make some predictions as to how the situation will evolve.

The main problem is that through misinformation, overeagerness or less innocent reasons, the situation in Iraq prior to the invasion, as presented by the US government was a phantasy, an illusion. The dictatorship of Hussein wasn't as much a dictatorship against the entire population as it was of two of the peoples that the Brits jumbled together in the arbitrary and fictitious nation of Iraq back in 1922 IIRC. (Note that the Kuwait issue also stems from back then.)

From day one, as much under the monarchy as under the later Ba'athist republic the Kurds were oppressed and revolted on several occasions. After the Iranian revolution and the ensuing Iraq-Iran war also the Shi'ites became target of brutal oppression. But, and this is almost entirely absent from the present day debate, the Sunnis were not the object of this oppression (except for political adversaries, union leaders and the other usual victims of tyrannical regimes). Saddam Hussein was and IS popular among Sunnis to this very day - post mortem.

The obvious result of this was that the flowerthrowing liberated Iraqis were all but absent from the scene when the Republican Guard and the regular army were overthrown, except in the Kurdish part and the homogenous Shi'ite regions. The real result, as was predicted with ease in all but a few corners of the globe, was similar to the situation of former Yugoslavia after the death of Tito : civil war between the constituent parts of the population, in this case three.

What is absolutely necessary at this point as the very first step is an independent or at least selfgoverning Kurdistan, formed in the north of present Iraq. This is a healthy, tranquil region which has capabilities of selfsustenance. It could then attract the Kurds now living in Turkey in dire circumstances where they wage a guerilla warfare against the Turkish government and also often resort to terrorism. A double advantage thus.

The situation between the Sunnis and Shi'ites is less easily demined but it should be obvious that a plain all areas democracy CANNOT work this soon. What is necessary is a federal or confederal state along the lines of for instance Belgium or maybe Canada.

Everything hinges on the question whether the occupational power (the USA) will continue the centuries old colonist error of laying out nations where there are none. If they do (and I fear they will as the alternative presented here would invalidate the entire build up and occupation rhetoric) Iraq will remain not as much a Vietnam, as a Lebanon with twenty years of civil war to come.

Respectively :Good and barbaric.

The civil war would not have occured, further oppression of the Shi'ites would have seen to that.

Of course, he was a dictator.

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"Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time"
Hillel the Elder

BTW, stonwulfe, the thread title is indeed most inappropriate and out of context. Sorry.

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"Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time"
Hillel the Elder

stonwulfe;
It's not a point, it's a perspective.

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668.....the neighbour of the beast.