Providence's Pro-Dictator City Councilman (or Someone Using His Name)

If I were living in Providence's 9th Ward, I'd be seriously concerned that I might be represented by a City Councilman who believes that a government that kills 100,000 of its own people in a time of "peace" is acceptable (kind of worries you about what his ideas for cost-control on health care might be, doesn't it?).

These are direct quotes posted in the comments section of RI Future from "Miguel Luna"(*) …

Let's see Saddam Hussein kill 100,000 people. (Depend what newspaper you are reading). US 700,000 people and 4 million displaced from their home in Iraq.

Saddam>Bush, Bush>Saddam, I guess Saddam was a baby devil compare with daddy.

Actually, John Burns of the New York Times has put the casualty figure closer to 200,000, which doesn't include casualty figures from either the Iran-Iraq war, or the invasion of Kuwait.

Which is largely the point.

The difference between supporters of American action in Iraq from the quietists who believe the world should ignore atrocities committed by governments like Saddam Husein's is that supporters of intervention do not accept large scale, state-sponsored violence as the normal state of affairs. They view the turmoil occurring in Iraq then and now as a problem that needs to be fixed, as something that must actively be brought to end.

On the other hand, based on his comment, it's fair to say that "Miguel Luna" believes that governments that mass murder their citizens during times of "peace" year after year are acceptable. They should be allowed to continue mass murder indefinitely, as long as it doesn't spill too obviously across their borders and disturb the immediate comfort of people in other parts of the world.

Here's John Burns, same article as previously cited, on Saddam's solution to the problem of prison overcrowding, while Iraq was supposedly at "peace"...

In 1999, a complaint about prison overcrowding led to an instruction from the Iraqi leader for a "prison cleansing" drive. This resulted, according to human rights groups, in hundreds, and possibly thousands, of executions.

Using a satanic arithmetic, prison governors worked out how many prisoners would have to be hanged to bring the numbers down to stipulated levels, even taking into account the time remaining in the inmates' sentences. As 20 and 30 prisoners at a time were executed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, warders trailed through cities like Baghdad, "selling" exemption from execution to shocked families, according to people in Iraq who said they had spoken to relatives of those involved. Bribes of money, furniture, cars and even property titles brought only temporary stays.

I dare "Miguel Luna" to say that systematic mass executions like these are going on either in the United States now, or in Iraq under the post Saddam government. And I'd like to know what "Miguel Luna" thinks should be done to stop governments that engage in practices like this. Or does he not think that it matters, as long as it doesn't affect him personally?

(*) I'm assuming the proprietors at RI Future would not let an anonymous commenter publish remarks using a local public figure's name not his or her own.