How bad does Iraq need to get before the "if we had listened to the anti-war demonstrators Saddam Hussein would still be in power" meme rings hollow (or absurd) with swing voters (people with weak party affiliation that vote but devote their attention primarily to things other than politics, foreign policy, etc.)?
Is there any way to quantify human rights abuses? Human suffering? Or is Saddam Hussein equivalent to the devil ("Evil One") in the American consciousness so even if the human rights situation is worse under the occupation the American public will never compare human rights abuses under the occupation to those under SH because the goals of the occupation were "good"--therefore the human rights violations are excusable--and the goals of the SH led Ba'athist gov't were "evil"?
Also, I heard Secretary of Shilling Powell include references to "rape rooms" in his testimony to a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on C-SPAN. Has there been any specific allegations that the Saddam Hussein Ba'athist government systematically used rape as a means of intimidating political dissenters, ethnic minorities or others?
Sorry if my sentence construction is awkward.