Not at all. The main reason all these Islamic extremist groups have risen up over the past 15-20 years is because of the US maintaining a military presence in Saudi Arabia AFTER the first Gulf War. This outraged many devout Muslims who saw this as an occupation of their holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, by non-Muslims.
Following the ousting of Saddam Hussein in the second Gulf War, this left a vacuum in Iraq despite US efforts to have a puppet leader in place to bring about "democracy". This vacuum was filled by all the jihadists and wahhibists and general terror-mongers looking to have a rallying point to attack "the infidels" using that "occupation" as a war-cry. This growth of extremist violent Islam would not have been tolerated by Saddam.
He and his Ba'ath Party clamped down on the likes of Al-Quaeda, the Taliban and the rest (be sure ISIS would not have a got a foothold) as he saw them as a threat and dealt with them more severely than anyone else has so far. Yes, Saddam was a dictator. But he was a tin-pot dictator.
He could only effect his own nation - and as bad as that could be, it was certainly preferable to the chaos we have there now without him keeping the other more extreme nutjobs in check.
No, I don't, but I'm not thrilled that the effect of his leaving was completely ignored by the Bush administration when we invaded. Cruz' comment was totally rational, but I don't think that means he is right. Considering how many dictators we have supported in the past, I think it's kind of hypocritical to attack Hussein.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.